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Things you wish the new neighbors wouldn't do.

12K views 74 replies 43 participants last post by  Michael 
#1 ·
Seems like a good thread. Not for whining just talk about things that make you cringe when the new guy that has never lived in the country does.Give then advice they will benefit from but wouldn't think to ask.Because they just don't know.

Your new place in the country is just like winning the lottery. Lottery winners are advised to wait a least 6 months before making major decisions. I understand your enthusiasm. You aren't going anywhere for quite a while.You will make money saving decisions by not leaping too quickly.

Chainsaw-- Please do your self a favor and don't go chain saw happy on your place when you first move in. Don't denude your place until you have been through a whole year. I saw a guy take down a whole row of Redbud trees the previous owner had grown. He thought it was just brush.

Fences- Wait awhile before you rip it out. Fences are expensive and tiring to build
 
#36 ·
So my property backs onto a nice maybe 5 acre lot with back acre or so along my property liine treed with pines. The front 4 acres are ope pasture. The guy who buys it comes in and clears all the trees to the property line and puts the house as close to the line as he can get. He builds a giant yellow house and puts floodlights on every corner and the big detached 3 car garage. He leaves them on shining into my house all night every night. Rumor is that he cheated some bad foreigners and has cameras watching everything. Happily he had to sell it but not before one of the giant pines on the property line, weakened by the loss of the other trees fell over in a storm and almost took out his house
 
#38 ·
Some funny stuff in here. Also some tall tales it seems like. My neighbors are great! I don’t have any! My land backs up against a corn field on one side a swamp on the other and a county road on the other. It’s a big triangle.
 
#42 ·
My property is a triangle also. It comes to a point about 600 ft. south of my house where the road comes to a "T". Behind me, to the west is a bean field and to the north of me is a 2 acre lot with a house in the middle with good neighbors and to the east in front of me is the road with a house acrosss the road with new neighbors that so far seem good. Everyone else up the road are great. Guess I have nothing to complain about. We all watch out for each other. The winter I was recovering from Heart surgery I had the neighbors rushing to see who could get here first to clean my drives when it snowed. I have power when the area goes dark during a storm and anyone that is cold and without power is always welcome here/
 
#39 ·
Granted I live in town but some of my neighbors would classify as peculiar..... Some of the more interesting thing would be:

1) Shoveling your driveway with a flat shovel in the middle of a blizzard.
2) Driving up my driveway and through my yard to get to their garage....
3) Struggling and complaining about mowing their yard with a push mower after they let it grow 1/2 the summer. When they turned down their landlords offer of yard service when I already mow the rest of their landlords yards for $10/hour (cheap yes but its 5 yards, the whole street except the house on the end is uniform, and it covers my cost.) It would roughly equate to $20/month for 6 months/year.

I am sure there are others I am otherwise forgetting...
 
#40 ·
1 The dog that drops off presents in my yard ..... Im thinking of returning them to their door step

2 People who park in their front yard and have a perfect drive way

3 The old neighbor that parked right across the street dead infront of my driveway, knowing that I have to leave a 3am every morning in a 26' stright truck, sometimes towing a 20' trailer too or a 36' motorhome pulling said trailer (I refuse to track up my yard for idiots)

4 Compain about said stright truck because the diesel and air brakes wake them up at 3am

5 Complain about working on my own cars/trucks in own garage because air tools are too loud

6 Wanting me to work on their cars with said loud air tools

7 People who complain about driving style because kids play in the street, its a street is for cars and trucks not soccer balls, thats what your yard is for.

8 My yard nor my boat serve as playground equipment

But lucky for me the neighbors to both sides of me and the new neighbor across the street and the 2 beside him are the best maintained yards, and for some reason all 5 of them have no complaints about any of the above complaints
 
#43 ·
1 The dog that drops off presents in my yard ..... Im thinking of returning them to their door step
My nutjob of a brother in law did just that and it was priceless. He got the bright idea to collect dog poop that a certain neighbor kept leaving in the yard. He collected poop until he had one of those orange Home Depot buckets filled up, took him months. Dummy got a little tipsy one night and took the bucket over to the neighbors and dumped it on the doorstep. Cops were called of course and we all got a good laugh. Turns out its considered vandalism but they ended up not pressing charges considering it was afterall their dogs poop. Strange thing was after the whole poop ordeal they ended up becoming pretty good friends. Sometimes things boiling over can have a positive effect I suppose.
 
#44 ·
I have some great neighbors, but I really wish one of them would tell their kid to stay the heck out of my yard.

This kid just acts like everything he can see or get to belongs to him.

After several discussions, he now stays away when I am around, but I still feel like I have to keep everything out of sight. It's a real hassle.

One time came home to find him and a couple of his buddies on my another neighbors roof! They just don't understand the idea of personal property. :banghead3
 
#46 ·
I guess I don't have complaints about my neighbors other than some cats running lose.
I may really like my new neighbors who just moved across about 6 weeks ago. Watching Football game last Sunday I heard a very loud noise...they were warming up and running their 10 sec drag car Malibu out of gas for the winter......and they have two of them.
Gonna like these neighbors!!!
I'm actually the ******* neighbor who drives everyone nuts with my loud exhaust.
 
#47 · (Edited)
Read three pages and one more post....guess it's my turn!:fing32:

Sorry, it's a little long winded. :dunno:

Past almost 5 years has been really good, moved out to about 30 acres in which 3-1/2 acres are mine, no one near us. Kids have had a ball on the 4 wheeler. Had a few cows and a donkey keep us company a couple hundred yards away. A couple from Michigan purchased the land across from mine. They stopped by one time since I've owned the property, they've let us have the run of their land, which I try to help mow when I'm home. The other 20 odd acres were owned by a developer who thought rather highly of the property so it never sold and he ended up giving it back to the bank.

Now here's the fun part! The bank held an auction for the land first week of Dec., sadly I had no extra cash! :banghead3 20+ acres were sold to a man from up north (??). My wife tells me the first thing he does is clean out the ditch line between our properties including all the wax myrtle trees I planted along said ditch bank on my side! No big deal, only my time wasted, I dug the trees up from the surrounding woods so they were free. Next thing he does is bring the county man back there because he wants to turn it into a subdivision. I'm overseas at this time so my wife walks out to talk to the new neighbor. He starts telling her that my metal 8X10 Leonard building doesn't meet with our deed restrictions since it's not stick built or shingled, but he will allow it if I install a roof over....He will ALLOW IT??? Then he switches over to my farming implements I have along my property's tree line which boarders International Paper Mill property (tree farm). It's not even along his property line but he's telling my wife I'll have to move them and build an enclosed shelter for them (I've had plans to build a shelter as soon as I get a chance!). Luckily the county man told him he had no stand on how or where I store my tractor implements. As you've probably guessed my wife was steaming mad by now and trust me it's not good to make her that mad! I'm proud of my country to the bone wife, she kept her cool, ignored the man and started discussing the wet lands, almost half the acreage the new owner just purchased. How they could not be touch or disturbed and if they were disturbed she’d be in contact with the county man along with the state officials daily! She also asked for the building inspector's contact information just incase she need to report… errr...talk to him about things she saw being done wrong over at the new neighbor's build sites. The neighbor tried to get the county man away from my wife but made the mistake of mentioning logging trucks coming down the property's entrance road off the county paved road. I just spent $500 in gravel and several days on my tractor repairing the couple hundred yard long entrance road to our house's driveway (the land owner’s from Mich. have been very cool, allowing us to 4 wheel on their property for years now and donated dirt to fill in the mud holes on the road to our properties, i considered their part of road maintence paid in full!). She told him that he'd have to maintain the road during the wood hauling and return it to it's original condition after the wood trucks had finished damaging it, plus help maintain it from now on. He said the Home Owner's Association would split the bill for road repair. Wife informed him there's no HOA here and we would never be apart of one, period and it's not in our deed. Again the county man informed him that he would have to maintain the road during the construction of his housing project and return it to it's presently well groomed state. He also told him that we didn’t have to be part of his planned HOA and he along with his HOA at the end of the road would have to help us maintain the entrance drive! Now I'm not overly fond of county officials, they tend to get big heads but I need to buy that man a steak lunch!!. Several times the new owner brought up the HOA idea and how he wanted a gated community. Wife informed him that he could install his gate across the entrance drive after our property line and also keep his HOA rules on his side of the gate!! He decided it was time to leave after that. Next few days the new owner paid for bush hogging and clean up of the property, then it all stopped?? Come to find out his check to the auction company bounced and the second highest bidder won the auction! There is a higher power watching out for my family!!:fing32:

Now the couple who actually own the property behind us shows up a few days later. My wife says they are very nice people an horse lovers. The only changes they plan to make will be some fencing and a horse barn going up, a house will be built later on. They want to keep the woods and just continue the scrub brush clean up the first man started. I can deal with horses, side benefit is composted manure for the garden I'm planning!! :fing32: All I can say is THANK YOU LORD :praying: for the small miracle!!



OK! I'm done!:fing32:

:trink39:
 
#49 ·
:thThumbsU
 
#48 ·
Man, you lucked out BIGTIME. I almost bought a home next to my friend, UNTIL he got cited for growing the wrong color flowers, and had put the "wrong" color gutters on his house. He soon moved, and when I was hooking up his washer and dryer in the garage, three old bitties from his new association showed up and cited him for having his garage door open and his car in the driveway, NOT in the garage. I WAS WORKING IN THE GARAGE AT THE TIME! A week later he told me he was cited because his new fence wasn't the same color as his neighbors' fence. (One was weathered, but they were the same.) Next time I saw him his neighbor had moved, so I don't know what happened about the fence. I would NEVER live where they have an association that seem to always be taken over by old shut-ins and busybodies. I'll take wild hillbillies anytime.
 
#50 ·
The old Batts would find out real fast what they could do with there association.If I ever lost my marbles and decided I wanted to move to town and be a Yuppie.I would make it my Hobby to mess with them.

First thing I would do would be to plant a flower bed full of Dandelions and Wild Canadian thistles.

Second I would take off the garage door and toss it in the middle of the front yard.Then I would paint the gutters hot pink.

Then I would buy an old rusty Ford Pinto and park it in the driveway.Of course with legal tags and city sticker.So they could not do a thing about it.

Then I would string a close line at the entrance to the garage where the door use to be and invite my ******* friends over for a Chilli and green apple pie lunch and tell them to all to have on Tighty Whity under wear so they can hang them all on the clothes line at the end of the day where they would remain.Until the old batts moved to the nursing home.
 
#52 ·
I just realized something, I'm in a "bad" neighborhood. Redlined by realtors. It occurs to me that I live in an rural, hence "bad" area of the island. We have farms, it smells, we are considered "backwards" by almost everyone. Alas, the yuppies are here and want to save us. Putting in a train, shopping malls , nail salons and Starbucks all over the place. And they want to place huge resorts where we currently live. I wish I could live down South.
 
#53 ·
johndeere - Thanks for that post! I needed a laugh.

Well, I am one of the "city" people that moved to the country a few months ago. Read this entire Thread to make sure my new neighbors hadn't made a post about me! :)

Where I was in the city I had some great neighbors, but some of them were elderly and I was worried about who would start to replace them. Plus, had some undesirables in the area. Lived by a skate park and the high school, so it was loud mufflers and stereos all day long.

I love it where I am now. Not many neighbors, and those there are, are out of sight for the most part, but great and there if I need something. I'm pretty easy going about most things and tell my neighbors if I am doing something that bothers you, please let me know.
 
#54 ·
In past years I would watch the comedy of my neighbor across the street. He would seed, straw and water around his property with 100 lb of seed, lots of straw and water. As soon as it would start to get nice green shoots, he and his daughter would get on four wheelers and turn it to dust again. Repeat the process the following year.

I too have succumbed to the "clear it before you know what it is" syndrome. My property was so distressed and ill maintained when I bought it, it was instinct to start from scratch. My now ex wife wanted everything cleared and sterile looking. I almost did it.

Fast forward to three years ago when my girlfriend moved in. the first spring she was here she said she wanted lilac bushes and was actively searching for them. As we were walking the property line, I smelled a sweet smell and turned around to face the second largest clump of bushes on the property......you guessed it....lilac! We had walked by it a thousand times and never thought of what it was until it bloomed that year. When it DID bloom, it was toward the main road that we really dont look at when we came home. Never saw the blooms when walking the property because we didnt go onto the hill by the road. Really glad I didnt pull them up....but wish I HAD pulled up the forsythia.
 
#55 ·
I've been trying to live in the country my whole life, but I always end up some place the city types foul up. The current place isn't that bad, it's five acres but was severely neglected by the previous owners. It was a messy situation where the wife got the house in the divorce, the ex-husband had to pay for it and she just didn't care a bit about the place so no maintenance was done. The ex stopped paying so it's going to go into foreclosure, I'm hoping to pick it up from the bank then but until then I am doing all the maintenance work it's been needing. Small stuff like actually mowing the lawn, pulling the small trees out of the gutters, fixing leaks in the roof, etc.
The people who live behind me seem to be the typical city types, except the only clue there is a house back there is the dirt drive heading into the woods. They put their house up for sale, in a neighborhood where $250k gets a very nice place, they have it listed for $600k. It's between the highway and my place, and I can hear the highway here so I can only imagine it's a fair bit louder there. I'll be glad once they go, though, since they seem to think that the driveway speed limit is 40. Their driveway is a right of way along the edge of my property, and also my access to the back half of my property.
My wife and I have a plan, though- If we ever come into a chunk of money, we will buy a square mile or two of heavily wooded land, and put a house in the middle of it. The only clue there is a place out there would be the gate and dirt drive heading off into the woods. Maybe an 8' plus fence all the way around, but I want deer on the property for fresh meat. Something comforting about it being impossible to have neighbors closer than 1/2 mile. One other requirement is it would have to get absolutely dumped on with snow all winter, though.
 
#56 ·
after reading these stories I think I'll keep my neighbors with their faults, I'm out in the country, been here 20+ years & thanks to pine trees I can't see my neighbors anymore, the closest neighbor is 600 feet. my neighbor to the north cuts his grass at about 1 1/2 maybe 2 inches, I cut at 3" for I can miss most debris, he must feel that his 5 arces is not enough room to turn around his mower on, so he turns around on my place & I get these crop circle looking things all over at the property line, & he bent his chute to throw grass straight to the ground & there are hay rows all over his place & were he turns on mine.
 
#58 ·
he must feel that his 5 arces is not enough room to turn around his mower on, so he turns around on my place & I get these crop circle looking things all over at the property line, & he bent his chute to throw grass straight to the ground & there are hay rows all over his place & were he turns on mine.
That's what drainage ditches are for! At my old house I had neighbors parking / turning around in my yard killing my grass. A deep drainage ditch down the property line cured that quickly and with out fuss! Of course the ditch was more a long collection pond since it was in a saddle between the two properties and the water had no where to go. I was even a good neighbor and pulled one of their drunk friends out of the ditch the next morning after he sobered up!

The grass was beautiful on my side of the ditch!:fing32:

:trink39:
 
#57 ·
Well I'll chime in. I moved to a 5 acre Texas plot in the middle of a pasture over 15 years ago. sence then neighbors have sprung up on both sides of me but for thew most part we are good. Now the intersting part, about 400 acres in the front of my property was purchased and a lot of extensive construction has been going on. A 14-18 acre pond is being constructed. Latest rumor is a Gentleman golf club with topless caddies may be part of this project. Link is here.
http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthread.php?t=254860
 
#59 ·
Now for neighbor #2, I'll still keep him, however, he also butches his grass when he does cut it 3 times a year & he has pine trees near property line & he cuts two laps around them so I have nice big wide crop circles on south side also, then he will cut his grass down each side of his drive. & thats it, just one pass on both sides of his drive. This is how I tell people to find my house, I have 3" numbers on both sides of my mail box & nobody can find my house. So now I tell people to look for the uncut drive & mine is the next one, now I can be found.
 
#60 ·
Great thread here, we've lived on a dead end road for 30 plus years. At the beginning, there was one house across from us & one towards the dead end.
Fast forward a few years & there are 6 houses scattered along our 3/4 mile road. Thankfully, my land covers a lot of it & the farm behind me & one side is just that, FARM.
Most of the stories here remind me of some of the things i have seen, could add a few.
The one gripe i have more than anything, street light's, thank goodness they're on the other side of the road, whoever heard of street light's in the country:dunno:

Ronnie
 
#61 ·
I would bet one of your new neighbors complained till they got the street light installed. If it was a developer that built the new houses sometimes the local gov. makes them add the street lights to their plans, that's how it usually worked around here anyway. I worked for an electrical contractor for 35 years and the last 15 yrs. I ran the dept. that installed and maintained traffic signals and roadway lighting.
 
#62 ·
We live in the mountains, with no neighbors to speak of. About 2 years ago, though, a budding science fiction writer moved into the next house up from us (about 1/4 mile). We hadn't met him, or knew that he was living there; my wife came home one day, and found him wandering around on our property, drunk. He approached her, and told her that we had a sick donkey and HAD to do something about it. The donkey wasn't sick- my father and daughter had just left with two of our horses to go trail riding, and Ezra didn't like being left behind. He was braying, not sick. The wife asked him to leave, which he finally did, but not before ranting and raving for about 10 minutes. It really spooked and upset her (at one point, he had asked her if "she thought I am an ax murderer or rapist"- not something to say to build confidence in a stranger. I rushed home, but he was already gone. He did give her is name, address, and phone number, so that I could call and discuss the donkey.
One of the horse owners that boards at our place is a police officer (not our area), so that evening, I asked his opinion. He suggested that I send the guy a certified letter declaring the he would be restricted from entering our property, which I did. Two days later, the guy called, apologizing profusely. He admitted that he had a drinking problem (I used to be a drunk, but I now drink because I enjoy it, he said). He has since moved away.
He had a Murray rider, which he would drive to a local convenience store, about 5 miles away. You can probably guess that he was making a beer run. One day, on his way back, he noticed that the grass was being mowed at a local church. He stopped, put his beer on the parking lot, and helped them mow. He felt it was his good deed for the day.
 
#63 ·
That's a funny story although I'm sure a bit scary for your wife. I'll bet you are glad he's gone. I have always tried to be a good neighbor when I would see a neighbor struggling otherwise I stay out of their business. I live in a rural area with farm land all around except for the 25 houses in our little area that were built in the late 70's. All are an acre or more properties and we all get along. My neighbors all know what I have and they know if they need help they can ask or if I see they need help I will volunteer and they do the same.
 
#64 ·
Once we had it understood that we didn't want to be bad neighbors, we just wanted him to respect our property, all was fine. He would stop on his way to the store and chat for a long time. Then one day, we stopped hearing from him, and later on, they moved. Who knows. I suspect that he was troubled (based on the drinking and some statements that he made).
 
#67 ·
Well, as for my neighbors, I wish I knew what they were doing. http://www.mytractorforum.com/showthread.php?t=254860 My Wife has dubed them the "Field People". Constant heavy machinery running every day. They are now directly across the road from my place. I'll be updateing my thread above this weekend..
 

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#70 ·
I live across the road from a subdivision of trailer houses and stick built homes, and I probably make more noise than many of the neighbors fooling around with my tractors and grinding and welding. For the most part the neighbors are somewhat respectful. What torques my wife's canary the most is dogs.

We like to walk around the neighborhood and down the road a mile or so for exercise. People must think everybody else in the world loves their yapping mutts. For the most part they are in a house or tied up or in a big fenced in area but they are constantly yapping. I don't like it, but when the dog is loose and barks a lot, my wife won't walk past that particular house. She is scared to death of them. These are big ornery black labs and chows. Friendly dogs she doesn't mind but the ones where hair stands up and they growl, she is paranoid of. We have nice country roads with not much traffic, but the loose dogs keep us corralled to only part of our preferred walking area.

I don't like them either and if I was by myself I would just let them bark, as irritating as it is, and walk right on through. I would hesitate to shoot their dog, unless it had me or my wife by the leg, because I just feel it is my right to walk past their house, but it sure is a pain.

We snowbirded in Florida for a few years and it seemed as though every house in any park we were in had a yapping lap-dog just waiting to antagonize me.

Give me the country away from people so I can get my own yapping dog. :praying:
 
#71 ·
What torques my wife's canary the most is dogs.

We like to walk around the neighborhood and down the road a mile or so for exercise. People must think everybody else in the world loves their yapping mutts. For the most part they are in a house or tied up or in a big fenced in area but they are constantly yapping. I don't like it, but when the dog is loose and barks a lot, my wife won't walk past that particular house. She is scared to death of them. These are big ornery black labs and chows. Friendly dogs she doesn't mind but the ones where hair stands up and they growl, she is paranoid of. We have nice country roads with not much traffic, but the loose dogs keep us corralled to only part of our preferred walking area.

I don't like them either and if I was by myself I would just let them bark, as irritating as it is, and walk right on through. I would hesitate to shoot their dog, unless it had me or my wife by the leg, because I just feel it is my right to walk past their house, but it sure is a pain.

We snowbirded in Florida for a few years and it seemed as though every house in any park we were in had a yapping lap-dog just waiting to antagonize me.

Give me the country away from people so I can get my own yapping dog. :praying:
I'm with your wife. My own wife was severely mauled by a neighbor's dog that was running loose. Jumped the fence and went for my nine year old granddaughter, and my wife covered the girl with her own body. My wife's breast was torn open, her arm was torn open, and she lost the feeling in one thumb. A neighbor saved her by beating the dog down with a fire extinquisher. The "owners " denied the dog was theirs and disappeared the next day, to who knows where. Nothing was ever done about it. I went there to pick-axe the dog the next day but they were long gone.
 
#72 ·
We own a mile long lane and there are 6 other houses scattered off of it. We are the last house on the lane and we got new neighbors about 6 years ago who like to play country. They got goats and pigs and don't take proper care of them. They complained about the gravel dust so we let's them take care of the stretch in front of their house. The put down millings which only made black dust and they never grade and crown correctly so slowley we are taking it over again.
 
#73 ·
ugh, dogs. I can count on one hand the small number of dogs I actually bothered to "like" over the years. Just not a dog person, and for fair reason; dogs that did not belong to our family were always a sodding menace --to our livestock, to us kids, and to anyone who stopped at our place to visit.

standing rule at our place: if it's not ours, and it's at our place without it's owner -- or it gets mean even with the owner around, it was put in the ground. zero tolerance. Sheriffs never got called, the animal was just simply "dealt with" and that was that.
 
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