A recent survey, commissioned by ImproveNet of 2,500 residents of 24 of the largest cities in America sought the answer to the question: what annoys you about your neighbors?
Most annoying practices
Survey participants were asked to rank which of 36 practices of their neighbors they found most annoying. Topping the list was noise. Whether loud music, loud voices, loud parties or loud pets, noise from their neighbors took 4 of the top 5 and 6 of the top 10 most annoying categories. Other categories in the top 10 were parking issues, dog poop, general grumpiness and overflowing garbage.
Practices rated least annoying, whether because they were innocuous or rare, were yard or window signs, holiday decorations, nudity and obstructed views.
Most annoying places
The cities represented in the survey were ranked in terms of how annoying respondents found their neighbors to be. Topping the list for the city with the most annoying neighbors was Dallas, followed by Miami, Austin, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The city where respondents found their neighbors to be least annoying was Minneapolis, followed by Portland, Atlanta, Seattle and Denver.
Taking action
The survey also asked respondents whether they had confronted a neighbor over their annoying behavior and how they went about doing it. More than half (54 percent) of respondents had confronted a neighbor with the most common approach being a face to face discussion. Seems friendly enough. However, the next most common approach to dealing with a neighbor’s annoying behavior was to call the cops on them. Not so friendly. The least popular approach of those listed in the survey was to have an attorney contact them.
The city where respondents were most likely to approach their neighbors over their annoying behavior was San Antonio, which had placed in the middle of the pack (#14) in terms of respondents saying that they found their neighbors to engage in annoying behavior. San Antonio was followed by San Diego, Houston, Austin and Miami in terms of respondents’ likelihood to confront their neighbors.
The full survey results can be viewed here.
