To think all neighbourhood issues arise from lack of manners?

[Binny36]

I’m really interested in having some thoughts about this. I’ve been reading many neighbour dispute threats lately. As I just said in one thread I think most issues are due to lack of manners. I think of myself as having manners and I am very considerate of others. I would be mortified if my kids or my actions caused a nuisance to anybody.

I think a lot of “I can do what the f**k I want in my garden” type attitude is the cause of all this friction?

I think a lot of this attitude is very childish. I have people like this in my circle in RL who think if someone is annoyed by something they wouldn’t personally find annoying then this person is being “petty, hard work, too much time on hands etc”. Surely as grown up adults we should respect people have different views and thresholds of what they won’t tolerate and we should respect that? Reading some responses on threads has made me realise maybe not everyone has matured in their thinking. I’m beginning to understand why I’ve had issues with certain people over the years when they show complete lack of respect for anyone’s property.

Yes I agree with you. It's down to people's attitudes, a selfish society.

Yes I agree with you. I also dislike the widely used 'well you should speak to them about it or you can't complain elsewhere' surely the very nature of being considerate towards others would suggest you shouldn't HAVE to go and point out to your neighbour that you too can hear their music at top volume and it is disturbing you. A considerate person would assess what they want to do and think about how it would impact others then either not do it or adjust the activity accordingly. I don't understand why the suggestion that people should modify their activities for the sake of others is so abhorrent to some.

100%

So many people seem to think that as long as they are able to do exactly what they want, that’s all that matters.

In my opinion you should live your life with a fair amount of consideration for other others. Even if that means not being able to blast your 80s hits all afternoon in the garden etc.

Agree, OP. There is a lack of awareness in society of others around us along with manners. I'm afraid to say, it is down to social media. There is a sense of shouting in everything that people do and 'it is my right'

There is also an evident lack of misunderstanding surrounding 'free speech'. There is no such thing as free speech, what the West has, is the freedom of speech.

Yes they do .
As do most traffic incidents and most problems at work and school.

Agreed. Recently we asked our neighbours to turn their music down as we could hear it really loudly in our house, even with our doors/windows closed. The girlfriend popped her head out and shouted that they had til 11pm. That may be right in the legal sense, but at 9:30pm on a Sunday night when people have work the next day, it's just consideration.

Agreed. Recently we asked our neighbours to turn their music down as we could hear it really loudly in our house, even with our doors/windows closed. The girlfriend popped her head out and shouted that they had til 11pm. That may be right in the legal sense, but at 9:30pm on a Sunday night when people have work the next day, it's just consideration.

Completely agree OP. I often reply in the neighbour threads because I really feel for people experiencing neighbour problems.

Our previous neighbour drove us to move from our lovely home less than six months after she moved in due to her ridiculous noise levels. We didn’t hear a peep from previous neighbours but she wouldn’t entertain a single thing we said, she was extremely aggressive and was a lawyer. In the end she threatened to sue us if we kept ‘stalking her’... because we could hear literally everything. she. did.

Now we have endless “issues” with neighbours but it’s all the little things you’re talking about; noise, parties, inconsiderate construction, passive aggressive parking wars, littering, etc. For some unknown reason, our new neighbour now takes his bin from his driveway... and wheels it every week onto ours?! We’ve have our bin missed a few times because they’re taking his instead!

agree OP and also @islandislandisland - if someone is inconsiderate enough to be doing the antisocial thing in the first place chances are fairly high their response to a polite request to stop it might not be an abject apology! There are always some exceptions of course but generally twats are twats - I speak from loud neighbour noise blasting experience...

Most of the time but not always. We are a very quiet family but have had problems with a neighbour who interfered in every aspect of our garden renovation. It was a very stressful time and ended up in a tribunal with the council who decided in our favour. Their house is actually 75 metres from the work we did and has no effect on their day to day living. The lovely lady from the council told me that in the short time they had lived there, they had emailed/phoned more times about things, (bus stops/road layouts/train stations) than the whole of the county put together. It is a hobby of theirs to get involved in everything and anything going on and give their point of view (always negative). They moved on from us after the council decision and I’m now aware that they are currently emailing Politicians left right and centre querying every decision they make over Covid 19.

Two things for me have changed since twenty years ago when I was a teenager:

• Some people don't have a sense of "society" as much as they should have. They act with impunity and think only of themselves, and they don't fear being judged by another according to a societal norm or fairness (i.e don't play music late it's not kind, don't park 5 cars in a private estate when it stops other people parking legitimately).

• These same people don't care about being polite, so wait for someone to challenge them so that they can jump straight to 10 and bellow at them, in the hope that the challenger will be so mortified at the shouting that they'll immediately back down.

This is why when you see an old school lovely person challenge someone on the train and say "please keep your feet off the seats", all you get is a mouthful of abuse.

No one it seems, ever, ever wants to be told.

Even small things like kids birthday parties - I always let neighbours know to expect some noise and to text me if it gets too much! Then after party I go around with some cake. They don’t do the same for me but I will continue doing it until the kids start having parties out (well covid will now stop any parties for a long time!)

individual rights versus social responsibility - simply put can I do this without causing issues/discomfort to others & can I adapt what I want to do? & for goodness sake - having friendly communication - because you might not realize how things might affect others

YANBU OP and other posters - but where did this originate and how can we reverse it?

I completely agree op. I have a sense of responsibility towards others. I stay aware of how I might impact others and make adjustments. I would love to blast my music in my house and in my garden, but I never do. I'd never drop litter or dump rubbish. I make environmental responsibile decisions.

I agree we had fireworks let off a couple of nights ago in our area at about 11pm, a neighbour that blasted music full volume all day for hours on end. Parking on pavements so people have to go in the road. I noticed I live in such a selfish area

Manners yes but also an inability to compromise on doing exactly what they want. If people want to listen to music in their garden they should compromise a little and turn it down or use headphones. Similarly you might want peace and quiet in your garden but you're going to have to compromise and understand that you can't expect your neighbours to take a vow of silence.

The problems arise when you have inconsiderate arseholes who blast their music at high volume without any consideration of their neighbours and/or self obsessed people who believe their desires come first.

Totally agree, I get pretty shocked when people have complete disdain for others. We need a manners movement! We’ve made loads of mistakes (car radio blasting for no reason when we’d left it round the corner ugh, for hours... we even thought who the hell was playing loud music, cringe!). But one set of neighbours will respond “and what?” if they ever get complaints (over smell of weed on communal areas, crazy loud music, rubbish left around and dog poo...)

Absolutely true about compromise!

Op this is so very true, my neighbours are really noisy, park o er my drive & have a huge outdoor wood burner that fills my house with smoke. I asked them to move their car Twice (because I couldn’t get out of my drive) & now we are tarred as moaney neighbours. They don’t seem to understand if they behaved like considerate people we wouldn’t have to moan.

But surely the whole point of the argument in these cases is that there is disagreement over what good manners are? There are cases where it's pretty clear cut that someone's in the wrong - e.g. someone having a loud house party in a quiet residential street at 2am, someone objecting to a child ever playing in their own garden - but most things are somewhere in the middle. I don't think it's reasonable to play loud music in your garden, but nor do I think it's reasonable to feel that someone else should never play music in their own house, even if you can hear it your house. I don't think it's reasonable to let your kids scream in the garden at 6am, but nor do I think it's reasonable to object to them playing loudly at 11am. There are some things where I genuinely struggle to see the other person's point of view - for instance, I don't understand why anyone objects to a car or van being parked on the road by their house if it doesn't block access, but lots and lots of people feel this is extremely rude - but I would try to respect it nonetheless, though clearly there would be a limit to how far I would inconvenience myself to fulfil what I see as an irrational request (I wouldn't park outside my neighbours' house if I could park on the next street, but I would if otherwise I'd have to park half a mile away). I personally feel some of the things people want on MN, such as no one ever having a party at their house or a barbecue, are excessive, and that it's actually very rude to want to control the lives' of others to that extent to make them match your own preferences. So no, I don't think it's clear cut that it's always due to someone being ill-mannered, because manners are opinions and cultural norms, not objective facts.

I'm not sure this is entirely correct. It all depends on where the line is drawn.

We see people complaining about the noise children make playing in the garden. Should children be stopped playing in the garden because neighbours don't want to hear them? The answer is clearly no, unless you're a doormat.

As for loud music, that is the bane of my life this summer, with twatto neighbour having a massive speaker system without which it seems impossible for him to spend any time in their garden. I've never asked them to turn the sodding thing down, but it does make me readjust my own sense of community spirit and so I usually practice my guitar with my 100w speaker, window open, and within 20 minutes he's found something else to do.

Not all but I expect the vast majority.

I think lack of manners is the cause of some neighbour problems but it's definitely not as simple as that for many cases e.g. drugs problems, social services issues etc.

A lot of disputes are caused by poor manners and a lack off consideration eg noise after midnight.

But some are caused by changing social norms. For someone older, brought up in a rural location for example, having a bonfire in the autumn is a completely normal thing to do. But others regard it as offensive.

The same with noise on Sundays, queuing, behaviour in restaurants and so on. Opinions change and not everyone keeps up.