Townhouse tips and protocal

[MichelleCarmen]

So, it''s been over 10 years since I''ve lived in anything other than a house, so moving to a townhome condo is a bit daunting to me because I know privacy is going to be sacrified and we''ll be living in proximity to 110 other units. We''re going from over an acre of land to being the end unit in a four-unit building!

Any tips condo owners can share? Thus far, I was told the best thing to do is drive directly into my garage so I do not have to talk to anyone! lol

I''m social enough, but not all the time, so that may work on certain days.

Any advice on townhome living?

 

[lyra]

Heh. I''m afraid I agree about not talking to the neighbours.

At least not the ones closest to you, beyond a greeting once in a while. We''ve ended up in a few neighbour arguments, and it just never goes well at all if you''re really friendly to begin with. Makes it harder to negotiate if it becomes necessary. Sometimes you just naturally get involved with neighbours if your kids play with their kids. That''s usually pretty safe IMO.

Someone once told us that the first neighbour to come talk to *you* is the one to avoid the most! True enough I''ve found.

 

[iheartscience]

I''m in an apartment building but I figured I could still offer some tips! I''m sure you won''t do these things, but here are a few things neighbors have done here that drive me insane:

1. Barking and whining dogs-it depresses me! Seriously-I can''t stand to hear my neighbor''s dog cry and whine because it''s lonely. I left her a note and it''s gotten better, though.

2. Disposing of trash badly-two of the 7 apartments in the building were THROWING their garbage over the balcony out back in hopes it would hit the trash cans. Needless to say, it didn''t, and I called our landlord several times to complain. They finally stopped.

3. Late night parties and general late night loudness-I''m sure you won''t do this, but it really irritates me to be kept up until 2 a.m. when I want to go to sleep!

4. Vacuuming/picture hanging/musical instrument playing/etc. at weird hours. My neighbor was playing a clarinet or something at 8:30 a.m. today. It''s a Saturday! I was awake, but I bet some people weren''t! Rude.

I think the best bet is to just be extra respectful since you do share a wall. Also, I''m not a fan of being overly friendly with neighbors, so I would agree that you should avoid that unless you really do become friends.

 

[onedrop]

MC: congrats on the new home!! We live in a townhouse community (a small one) and I actually really like it. We live in a four block unit like you, and the homes in our unit haven''t changed hands in the 8 years I''ve been here so we are pretty friendly. However we don''t socialize in each other''s homes or anything like that. But it''s kind of nice to know them and be friendly because we all keep an eye out for each other''s homes when we are away or when things out of the normal happen. If any one of us is doing things like putting up fences or things like that we do ask first and if the FedEx or UPS guy comes sometimes we hold the packages for each other. And many times my husband will mow the lawn in front of our neighbor''s house if is doing ours. As for the other neighbors, there has been so much turnover across the street and in other parts of the community, I am never sure who lives there on any given day, so I am less involved with them.

I don''t know that there are any specific rules of protocol in townhome communities but here are a few things that I''d suggest: be mindful of parking restrictions, and make sure your visitors don''t park in the reserved spaces; bring in your trash cans after pick up; if it snows where you live, shovel the snow on the sidewalk in front.

Good luck with the transition!!

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Thanks, gals. My husband seemd to instantly agree about the first person who talks to you usually the one to avoid. Probably the one who''ll end up wanting something when the time comes!

One thing is that our 4-unit is part of a larger condo complex with an HOA and it''s $162 per month and they have a HUGE thick booklet of rules (garbage cans must be put away the same day, etc). That is so not my husband and me and we spent the day laughing at all the silly rules, like we cannot hang any outdoor birdfeeder BUT can hang one flag outside per unit. My husband pointed out they didn''t say what kind of flag. My husband said we should make a "party flag," with a martini glass as a design. lol (of course we''re not partiers - we''re in our 30s with two kids. . . so our parties involve balloons and cake.)

 

[phoenixgirl]

We were blessed to develop real friendship with a lot of our neighbors at our condo. That was one of the hardest things about moving away. But there were still some very unpleasant people and annoyances.

I guess I''d just try to be on good terms with everybody. There are probably tattle-tale types in any condo association (or block, for that matter -- we moved into a house next door to the neighborhood party-pooper), especially on the board. But they tend to fixate on the people they don''t like and will let the same things slide for people they do.

 

[zoebartlett]

I''d give you different advice about being friendly with your neighbors. You never know if/when you might need a favor or something, and if you don''t know anyone, it makes it harder to approach them at times. I don''t see it as that different than having a neighbor if you lived in a house. I don''t see that as a negative at all, and I don''t understand the "philosophy" of avoiding the first person you run into. Seems silly to me.

We live in a condo and we don''t really know anyone. We say hi to people as we pass by them and we know just a few people''s names. I wish we could get to know each other better but everyone keeps to themselves. Some people prefer it that way, but I don''t.

I know the association rules can be a pain sometimes, but you''ll get used to it. The rules are there for a reason and I''m sure they are all based on respect. Common sense types of stuff.

 

[butterfly 17]

Date: 5/16/2008 9:47:57 PM
Author: lyra
Heh. I'm afraid I agree about not talking to the neighbours.

At least not the ones closest to you, beyond a greeting once in a while. We've ended up in a few neighbour arguments, and it just never goes well at all if you're really friendly to begin with. Makes it harder to negotiate if it becomes necessary. Sometimes you just naturally get involved with neighbours if your kids play with their kids. That's usually pretty safe IMO.

Someone once told us that the first neighbour to come talk to *you* is the one to avoid the most! True enough I've found.

okay, now I am nosey, what kinds of arguments did you get into?

I never lived in a townhouse, but I did live in a duplex and I never had problems with any of my neighbors. I was not close to anyone of them, but we did have occasional conversations and the usual greetings.

I can't imagine what I would argue with my neighbors about. Maybe if their kids were fighting with my kids or if they kept blocking my driveway, but I can't think of anything else.

Even now, my neighbors are still relatively close enough and we just say hello and goodbye and occasional conversations about home improvement stuff. When I had my housewarming party, I invited all my immediate neighbors to my house for the party.

It was just a nice way to get to know people.

I think it's better to be somewhat friendly in the beginning. Just in case something happens or you need some kind of favor, or you don't have a snowblower and your "friendly neighbor" volunteers to clean the snow in front of your house and driveway.

 

[lyra]

Date: 5/18/2008 10:52:18 AM
Author: butterfly 17

Date: 5/16/2008 9:47:57 PM
Author: lyra
Heh. I''m afraid I agree about not talking to the neighbours.

At least not the ones closest to you, beyond a greeting once in a while. We''ve ended up in a few neighbour arguments, and it just never goes well at all if you''re really friendly to begin with. Makes it harder to negotiate if it becomes necessary. Sometimes you just naturally get involved with neighbours if your kids play with their kids. That''s usually pretty safe IMO.

Someone once told us that the first neighbour to come talk to *you* is the one to avoid the most! True enough I''ve found.

okay, now I am nosey, what kinds of arguments did you get into?

I never lived in a townhouse, but I did live in a duplex and I never had problems with any of my neighbors. I was not close to anyone of them, but we did have occasional conversations and the usual greetings.

I can''t imagine what I would argue with my neighbors about. Maybe if their kids were fighting with my kids or if they kept blocking my driveway, but I can''t think of anything else.

Even now, my neighbors are still relatively close enough and we just say hello and goodbye and occasional conversations about home improvement stuff. When I had my housewarming party, I invited all my immediate neighbors to my house for the party.

It was just a nice way to get to know people.

I think it''s better to be somewhat friendly in the beginning. Just in case something happens or you need some kind of favor, or you don''t have a snowblower and your ''friendly neighbor'' volunteers to clean the snow in front of your house and driveway.

Well, in the townhouse it was pretty bad. We had to contend with bad kids mostly. They exploded glass bottles in our parking space in front of our unit. They banged on the walls on purpose. Stuck banana peels in the grill of our car. Other such nonsense. When we complained, the mother said "My son is an *angel*, I don''t know why *people* keep accusing him of things!!". Yeah, real angel there.

In our first house things went well for several years until new neighbours moved in. The husband was very aggressive and the houses were so close together, like 6 ft. apart. Our windows and doors directly faced each other, so it was uncomfortable. One day my husband was too loud in mentioning that the colour they painted their trim was "Fisher Price Blue", and suddenly war began. The neighbour painted his side of *our* fence (on our property actually) bright red while our side was pale grey. So red dripped through everywhere. The tops of the posts he painted half red, as if he was dividing the posts in half too. It was truly insane. My husband threatened to tear down the whole fence because it was legally on our property, but I couldn''t handle all this stress so we moved to a nicer house where we actually had no problems.

In our third house, the worst kids in the neighbourhood decided to set up street hockey in our cul-de-sac (not theirs!!) right in front of our driveway. So I''d be working in the den and have to have all the noise, kids running all over our yard and gardens and balls hitting my windows constantly. I yelled at them to move their net which was always blocking our drive. I called their mother. Again, "My angels....blah blah blah." It never ended. I just planted holly and sharp stuff in the gardens so they wouldn''t run through them as much. We got transferred. I heard they kept it up to this day, but now they''re into drugs and stuff and loud cars.

No problems after that. (knock on wood)

 

[butterfly 17]

Okay Lyra, now I know!!! It''s true, sometimes parents are in denial of how bad their kids can be. I guess I was lucky (knock on wood), that everywhere I have lived we have not had any problems with neighbors kids. The houses on either side of me both have teenage kids and I never really see them hanging outside at all. The house on my left is the corner house, so I don''t have anyone else on that side of the block.

The house next to the house on my right side has an older couple with adult kids.

Across the street, everyone is older and except for one couple with really young kids, under 5, the rest have college age kids. So, it''s not too bad actually.

That is one of the things that suck with moving into a new community, you don''t know who is moving into the house next door.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

We''ve actually gotten in to fights with apt. neighbors! lol WAYYY back when I had my first apartment (age 21), the guy above me would wear his cowboy boots inside and would stop around above me. My husband (then boyfriend) would come over and we''d hit the ceiling with a broom handle to get him to knock it off. One night, he called some security co and they gave me a ticket for $100. We argued with them and never paid it!

Nothing ever came of it and those neighbors finally moved.

 

[Mara]

well we''ve lived in our townhouse end unit on a 4 building unit for almost 5 years now. thankfully we have an end unit with a lot of windows and light because the inside units in our complex seem to get the brunt of it because they have TWO neighbors and we at least only have one.

the guy who owns the unit next to ours was something like 24 years old and helped into the house by his parents. hence he was always partying and having people over because he was the only one who had a HOUSE at his age. he was really nice and we went down multiple times at 2am to say PLEASE STFU...thankfully we had a good relationship with him for the most part other than the partying. then he finally moved yet still owned and we got some amazing renters next to us...they have become some of our best friends. we''ll be sad when they move back to texas, sometime this year most likely.

but just goes to show it could be really good or really bad with your direct neighbor. in terms of a townhouse COMPLEX and tips... there are always people who have way too much time on their hands...we have 2-3 of those, there is this big ''battle'' on the board going on right now for who is going to be in power...they had a ''recall'' vote, blah blah. our HOA rules are kind of strict but not as strict as some others, the main beef is that we have patios and some busybody types are trying to say that the patios need to all be monitored as well and ''only same type of pots'' and ''plants not over a certain height'' etc. as a gardener this would bother me, esp since all of us have outside shrubs that ENTIRELY cover our patio visually from the outside, so no one can even see the patios...but whatever. and there is this ongoing 4 year battle over ''colored shades''...we are all supposed to have off white or white blinds or shades...and people want natural wood to be allowed.

for us...the biggest things are to be friendly but not get TOO friendly esp with close neighbors (our next door neighbors are diff as we literally hang out with them 1-2x a week!), stay abreast of what is going on in the complex but don''t get TOO involved. don''t take sides on any of the whole board or HOA fights that come up (and trust me they do!), bottom line is try to be a good neighbor, don''t be too loud, don''t let your kids be too loud. i think that MOST people will respect that.

my biggest pet peeves in townhouse living are people not realizing they ARE part of a townhouse community. that means that people HAVE to be respectful of things like leaving stuff out aka garbage cans for days, too much noise, barking dogs, super loud kids, playing loud music, or watching a loud movie even. our townhouses have FABULOUS insulation...we cannot hear a thing that goes on with our neighbors in their house, even when party animal was living next door. but OUTSIDE we can hear evreything on the patios, it''s something about the vertical buildings carrying sound...but it''s crazy how much we can hear what goes on with the patio scene. even just ''loud conversations'' people have on a patio, we can hear the whole thing!

we try not to have big rousing parties unless it''s on the wkd and then we let our immediate neighbors know (and invite them if necessary)...our dog is not a barker at all, so we don''t worry about that. i think you''ll find out what the nuances are for your place when you move in for sure!! good luck.

 

[lyra]

Date: 5/22/2008 10:51:18 AM
Author: Mara
my biggest pet peeves in townhouse living are people not realizing they ARE part of a townhouse community. that means that people HAVE to be respectful of things like leaving stuff out aka garbage cans for days, too much noise, barking dogs, super loud kids, playing loud music, or watching a loud movie even. our townhouses have FABULOUS insulation...we cannot hear a thing that goes on with our neighbors in their house, even when party animal was living next door. but OUTSIDE we can hear evreything on the patios, it''s something about the vertical buildings carrying sound...but it''s crazy how much we can hear what goes on with the patio scene. even just ''loud conversations'' people have on a patio, we can hear the whole thing!

We have this same issue in our house. It was more of an issue with our former neighbour, who tended to have lots of outdoor parties in the summer. We would be trying to sleep, but we could hear *everything* that was being said out there. Some quite embarrassing and crude stuff sometimes. You''d think people would realize that sound does carry vertically, with the style of windows we have (casement, swinging out). You hear stuff you don''t intend to hear for sure! We are always quiet when we are talking outside, or at least are aware of our surroundings. Sheesh. We don''t want everyone knowing our business.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Mara - the HOA here has rules regarding potted plants too. They stated simply that "baskets must be kept free of dead plants." lol No rules regarding plant/pot size as long as they''re ALIVE, who cares about the details!

Like your unit, we''re on the end and have GREAT Western/Southern/Eastern light. There would be NO way we''d get a middle unit crammed in like that! Even so, the neighbors hearing us is a concern of mine. There is no guarantee my kids will be quiet every minute of the day and what if my DH and I get in a fight? lol We rarely do fight, but when we do, it''s a full blow out!

The main issue with the neighbors is that GENERALLY we never get too personable with our neighbors. When we moved into our current home, the very next morning at 8 am I was out getting ready to play in the yard and the next door neighbor pulls up in her SUV and starts chatting with me. At 8 AM! I was in PJs and unbrused hair. We had picked 1 acre for a reason!!! Anyway, we keep to ourselves, but part of the reason we picked the complex we''re going to live in is so that our kids have more socialization, so unlike ordinary circumstances where we''d just say "hi" in passing to neighbors, now were under the obligation to be more friendly to keep our kids part of the social scene. Mostly we moved there for our kids and second for the VERY low pmts! (our plan is to stay there only two years!)

Hopefully all works out. We''re moving next weekend! ahhhh!

 

[LegacyGirl]

Date: 5/22/2008 9:12:15 PM
Author: MC
Mara - the HOA here has rules regarding potted plants too. They stated simply that ''baskets must be kept free of dead plants.'' lol No rules regarding plant/pot size as long as they''re ALIVE, who cares about the details!

Like your unit, we''re on the end and have GREAT Western/Southern/Eastern light. There would be NO way we''d get a middle unit crammed in like that! Even so, the neighbors hearing us is a concern of mine. There is no guarantee my kids will be quiet every minute of the day and what if my DH and I get in a fight? lol We rarely do fight, but when we do, it''s a full blow out!

The main issue with the neighbors is that GENERALLY we never get too personable with our neighbors. When we moved into our current home, the very next morning at 8 am I was out getting ready to play in the yard and the next door neighbor pulls up in her SUV and starts chatting with me. At 8 AM! I was in PJs and unbrused hair. We had picked 1 acre for a reason!!! Anyway, we keep to ourselves, but part of the reason we picked the complex we''re going to live in is so that our kids have more socialization, so unlike ordinary circumstances where we''d just say ''hi'' in passing to neighbors, now were under the obligation to be more friendly to keep our kids part of the social scene. Mostly we moved there for our kids and second for the VERY low pmts! (our plan is to stay there only two years!)

Hopefully all works out. We''re moving next weekend! ahhhh!

This is just so sad...

Why are people like this now? I notice this more in the South since I''ve moved here. What is wrong with you all? In Buffalo we were all so nice to one another. I actually had a man try to attack me in my garage when I came home once (he ran in after me) I was screaming and screaming and my next door neighbor (a big guy) just watched out his window- like it was a movie or something!

It makes me regret helping his wife who fell in their driveway and passed out. I had to lift her huge ass up and help her inside. I even stayed with her to make sure she was ok!

People I understand some neighbors can be a pain in the ass but my goodness this whole avoiding your neighbor thing is just so weird to me. I miss friendly neighborhoods....

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Hi gals,

Just bumping this up to say I met two of my neighbors today. The guy next to us is fine, but I do not think we''ll have anything in common, except being alumni to the same university. The other guy seemed a bit odd. He only talked to my DH (ignored me) and then I saw him watching us from his window, which maybe anyone would do, BUT two times later, when we brought more boxes, he still would stare! THEN, when we came by later, a woman sat there in front of her window watching us, too. Busy bodies.

My husband said this is normal and they just want to see WHO is also going to be living in that part of the complex, but I''m such a private person, I feel really vunerable.

I have two Shinto screens so that I can put these in front of my windows, but light will still get in over the top of the tall windows, yet I won''t be seen while walking around.

http://www.worldmarket.com/Espresso-Shinto-Screen/lev/4/productId/1163/Ntt/screens/Ntx/mode+matchallpartial/Ntk/Def/N/0/Nty/1/index.pro