Neighbours are important to your everyday life. They are the people that live around us and share common borders. Research shows that in general people want to live in areas where they feel safe and where their neighbours are friendly.
They can be a source of support and help for you and provide a sense of security at times. We all hope we all get this sense of community from our neighbours.
However, what if the neighbours are not as nice as we would like them to be? Things may not always seem rosy and friendly as society would have us believe. How exactly can we tell when our neighbours do not like us? Sometimes, it can be obvious.
On the other hand, there may be subtle telltale warning signs you sure be aware of. In this article we will provide you with 5 key signs to finally help you in confirming that your neighbours just cannot stand you:
Signs your neighbours don’t like you or cannot even stand you:
1. Ignoring repeated requests:
This involves obvious signs; in particular disrespectful behaviour; where you have to constantly ask your neighbour to stop doing things which have caused you or your household discomfort in some way.
However, they have repeated and very obviously taken no heed to your polite requests and continued being disrespectful and ignoring your requests without a care in the world. These obvious signs are rarer and they may manifest in many forms.
For example: Being rude and unhelpful when they see you in person, in particular by rolling their eyes or making comments about how inconvenient it is that you live next door. They might even make comments about how they dislike your personality or habits. They also might repeatedly play loud music late at night or have their kids run around your lawn and make it dirty repeatedly.
2. Being cold:
It can feel awful when you are not greeted in the same way or given the same respect as you have given to others. it’s important to recognise this type of toxic behaviour towards you. If your neighbour doesn’t like you, they might be cold to you or not welcoming.
They may give you the silent treatment or ignore you when they see you in the elevator. They might not speak to you when they are on their balcony and don’t answer your hello when they walk past your house.
Keep in mind that it is possible that the person who is being cold with you is not in a good mood instead. They might have had a fight with their partner or they are having health problems. Or, it could be that they are just introverts and don’t like to spend time with other people because they find it draining.
Nevertheless, watch out for repeated patterns of behaviour. This indicates dislike towards you rather than putting it down to just a one-off occurrence.
3. Avoidance or lack of invitation:
It is a natural human instinct to want to be liked by others. You may notice you have invited new neighbours to your house and their children to your kids’ birthday party. However, the same invitations have never been reciprocated.
You are not alone if you have experienced this before. It is normal for people to feel hurt or offended when they are being ignored by their neighbours or people they try to befriend. But at some point, one should get the hint and let go of someone who’s clearly not interested. Check out this article later on how to tell someone indirectly that you don’t want to be friends, as they might be doing just that to you.
It’s hard to have a close relationship with your neighbours when they don’t seem to want one. But it is important to remember that there could be many reasons for it and it’s not always personal:
– They may not know you well enough or have misjudged you.
– You might have said something that offended them in the past, or they might just not like your personality type.
– You might be too clingy and they need some space.
– They might be going through a tough time and don’t feel like dealing with people right now or figuring things out in life.
Key Tip: Giving the benefit of the doubt or creating excuses may temporarily help overcome these feelings of not being wanted or included.
However, when such behaviour becomes the norm it’s important to look at the facts and actions in front of you and realise when someone does not want to keep with you. As the saying goes: you can only pull a person closer for so long, before they eventually turn and walk away.
4. Gossiping about you to other neighbours:
It is not always easy to live in a society where everyone lives so close to each other. People can gossip about you and trash-talk about you without you even knowing it. Being friendly and on good terms with your neighbours can be beneficial, but sometimes being a little too friendly can do more harm than good.
Especially, if them being close to you enables them to know all of your business and provides them with the ability to spread it around. It can really hurt your reputation, especially if it’s not true. Gossiping and trash-talking are an invasion of privacy and can be damaging to your mental health if you let them get the best of you. If you feel like your neighbours are gossiping about you or trash-talking, there are ways that you can take action against them.
It might seem difficult at first, but there are plenty of ways that you can make sure that they know that their behaviour is not acceptable and will not be tolerated by you:
Firstly, you can talk to the landlord or apartment manager about what’s going on and see if there are any policies in place for dealing with this type of situation. Secondly, you can also call the police and report harassment from your neighbour if it gets extreme and very upsetting. Lastly, you could also try communicating with your neighbours about what’s going on in person or over email. Be honest about how they are making you feel, but make sure it’s very clear that this behaviour needs to stop!
5. Littering everywhere:
The neighbours next door don’t respect your boundaries. They litter everywhere, their kids disrupt your lawn, and they just don’t seem to tell them off or care about cleanliness. Sound familiar? This is a common problem in many neighbourhoods today and is a key sign of lack of respect towards you.
It’s not just about the trash on the ground that makes you feel like you’re living in a dump. It’s about how these people act as if they are entitled to invade your personal space and leave their trash everywhere for you to clean up after them.
It shows they are inconsiderate and don’t seem to care about the consequences of their actions. Once again do not stand for this! Voice your opinion and be stern ensuring you are respected preventing them from walking all over you.
The Bottom line:
As you can see from above, signs that your neighbours do not like you can be subtle but can also be very obvious. Hopefully, with these telltale signs, you can identify early on whether you are in your neighbours’ good books or not.
This will help you make amends early on and avoid any future conflicts that may arise. In spite of this, If these signs persist and there is no indication that they will change, then it’s time to take action.
Remember, you don’t have to be extremely sweet or close to your neighbours if that’s not what you like, you can just demand that they respect you, your privacy and keep away from your space.
You can check this article out on the pros and cons of being friends with neighbours and see if it’s something for you or not and then act accordingly. In the end, friendship might be a door to being asked shamelessly to allow more disrespect rather than a solution.