GOOD NEIGHBOR DAY

Did anyone bother to read this?

National Good Neighbor Day
By ShoniJones

September 28 is National Good Neighbor Day, the day to truly recognize and apprecaite your good enighbor and hopefully, one of those good neighbors is you.

Being Neighborly in the Modern Neighborhood--

5 Steps To Avoid Disputes in Close Quarters Living

By Ryan Poliakoff

When people live side by side, disputes are inevitable. Almost anything can become a nuisance to our lives--smells (cooking, garbage, animal waste), sounds (loud radios or televisions, garage bands, construction) and sights (overgrown lawns, dilapidated roofs or even offensive messages) intrude into the careful balance of tranquility we aim for in our own households. This is especially true for people who live in the most modern of American neighborhoods, the Shared Ownership Community.

For the millions who live in an SOC (condo, co-op or HOA), being a good neighbor means more than a friendly wave and a quick chat on the lawn. Sharing property with your neighbors introduces social complexities that could barely be predicted in the feel-good fifties, when people flocked to the suburbs. In honor of the thirty-ninth anniversary of National Good Neighbor Day, here are the five most important things that any person can do to live up to the modern definition of being neighborly:

1. Work Out Your Problems Face to Face
In our contemporary world of email and twitter, we’ve become disassociated from actually communicating with people in person. Sometimes, all that’s required to handle a disagreement between neighbors is a friendly, face-to-face chat. Most of us are quite embarrassed to find that our late-night Letterman marathons are keeping our neighbor from falling asleep, and we’re happy to make adjustments. In truth, the vast majority of people want to avoid conflict, not create it, so approaching your neighbor in a non-confrontational way is often the best solution. The old adage that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar is doubly true when those flies might only be separated from you by six inches of drywall.

2. Respect your Neighbor’s Heritage
Fifty years ago, people lived in culturally homogenous enclaves, and the sights, sounds and smells you grew up with were the same as the people who lived nearby. But today, and especially in SOCs, our neighbors are likely to be from all walks of life, with different backgrounds, habits and tastes. You may hate the smell of curry, but the Indian family next door grew up with that smell, and they probably hate the smell of your Sauerkraut equally. It’s important in the modern American community for us to remember that different cultures are not wrong, they’re just different. Instead of getting annoyed, why not open yourself to new experiences? Often, you’ll find that your neighbor is happy to share their heritage with you. And who knows, you may learn to love Vindaloo! In any event, be gracious to your host, and after your visit it may be appropriate to say “You know Such and Such, I really appreciate you letting me try your curry, maybe I can invite you over sometime to try my cabbage. They’re both kind of stinky when we cook--I think we should open up our windows a bit so we don’t create a scent explosion that knocks us out of the house!” Be friendly, be charming--be a good neighbor.

3. Get Involved in Your Community
When the first condominium was born in the 1960s, it was seen as a creative way to integrate property ownership into high-rise living. But with the proliferation of other SOCs, such as planned developments governed by homeowner’s associations, sharing property with our neighbors has become extremely common. When you own property with your neighbors, being a good neighbor may mean getting more involved in your community than you ever expected, or even wanted. It’s not enough to hope that your government will take care of problems for you--you are the government! It is the responsibility of each owner, as members of the association, to stay involved in the affairs of their neighborhood. That may mean attending board meetings, volunteering for committees, or even offering to serve as an officer or a director. Don’t assume that someone else will do the heavy lifting. Instead, accept that it takes a village to run a community, and part of being a good neighbor in the modern American neighborhood is offering to pitch in however you can.

4. Hug a Board Member--They Probably Need It
Most board members are well-meaning community volunteers who are offering many hours of their time for the good of their neighborhood. But serving on the board of directors of a condo, co-op or HOA is a sometimes brutal, thankless job. The volunteers, who generally do not get paid for their time, are tasked with operating what may be a multi-million dollar business and trying to represent the needs of hundreds of conflicting homeowners. Hating your directors because their opinions differ from your own is far from fair. True, there are board members who lie and steal, just like people throughout society. But there’s no question that most board members are not stealing from their community, and are instead dedicating a significant portion of their lives for the greater good of the neighborhood. So go ahead and give them a hug--they’ve earned it.

5. Be the Neighbor They Can Count On
Modern life isn’t smooth or easy for the majority of us, even when things are at their best. Most people have to balance work, family, pets and other commitments, all while hoping for just a few moments of leisure. So when you offer to do favors for your neighbors, that help is almost always repaid in full. Do you and your neighbor both own dogs? Mention that, if there were ever an emergency, you’d be happy to walk them. Both have kids in the same school? Offer to take them to the bus stop one morning, or to let them play at your house after the day is out. In addition to simply feeling good about yourself, you’ll be building a bank of goodwill that can be cashed in if your own emergency ever requires a neighbor’s help. So you know that neighbor that everyone can count on? Be that person--because eventually, everyone needs a helping hand.

Ryan Poliakoff is the co-author of New Neighborhoods: The Consumer’s Guide to Condominium, Co-Op and HOA Living, and Vice President of The Ocean Palms Association, Inc.

Thanks Bill,

Their firm is on retainer for my Martin Co, property. They are big and pretty darn good.

Donna,

Excellent and thank you for posting. I will definitely find a way to get this out to our association!

Rick

LMAO!

Seriously, Rick, what are you asking?

We deal with this woman sometimes on a weekly basis.

We handle it quite well.

We tolerate her, don't engage in any back-and-forth, and consider our role has allowing her to vent so she doesn't go postal on one of her neighbors face-to-face. We accept her as our cross to bear. As you mentioned, every HOA has one, she is ours.

We respond to each and every email, we address each issue that is HOA-related (which are very few and far between) and remind her of our limited jurisdiction over all the rest of her complaints.

Some of her complaints:

1) One neighbor has a classic VW parked in his driveway. Sometimes he puts a cover on it. Covers are not against our covenants. She doesn't like them. She will stuff a note in his mailbox calling him out for covering garbage with a blanket and he better stop it or she'll file "suit." (whatever that means)

2) Another neighbor lets his grass clippings fall on his driveway. He never sweeps them up. Our covenants do not address this. She leaves him a note calling him out for have a ghetto home with ghetto trash lining his drive and he better stop or she'll file "suit."

3) Another neighbor has a few children. They leave their bikes in their own yard sometimes. Yup, you guessed it, she chastizes them anonymously for that, again with the ghettoing up the neighborhood talk. Sometimes she complains about them making too much noise and that they should stop letting their kids play out front and only play in the back yard.

4) Another neighbor waters his lawn too often for her liking. Yup. More nastygrams about that.

5) One neighbor has some ornamental grass in his flowerbed in his backyard (he lives next door to her). She wants us to make him cut it because it is over a foot tall.

I can't even list the number of things she complains about that have nothing to do with the covenants.

On the rare occasion where it's a legitimate complaint, we address it. But that doesn't stop her from blasting us for "ignoring" the violation for "years and years" (her words) even though it would have been something that had just started.

Most of the neighbors just throw her love notes away now. They used to complain to us, thinking that a board member was doing it. They all know better now. No, we never told them who, only that we didn't send them. They all kind of figured it out already.

Frankly, there really is nothing at all that can be done to stop her and I don't recommend that anyone try.

One day she will get caught stuffing her nastygrams into her neighbors' mailboxes. She will have to deal with the consequences of her actions at that point in time.

We are not her keepers, nor are we her mental health counselors. Yes, she has a significant other, no she is not elderly (she's in her late 40s as a matter of fact), and, yes she actually has a rather extensive education. She owns a local market research firm, too, so it's not like she doesn't have anything else to do.

Oh, she is also a former board member.

She was one of the very first the association had and left her post in the middle of the year.

That was probably hmmm.... 12 years ago.

So you can see how long she has been engaging in her conduct.

I was actually being tongue-in-cheek about sending the document to her anonymously.

I know the rest of my board got a kick out of it.

I suppose without you knowing the backstory, it wasn't quite as funny.

No! Don't worry about it!

It's all good!

I know you weren't trying to be offensive and there's no way you could know the backstory.

Without the proper non-verbals (like the big grin on my face as I was typing the first post in), it's very difficult to tell tone and intent online.

That's what gets a lot of people in trouble sometimes. Reading something into posts that there just isn't enough non-verbals, like inflection, facial expressions, body language, to help interpret.

I was very much cracking up about the idea of giving Our Bane an anonymous letter that talks about how to play nice with neighbors!

So, again, I didn't take your post personally -- but you gotta admit, given the content of the Good Neighbor Day hints and her history, wouldn't it be cool to send it to her anonymously?

Of course, human nature being what it is, she would never see herself as part of the problem and would probably figure she IS a "Good Neighbor!"

It's everyone else who has the problem. . .

O M G! It just hit me! How funny would it be if we sent that to her, then she turned around and made copies and stuffed it in the mailboxes of all her arch-enemy neighbors!