Neighbors...
mama&baby
member
So I love our neighborhood... it's a nice area in a quiet part of town, plus lots of cops and firefighters live here. Our home is nice, and we got a great price on it. Our neighbors are friendly, everyone waves to each other and talks in the parking lot.
We live in a townhouse, and normally we wave hi to our next door neighbors and talk with them outside sometimes, but other than that we don't hear anything from them. Recently, they adopted three children (2 five year olds and 1 eight year old) from Columbia. We were very excited for them and know that it will be a rough transition for them going from no kids to 3 rowdy boys. However.... since they have been home it is like a pack of elephants is running through their house. I know kids can be loud (they have probably heard LO crying before) but it's ridiculous. It's woken up LO a few times. I have been holding my tongue because a) I know it must be a crazy time for them 2) I prefer not to start issues with my neighbors 3) I know I would wait until I am beyond frustrated to say anything and it would be at a point where I am not so nice about it. Today, it happened a couple of times and DH banged on the wall while they were running and it stopped. What would you do in my situation? Ignore it or continue w/ banging on the wall as necessary? Talk to them?
Also... what issues do you have with your neighbors?
Re: Neighbors...
Aww, that's a tough one... It would be hard for me to speak up, who knows how many times my DD has annoyed the neighbors.
We live in student housing. It's individual houses with front and backyards, but they're still pretty close to one another, and the windows have to be open for the air conditioning to work so we hear our neighbors all the time. One time DH had just gotten done putting DD down to sleep after a loooong restless night. We were going to take a nap all 3 of us together because she had finally fallen asleep and we were exhausted. Just then the neighbor outside slams his car door (His driveway is pretty close to our bedroom window) and wakes DD up again and she cries. DH yelled something out without thinking, I think he said "Stupid idiot!" or something like that, I hope we don't run into those neighbors before we move
It's not really their fault, but the close proximity makes it an issue often.
Also, a neighbor down the street used to let his 3 dachshunds run the neighborhood. They pooped in our front yard 4 or 5 times, then one day a big dog got loose in the neighborhood from another house and beat one of them up pretty bad (He survived thankfully) and we don't see those dachshunds, or poop in our yard.... Though I felt so bad for the dog, who honestly lets their little dachshunds run around the street unsupervised??? Or any dog for that matter.
You could bring over a present (a meal, or small gifts for the children) and bond in the new motherhood thing. You could try to bring it up using your LO.....something along the lines of "wow, I had no idea how much you must have heard LO during those early months of crying!" or something similar. You'd have to be careful not to say it in a way that was passive aggressive, but rather to sort of commiserate that babies/kids are noisy and you are recognizing that you guys are SO CLOSE that you can hear a lot of stuff. Hopefully she'll get the hint that her kids are being noisy and will say something like "oh are they being too loud?" and you could go from there?
Or she could be completely overwhelmed at this point and oblivious to all the noise? (Or oblivious that you can hear it?)
If your LO has sort of set nap/sleep times, maybe you could kindly ask if they could try to keep it down between those hours but be sympathetic.
I know it's awkward, but I'd at least try to talk to them. and do it sooner rather than later so you don't get all riled up.
Thanks ladies-- I will definitely consider all of your suggestions. I have actually been meaning to bring them over food... so that might happen.
I would like to think that for most people, common sense would dictate that there is a BIG difference between a baby crying and a child misbehaving. You can correct a child's behavior (eg- "little johnny, we don't jump up and down on each individual step on the stairs") and while you may try to shush a baby, there are times where NOTHING will stop them from crying. LO doesn't do this as much any more.. but he did have colic for a bit. Obviously I am a bit biased in saying this, but I guess I could always use that argument if it gets to that point.
Sounds like you've got it under control. I have lots of issues with our noisey neighbors. I'm glad you live in such a friendly neighborhood.