How to Be a Good Apartment Neighbor
January 10, 2007 We all, at least most of us, have been there. Paper thin walls, sporadicly fluctuating utility bills, the parking spot that is never open–all part of the renter’s woes. Regardless of whether or not your towel holder falls off of the wall every time you hang your wet towel up, or half of your oven cooks hotter than the other, or your thermostat’s schizophrenic behavior has your electric bill as predictable as who Rosie O’Donnell will be bashing next, there are a few things that you can do yourself to make your apartment days one hundred percent more enjoyable.
We can hang the towel rack back up. We can soon perfect the art of rotating the pizza in the oven to achieve optimal cooking performance. We can even master “thermostatistics” to level out that fluctuating electric bill. However, the most important key to happy living in an apartment is developing a positive relationship with your neighbors. We all know what it takes to be a bad neighbor. Possibly the best solution? Be proactive and don’t be the person you wouldn’t want to live next to. Here are some tips.
1. Introduce yourself. Anytime you approach someone new, essentially a stranger, with a positive and welcoming attitude, you are taking it upon yourself to develop a positive relationship. Often renters will mentally create personalities for their neighbors, based on minimal experience with the actual person, and dwell on the negatives of that person’s personality. Take, for instance, you get out of your car and are walking into your apartment. Your neighbor rushes out of his apartment, makes short eye contact, but doesn’t stop to say hello. He just hops in his car and zips out of the lot. That, compiled with just a few more experiences could cause you to develop a false sense of who that person really is, when you really don’t know what the whole situation was about in the first place. Take the opportunity to get to know them at a time when you and he are both able to have a quick, but pleasant, conversation. It will smooth things over from the get-go.
2. Establish your own parking space. Parking can often be the cause of many a headache, especially if spots are not clearly assigned. First and foremost, if you have an assigned spot…park there! Parking in someone else’s spot is a surefire way to aggravate a neighbor in a hurry. If you don’t have a specifically assigned spot, try to establish one for yourself. Chances are that the others who have lived there before you moved in have unwritten spots that they call their own. If you notice in that first week that certain spots are always filled with the same cars, honor that. Surely whomever occupied your apartment before you had a spot unofficially reserved. If it does seem like a free for all, then common courtesy dictates that you park in the spot that corresponds with your living space. This will often be the spot that correlates with your front door. Note: If you notice that one of your neighbors is disabled or elderly, it would be a kind gesture to allow them the most accessible spot for their living space.
3. Be noise conscious. The acceptable noise level emitting from your apartment is relative to your neighborhood. For example, a neighborhood full of college students would be less strict than one filled with small children or elderly people. Yet regardless of the neighbors, no one wants to be laying in bed at 1:00 a.m. and feel like a T-Rex is going to bust through the wall while the neighbors enjoy a late night movie, Jurassic Park. It all falls back to knowing your neighbors. But on top of that, be respectful. If it’s late, keep it down as best you can.
4. Be an adult about problems. So, yes. After living next to the same people for any extended period of time, you’re bound to run into a few annoyances that may evolve into larger problems. The first thing that must be done is to address the issue. If you’re old enough to rent property, you’re old enough to have a civil conversation with another human being. In the event of excess noise, parking confusion, or any other ballooning minor issues, a conversation will solve the problem more than half of the time. Plus, it’s possible that they don’t even know they are doing something that is troublesome to you. A loud TV may not phase them, but if you’ve never seen a day of the MTV programming blasting from your neighbors living room, and you can still recite episodes of “My Sweet Sixteen,” there is a definite problem. So–TALK TO THEM! If no solution can develop from a talk, then you have a much better case if you need to ask the police to make a stop by.
5. Smile. Yes, it may sound corny or simple. But truthfully, when someone smiles at you, you are likely to smile back. If you share smiles, that will help you share living space. Conveying a welcoming and happy demeanor will lengthen your leash with them. A returned smile will lengthen their leash with you. Understanding that the current living situation means that enjoyable cohabitation will require some leeway of personal interests from all parties involved.
Renting can be a very stressful situation if you’re not proactive in your living environment. You don’t need to be chummy or best friends. But you do need to be respectful, mature, and positive. There will be times where, even if you’ve done all of these things and more, you’re still going to have difficulties with neighbors. If that is the case, get the landlord involved and have the individual circumstances documented. This will give you more collateral if the events escalate out of your hands. It may be cliche, but apply the age old saying, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.”
