Re: musical instruments… I had an adult neighbor who acquired a piano and proceeded to “practice” Rhapsody in Blue for a full year without ever getting any better. Bombastic and sloppy - same mistakes every time through. It was so not-endearing. All I could picture was a cross between a United jet and an ice cream truck.
We also had a guy - I don’t know where he lived, but he started practicing his tuba in the park in front of my house. He was pretty good, though, so nobody minded!
Kid next door was taking trumpet lessons one year. He wasn’t very good. Mom used to make him practice outside. We were treated to almost daily struggles with his instrument. Thankfully he quit and the concerts stopped.
I can’t think of anything that annoys me about nearby neighbors. I expect this relates to a combination of both neighbors not doing anything especially problematic and me being more tolerant than most.
Using a wider definition of neighbors, I regularly go to an area athletic field, where I see other dog owners from the neighborhood. I find it annoying when people bring aggressive dogs or dogs that are otherwise problematic. My dog gets along well with just about any other dog. Multiple owners of aggressive dogs have said my dog is the only one their dog gets along with. However, I’ve seen many fights between other dogs at the fields, as well as verbal fights between owners, with a lot of yelling and cursing.
I’d take a barking dog over that!!! 
I’ll tell H that you encouraged me. 
Tonight I found an Olaf the snowman from Frozen for January, plus Minnie Mouse inflatables for St. Valentine’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, and Easter.
I also ordered 3 ft. Mickey and Minnie jack-o-lanterns to add to our Halloween decorations. Between the little ones shyly asking if they could touch Mickey and Minnie and the big kids taking selfies with them, plus their enthusiasm about full size candy bars, last Halloween was the most fun we’d had on that holiday since our kids were little.
In our current neighborhood, our closest neighbors are horses, so no problems with them.
At our last house, we had a neighbor who was very difficult. The husband was fine but the wife had some kind of narcissistic personality disorder. Charming and then when she appeared to be making friends, saying and doing terribly hurtful things. She did this over the years to many other mothers in the neighborhood, many of whom would be in tears or fear. They sued all of their adjacent neighbors except for us. I’d say that she actually had a real mental health problem and was enabled by her otherwise normal and competent husband.
We purchased the house because of an extra large lot on which we planned to build a painting studio for ShawWife. They did not like the fact that a studio on the part of the lot in front of their house would convert their view of open space (part of our lot) to that of a studio with open space behind it not longer being visible. They actually wrote us a long letter explaining why the open space in our block (which was our property) made the neighborhood particularly nice and asked us to consult with them on our design. We actually bought the property because the zoning in the town was such that we would be able to build anything on our land as long is it met building code, so we knew that we did not need their approval. More generally it seemed like a lot of chutzpah to try to get us to not build on the part of our land that was best suited to a studio. Later, when the studio was built, they complained that when my wife worked at night the lights shined into their bedroom and tney could sleep. They actually said the lights were brighter than night lighting at Fenway Park (no doubt a bit of artistic license).
I approached the husband and said, “Look. We have good relationships with every one of neighbors except you. I see no reason why we should have a bad relationship with you.” We did tell him ShawWife would be diligent in turning off lights when she was done painting but would at times be painting there at night (as a mother who would go back to work when the kids were asleep. We never heard complaints from them again.
When our daughter became friends with their daughter, the mother, in the same pattern of making nice and then seeking to psychologically injure that we had observed many times, accused our daughter of lying after setting up a very difficult situation for her and did something very hurtful. Afer ShawD came home in tears, I think the mother told ShawWife, “She has a problem with the truth.” I honestly can’t remember when the hurtful things were, but they were really unacceptable for an adult to do to a kid.
So, ShawWife told her that our daughter was never going to come to her house and that while their daughter was welcome at ours, she (the mother) was not welcome to come to our house or speak to ShawWife ever again. Remarkably, ShawWife has not spoken with her in something like 20 years even when we carpooled with her daughter to a private school for a few years. All communication went through the daughter (who several times apologized for her mother and her weird behavior ) or through the husband to me.
Horses make amazing neighbors! 
!! After leaving the neighborhood of green haired terrorizing arsonist punks, we lived in a horse country. Loved it. But when the little birdies flew the nest, we had moved where restaurants and movies were within walking distance (under 5 miles one way ).
We had a couple in our neighborhood throw swinger parties every few weeks. Their back yard was included as one of the “socializing “ areas and adjacent neighbors could hear what was going on. People complained to the police but the only thing that happened was that the couple erected these awning like fence extensions around their entire back yard. We had a lot of LDS families in the neighborhood who had lots of kids and were not happy. The swinger couple actually had two young daughters also; we never knew where they went during the parties. It was strange and sad.
Now we have a next door neighbor who trespasses into our front yard every three days. He has ocd and told us he doesn’t like the way our lawns look if they aren’t mowed at the same time, so he just mows ours along with his. We actually don’t care one bit - it was just a little weird seeing him out there the first couple of times. The kicker is that we pay the HOA to mow our yards - he just prefers to mow more often than the HOA landscaping company.
My neighbors are old and they fall. The first time was several years ago and they called my brother (who lives next to them and across the street from me). He was working so called me and asked if I could help. Went over and the 300+ pound man had slipped out of his lounge chair and was on the floor. She said she didn’t know the number of his doctor. At 6 pm on a Friday night? It’s 911! Off he goes in the ambulance and I then had to drive her as she doesn’t drive at night. Several times since then it has been the same, calling my brother because he fell in the driveway, brother and another neighbor sometimes can get him up but often not. I went to pick him up from the hospital one time and he couldn’t even get out of the bed (again 6 pm on a friday night) and they ended up keeping him for another 10 days, released him, he fell and my brother had to drive him to the hospital a few days later.
It’s not unusual to see the ambulance red and blue lights flashing.
This week I was woken by the wife calling. She’d fallen and hit her head on a doorstop and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. Did I know where the urgent care was? Tried to tell her (it isn’t far) but then just drove her.
I often have to shovel for them even though they have TWO snowblowers and I could do the whole neighborhood with one faster than shoveling my house, their house, and my brother’s (why is he always away when it snows?).
Oh yes, these people drive. In fact they have 4 vehicles.
We have good neighbors. Mostly. And the annoying things tend to eventually stop. One neighbor was feeding the skunks who had made a home in their shrubs, and that summer we were treated to skunk smell almost every night. But they stopped after my husband talked to them about the downside for the skunks of being fed by humans. Another neighbor’s son would park between our driveways to clean out his car with his stereo blasting multiple times a week but he stopped after about 6 months of that.
But the one that would drive me crazy if they were my neighbor is a few blocks away. The house is on a corner and has a road behind it. They have 17 Corvettes parked in their driveway, yard and along the curb on all 3 sides of the house! Old and dirty and flat tires, etc. A Corvette hoarder? Have to appreciate that it hasn’t spread to in front of the neighbors’ but it is unsightly.
For the most part, I have great neighbors. Our lots are all about an acre, so we’re not on top of each other. We all kind of mind our own business, but are also there for each other when needed. We’ve all helped each other in one way or another over the past 20 years I’ve lived here. They do have their idiosyncracies though.
Next door neighbor (in his 70s) is now a widow. When his wife was alive, she was appeared really gruff but was a big softy that loved my kids and got a kick out of them. She smoked like a chimney, but only outside (she died of lung cancer). Their garage is cleaner than any house I know. The floors are washed every week. It is decorated and there are 4 Mercedes in it, plus a racecar on a lift, all for 2 people (they had no kids). About a year after the wife passed away, a young girl moved into the house. My neighbor came over to explain that it was the daughter of a friend that needed a place to stay and that it worked out well for him because she was there to take care of the dog (Neighbor liked to go out after work and the dog would often bark outside to the point of neighbors complaining). Since then, I don’t know how many people actually live there, but there are always about 8-10 people hanging out outside (a mix of younger people and some cougar-looking women), usually with a keg (in the garage kegerator of course), a fire and some music. We don’t mind at all. We don’t hear any of it. It’s just weird. We check in with him often (we want to make sure that no one is taking advantage) and he seems happy, so good for him. Neighbors from other streets ask us often what’s up with the “harem”.
Across the street is another couple in their 70’s. We talk to the husband often (he’s obsessed with my son’s academics and sports) because he’s always outside working on his lawn, but I haven’t talked to or seen the wife for more than 20 years. It’s like a comedy because you literally never see her but you hear them yelling at each other all the time. Even when it’s just asking if he wants a taco. I’d think he was yelling at an imaginary person, except she actually yells back. He is obsessive about his lawn. While all the other neighbors blow their leaves into the woods, he actually blows every leaf off his lawn and then all the leaves OUT of his woods and bags them. It goes on for about 6 hours, and his blower is underpowered for the task which adds to the time. Neighbor with the “harem” gets annoyed with his leaf blowing and at times goes over with his really high-powered machine and starts blowing with him and tells him to finish up because he’s driving everyone crazy.
He is so obsessive, he removed the perfectly good trees on his front lawn and put in different trees. I asked him about it and it was because the roots of the older trees were making his lawn “bumpy”.
And then there’s always the one neighbor that everyone hates…
In our neighborhood, they are catty corner from me. At least 4 families have had to call the cops on them. The wife is a mean girl and the husband is just an all around psycho that threatens people. He once left a raving message on our answering machine because we dropped his kid off at his house after a party (wife had asked us to) and he threatened all kinds of craziness because he insisted that we pulled out before he answered the door (the kid was old enough to open a door himself, wife had told us he was home working and not to worry about it, and I was actually in front of the house where I could see the door rather than in the driveway waiting for the guy to open the door for the kid). It was nuts. I confronted the wife about it and the next day he aimed his car at me and the kids as we crossed the street to the bus stop. EVERYONE in the neighborhood hates them. They’ve basically been voted off the island. At one point we (about 10 families) were even contemplating each putting up a significant amount of money and making them an offer on their house that they “couldn’t refuse” just to get them out of the neighborhood. The wife has always thought she was too good for this neighborhood so we were thinking there was a chance.
A couple of years ago, when the guy was mowing his lawn with a mower that was burning oil to the point I thought there was a fire somewhere because of all the smoke, one of our other neighbors (who is known for not mincing words) went over to tell him “you’re an A.H. and everyone hates your wife”. The guy said we’d all be happy very soon because they were putting the house up for sale (to move to a very fancy nearby town). Well, it’s been two years and the house hasn’t been put on the market. I’m starting to think I will move out before they will.
In terms of annoying people, I think we’re pretty good neighbors. Probably the worst thing people can say about us is that our dog (150 lbs) can be reactive on leash around little dogs that are lunging and barking at him (it’s always little dogs because somehow their owners think it’s okay because of their size). Due to his size, he looks really scary even though I have him completely under control. He broke out of his collar once to go after a little 5 lb dog like he was going to eat it when he caught up to it (he’s pretty slow), but he’s so people-friendly that as soon as he got close and saw the owner he forgot what he was doing and sat down to be patted.
We’ve lived in the same neighborhood for 42 years, so we must like something! Biggest complaint is that the neighbors across the street park their SUVs directly in back of our driveway. We have a narrow street, so backing out is a problem, especially for my husband, who up until recently had a work van which is kind of tough to maneuver. This is especially annoying because my neighbors have a giant driveway, yet park in the street smack dab in front of our driveway.
My neighbors even know that this is an issue, because after Hurricane Sandy we kept their heat going with our generator, and the wife said she’d repay us by moving their cars. Which lasted a month.
BUT these neighbors are extremely obese and struggle with mobility. We’ve lived together for at least 40 years, and they are kind and sweet in almost every other way. I can understand why they don’t use their massive driveway as more abled people would. My husband, however, has always been super grouchy about it.
I’m not sure what we do to annoy people, but I’ll bet we do! My son stopped practicing drums 20 years ago!
Our next door neighbor’s “kid” (26) is a trumpet/French horn player. It was rough when he started in elementary, but very enjoyable now.
Can you share the nature of the annoyance, that they are willing to spend so much money on litigation?
I will PM you. Probably shouldn’t share publicly.
We have mostly very good neighbors, except the ones downhill from us. Ugh. I once went with the wife to the gym, where we were supposedly going to work out together. She barked orders at me like a mean trainer/drill sergeant while she yakked with someone on her phone. Never did that again. They have a cherry tree on the edge of their property of which may branches hang over our property, drops stuff (mushy berry things that look nothing like cherries and lot of dead branches). That part of our yard has a slate walkway that goes to the terrace level of our home that we did use frequently when we had a business in the home. The stuff would fall on people and the walkway. So at one point we planned to have a bunch of tree work done on our property (trimming some trees, taking out some that needed to be removed, etc) and we out of courtesy notified all of our neighbors that we were going to do this and when (the good neighbors on the uphill side asked if they could also speak to our tree guys and ask them to do some work also in their yard while they were here, and then got them to do her work first, before ours!! But oh well, no harm, no foul. Just a little odd).
I politely asked the downhill jerks if I could have our tree guys trim the branches on the cherry tree that was dropping all the cr*p on our property (yes I know I am legally allowed to do so for whatever is on our property and in preparation for this request and I even called the county to get a copy of the property lines and inquire about any county regulations, especially since the tree is by the neighborhood sidewalk). But trimming the branches just at the property line would look weird and who knows if it would in any way damage the tree. The trunk is clearly on their side.) Anyway, I asked politely if we could have the tree guy, who is also a certified arborist, trim the branches and offered to share the cost if they would like to trim the tree which badly needs it), shape it up and get rid of the dead branches. The H went ballistic, insisted that that tree is why they bought the house (complete nonsense— and if it were true, maybe they should consider taking care of that tree!!), demanded that I have our tree guy consult with him before he would allow anything to be done to the branches, and that I call him (the neighbor) to have him come out to see what was planned. Long story short, the arborist talked to him about what he planned to do and it was best to have the branches we wanted trimmed done from the trunk. Neighbor allowed it but wouldn’t do anything else to the tree (it BADLY needed a trimming, especially if he wants to keep it healthy, which he obviously doesn’t). So fast forward several years and of course they have done nothing to take care of that tree. There are lots of dead branches that drop stuff on our property in every rainstorm. We have decided not to send them a letter advising them of what seems to be the ill health of that tree, because even if we did and if the tree dies and drops stuff in our yard (probably unlikely the whole tree will fall in our yard given the grade of the land), even if their insurance would then be responsible b/c we’d notified them, they’d still tell us to pound sand. So not worth the aggravation.
Contrast that to the neighbors across the street who have a HUGE, TALL tree in the front of their property with a large hole in the trunk that the tree guys we’ve used say could cause that tree to rot and fall). Anyway, we recently did notify those neighbors about that tree and the concern for the tree’s health (if it falls it could hit our house, and probably our bedroom!). These neighbors were lovely, responded quickly that they would have it looked at, and we saw some small white truck in the top of their driveway a day or 2 later. (their house is down in a gully so when they drive in we never see them so we really don’t know them). But they were great about it and appropriately concerned.
We downsized, so my complaints are now memories, but my pet peeve was mowers and leaf blowers before 8:00 on weekdays and before 9:00 on weekends, and if I’m honest, I really mean 9:00 and 10:00. One guy would mow at 5:30 during the heat of summer.
The worst was the neighbor dog that barked all the time, but especially in the wee hours of the morning. It’s not the barking that bothered me, it’s was that people think it’s okay to have a dog they never let in the house or spend any time with. It truly broke my heart.
The new owner of the apartments is great and has put a ton of $$$ into them, but the previous owner went a bit nuts toward the end. He called the police on us once. Why? Because they didn’t like that when I put out the trashcan on the street in was in front of their property. Technically we share the driveway, but if you looked at the property. You’d never know it. And it’s the downhill side. That’s where it naturally rolls. And it’s in the street in the right of way. And why call the police? Why just not ask us to put it on the other side?
H was pissed at him because when we first moved in, he saved the guys dog who got loose and was running all over our busy street dodging cars. And then a year or so later, we asked if he’d split the cost of taking down a tree on his property that had grown into our shed’s gutter. He had agreed, but later left us a message that his lawyer said he wasn’t responsible for it and no. We didn’t know we could just cut our branches at the time. You’d think I’d know that considering I work for the locality! Ugh. But H hated him ever since. Back then that kind of $$$ was huge to us and chump change for him. He came from a wealthy family that owns a bunch of funeral homes.
Sounds like he belongs in of those homes
Here’s an example from the downhill neighbors. They sent a video claiming water had poured onto their driveway for “10 years” and was causing cracking (umm… a 30 year old cement driveway will get cracks especially if they live perpendicular on a hill). Anyway, we have our sprinkler system tuned every year or two, so his exaggeration was obnoxious to say the least. We have no windows on that side of the house plus they are, as I said, downhill, so had no clue that apparently a sprinkler head needed attention. They “threatened” to post it on the neighborhood Facebook page but wanted to send a private message first. Lovely neighbors, eh? I responded politely but wanted to say “will fix it- now trim your $&@“! Cherry tree! (He also never mentioned it to DH. That’s BS).
