30 People Share How Their Horrible Neighbors Made Their Lives More Difficult

If you do get along with your neighbor, consider yourself lucky, like almost blessed. But it’s also good to ask yourself, are you a good neighbor? Do you consider yourself someone who helps to create a sense of well-being in your community? Have you done something about it?

Well, a growing number of polls and surveys show that fewer Americans are taking time to engage with their neighbors. The Zebra survey found that only 33% of Americans consider their neighbors friends or close friends. Meanwhile, 66% consider their neighbors strangers or acquaintances.

No wonder we have disputes with the people living closest to us so often. We don’t really know them in the first place! Now, think of the pandemic era where people have grown distant from each other, yet are spending the most time at their homes. This makes a perfect storm for a quarrel with a neighbor.

“Considering we’re all probably way closer to our neighbors than before, I’m sure you see these stories all the time,” Kristina Carrodeguas, the representative of Safehome.org told us, referring to the growing number of stories about neighbors from hell. Safehome has recently run an illuminating survey about the relationships people have with neighbors, as well as the illegal activities they’ve committed and witnessed, and how they handled each scenario.

They found that “1 in 5 people admitted to committing illegal activities in or near their homes,” said Kristina, meaning that some residents of the community are indeed to blame for the illegal actions. Moreover, “18% of people won’t rat out their neighbors because they’re friendly with them and 12% of people won’t because they’re afraid to.”

The findings are particularly alarming since they suggest that a person witnessing a crime in their neighborhood will not necessarily alert the authorities. They may decide to ignore the wrongdoing, or even confront the issue themselves, which may put them at risk.

The wrongdoings people witnessed their neighbors doing vary from insignificant to pretty serious. Kristina said that “23% of people observed neighbors failing to clean up after their pet with the same percent of people observing neighbors smoking cannabis.” In fact, residents are more likely to report the selling of cannabis than if they were smoking and/or growing it.

This also suggests that people feel more uncomfortable with the drug being sold in their neighborhood than with the fact that some neighbor is consuming it. It can be explained by the simple fact that selling it may attract unwanted visitors and put the community in some amount of possible danger.