Set boundaries for neighbors

When living in a house, you should expect your neighbors to be concerned for your peace just as you are concerned for theirs. If your neighbors’ behavior disturbs or affects your peace, ask them politely to stop. Your approach here is tremendously important because you don’t want to be seen as a person who is difficult, cold or lack good-neighborly relations.

For example in the house where I live, we have neighbors who leave their flats to come and sit at the back of our living room window to gist talking on top of their voices, playing music and laughing so loud! One practically leaves her flat to come and do her plates/clothes washing at the back of our bedroom window any time of the day. Our next-door neighbor, if he sleeps late you are in trouble. If he wakes up in the dead of the night it is goodbye to your sleep for that night, because he plays loud music regardless of how odd the time is.

I find it weird that someone should leave their ‘flat’ to be washing plates outside. But, I’ve come to understand that in life, you will meet different kinds of people and amid this people, you will encounter those with awful upbringing and no exposure at all, and you still have to deal with them politely for sakes of good-neighborliness. So, for example, if you have neighbors like me who use the back of your window for making noise, politely ask them to keep their voices down. This way, you’re not shutting them up, but simply and politely imploring them to correct their bad manner.

Like the one who uses the back of our bedroom window as a washing ground and a platform to practice her musical skills, I simply make her aware of her actions by presenting it to her to judge if it’s right or wrong instead of shouting at her. She would change for a while and then, relapse again. In setting boundaries for neighbors, you need to understand bad manners are so hard to break just as good manners are equally difficult to establish. So, give your neighbors time. Keep correcting them. The more you correct them, the more you should politely address them.

Happy creating good-neighborly relations!!

Photo by Raul Hernandez from Pexels