Here at RottenNeighbor, we’ve heard our fair share of noisy neighbor complaints. In fact, we’ll even go out on a limb and say that noisy neighbors are probably the top neighbor complaint on the site. Keeping that in mind, we scoured the internet for some tips to help you out the next time it’s 3 am and your neighbor decides to let you know just how much they enjoy techno music. Check out the tips below before you pound on their door.

1. Talk to your neighbor.

Talk to your neighbor and try to resolve your differences in person. It’s hard to believe, but sometimes neighbors are not aware that they are causing a disturbance. Even if you’re ready to punch somebody’s lights out, try a little sugar instead. It can also be helpful if you’ve established a relationship with your neighbor beforehand. It may help the complaint feel less like an attack.

2. Keep a copy of your local ordinance.

Get a copy of your local noise laws. Most cities and counties have ordinances that control the times, types and loudness of noise. For example, many local ordinances prohibit unreasonable vehicle noise (like honking the car horn early every morning for a carpool) or dogs barking all night long every night. Noisy neighbors are in for a warning or even a fine. You can look up your local ordinance at city hall, a public law library or the public library. Make a copy for your neighbor and yourself.

3. Warn your neighbor in writing.

If things don’t improve, ask your neighbor again — this time in writing — to quiet down. Don’t make threats, but state that if the situation doesn’t improve you’ll be forced to notify the authorities. Enclose a copy of the noise ordinance. Keep a copy of your letter; you’ll need it if you have to sue as a last resort.

4. Try mediation.

Most cities offer free or low-cost mediation services, which means they provide an impartial mediator who will sit down with you and your neighbor and try to help you resolve your differences.

Just call the mediation service; someone there will contact the neighbor and suggest mediation. (These people are very good at convincing others to give mediation a chance.)

5. Call the police.

If you have done all of the above and your neighbor has responded by turning up the volume, now is the time to call the police (or the Animal Control officer if the problem is a barking dog). Try to get the police to come while the noise is occurring.

Of course, you can call the police on a noisy neighbor the first time the music gets too loud for your taste. But the police will be more sympathetic to your situation if they see that you have tried to solve the problem on your own.

6. If all else fails, sue for nuisance.

You can get your neighbor’s attention-and maybe some money-by suing in small claims court. You can sue your neighbor for nuisance if your neighbor’s noise unreasonably interferes with your enjoyment of your property. In the lawsuit, you ask for money to compensate you for the interference with your right to peacefully enjoy your home.

Small claims court is easy and inexpensive, and you don’t need a lawyer. You will need to show the following:

* There is excessive and disturbing noise.
* Your enjoyment of your property is diminished.
* You have asked the person to stop the noise (your letter should be enough to prove this).

To prove your case, you can use police reports, witnesses, recordings, your own testimony and the testimony of neighbors or other witnesses.

The amount you’ll want to ask for will depend on how much the noise bothered you. Did you lose sleep? Were you unable to carry on your usual activities, such as reading, playing music or talking to friends? Decide on a reasonable dollar amount per day, and multiply that figure by the number of days you’ve been seriously bothered. The amount of money you can ask for in small claims court is limited, between $2,000 and $5,000 in most states.

But what if you’re a tenant?

When you share walls with the insensitive neighbor, the problem is especially annoying. The good news for renters is that, in addition to all your other options, you have built-in allies in the battle to keep your apartment livable: your lease or rental agreement and your landlord.

Remember the lease or rental agreement you signed? Chances are your neighbor signed one too. Standard leases and rental agreements contain clauses that entitle you to “quiet enjoyment” of your home. A neighbor who is blasting the stereo in an unreasonable manner is probably violating the lease or rental agreement and can be evicted for doing so.

If you warn your neighbor about the noise in writing and are sure that your lease entitles you to a reasonable amount of quiet, send a copy of the lease along with your letter. In your letter, tell the neighbor that the next complaint will be to the landlord or neighborhood association if the noise continues.

If warning your neighbor doesn’t work, go to your landlord. Most tenants don’t like to complain to the landlord or manager about unreasonable noise or other nuisances because they are afraid of being branded as troublemakers. But other neighbors are probably bothered by the noise too. Get together with them and complain to the landlord as a group. It’s easier and you might get faster results. Most landlords don’t want arguments between tenants and won’t put up with tenants who cause trouble by ignoring signed lease or rental agreements. Your landlord will probably tell the noisy tenant to pipe down or face eviction.

–Adapted from www.tenant.net

Ah, the the nosey neighbor. Whether they’re peering at you through curtains, watching from the porch or backyard, or blantantly oogling you from the street, they seem to pop up everywhere with an appalling disregard for your privacy. But is there any way to get them to stop? Here at RottenNeighbor, we’ve come across some blue-ribbon examples of nosey neighbors. Whether they call the cops at the drop of a hat, spy on you through the window or generally just stir up trouble in the neighborhood, it seems they all make it their mission to know your business and get under your skin.

So how can you ward off a nosey neighbor? Our solution is three-fold: keep your cool, keep your answers short and keep out of the all the other neighborhood gossip.

1) Keeping your cool: It’s easy to tense up when you see the dreaded neighbor headed your way. After all, it’s probably been a long day and you just want to walk your dog in peace. So, when the barrage of questions ultimately begins, take a deep breath and stay positive. Remember: you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to. You’re not under oath, after all.

2) Keep your answers short: Nosey neighbors are often a dead give away by the questions they like to ask: “Who was that guy/woman at your house yesterday?” or “Looks like someone’s having a party.” Keep your responses to a minimum: “That was the electrician” or “It’s just a few friends from work.” Make yourself sound as uninteresting as possible and hopefully your neighbor will get bored, lose interest and move on to his/her next victim.

3) Keep out of all the other neighborhood gossip: This one seems like a no-brainer. There’s no way you can expect people not to talk about you if you’re the one spinning the rumor mill about them. If your neighbors are gossiping to you, avoid the temptation to divulge anything specific. Weaving yourself into the neighborhood gossip web only ensures future problems down the road.

Last, don’t forget that a nosey neighbor isn’t always as bad as he/she seems. At least they aren’t vandalizing your property, stealing your children’s toys or keeping you up all night. They just happen to be devoid of all social boundaries. Think of it more like the person standing too close to you in the checkout line: it may make you a little crazy for a small amount of time, but soon it will be over and you can make your getaway.

Do you have nosey neighbors? Submit your comments below or post on the site to tell us about them. And don’t forget–if you think you live next to the tackiest house in America, be sure to submit a photo or video to our contest for a chance to win $1,000! Click here for more details.

Here at RottenNeighbor, we’ve seen, heard and read about our fair share of nasty neighbor stories. People all over the world love to tell us their treacherous tales of neighbors gone good, bad and just plain ugly. So when we came across this video post of a nasty neighbor brawl, we had to make it our Featured Post of the Day. Check out the video below to see what we’re talking about.

Have you ever faced off against your neighbor? Post your comments below or on the map. To see the full post of the video below, click here.

Think you know what’s going on in your neighborhood? With RottenNeighbor Alerts, you can be the first to know when a sex offender or bad neighbor invades your neighborhood. Sign up to receive email alerts when Rotten Neighbors and/or Sex Offenders move into your neighborhood within a 1, 5 or 10 mile radius. New users can sign up at registration, and existing users can either update their profile or sign up on the RottenNeighbor home page.

Who’s watching YOUR neighborhood?

Weird neighbors: we’ve all had them and now RottenNeighbor wants to pay you for them. Submit a video or photo with a description of your neighbor’s strangest noise or most interesting lawn decor and you could win $1,000.

So what are we looking for? We’re offering $1,000 to the person who submits a video of the “funniest neighbor noises.” It can be a howling dog, a bickering couple or a loud garage band–if it makes you want to laugh, cry or hold a pillow over your head, we want to hear about it.

Don’t have a video camera? No problem! We are also giving $1,000 to the person who submits a picture of the “wackiest home improvement” idea. “Wacky” includes unusual landscaping, bizarre paint jobs, tacky lawn furniture or statues, etc. You have until August 15th to submit your entries. Voting concludes on Sept 15th.

So who can enter? You must be a registered user of RottenNeighbor to submit an entry and vote (you can post as many entries as you want but each user is allowed only one vote per day/per category of the contest - one for video, one for picture).

The contest winner will be judged by the number of unique valid registered user votes plus the number of views by the RN founders. Don’t worry- our staff (including our family, friends, and cocker spaniels) is prohibited from submitting entries (although we all have some unique neighbors of our own we’re sure you’d love). Submissions are limited to only the United States and our friendly Canadian neighbors up North.

We are NOT looking for posts that are defamatory or designed to embarrass, harass or annoy a neighbor. All entries must comply with RottenNeighbor user terms and conditions. By entering this contest, you confirm that you have read and understood such terms and conditions.

Click either video or photo to check out our contest leader board!

Wow, what a difference a weekend makes! We woke up to nearly 100X our normal traffic on Friday due an Associated Press article that was picked up by nearly every major online news site. We apologize if you experienced intermittent slow downs or site problems on Friday, our engineers were frantically tuning our databases and adding web servers to handle it all. We did manage to get everything under control within a few hours and we went on to have our highest daily traffic ever. Thanks to everyone, new users and old, who came to experience RottenNeighbor.com! Keep an eye out for our new contest ‘The Most Interesting Neighbor in North America’ coming soon!

To see an example of the story, click here.

At RottenNeighbor, we love watching bad neighbors get caught in the act. So when we came across this video post of one bad neighbor leaving a lovely “package” outside his neighbor’s door, we had to rewind it again. And again. Check out the video below to see what we’re talking about.

Have you ever caught your neighbors in the act? Let us know by either submitting your comments below or by posting on the map. To see the full post of the video below, click here.

As most of you have probably already noticed, we have started adding data from the national sex offender database to Rotten Neighbor. Living next to a sex offender could drastically reduce the value of your home or neighborhood. At Rotten Neighbor, we feel that a sex offender can be classified as the worst type of Rotten Neighbor possible. Sex Offenders appear on the map as red houses just like all other rotten neighbors. The listing will display the conviction type and conviction number. Click on “sex offender details” to see if a picture is available. To locate a sex offender on RottenNeighbor.com, please do the following:

• 
  
• Search for a city, state, or zip code using the search feature at the top of the page or below.
• View the Rotten Neighbors on the map results (red houses).
• Click on red houses and view the information balloon to see if the Rotten Neighbor is a sex offender.
• For most sex offenders we provide a link to more information including a photo, known aliases, convictions, and more.

Rotten Neighbor is pleased to announce the launch of our new Rotten Media section.

What is Rotten Media? When we introduced our new image and movie uploading features, the one request we got most from users was to be able to view the content in a more accessible way. We have answered your requests and are now happy to say you can view all pictures and movies in one centrally located area. On top of that, you can also sort the media by highest rated, recent, and most viewed.

At Rotten Neighbor, we feel that being able to post evidence to back up your claims is what makes us so valuable to potential home buyers and renters. We encourage all users to upload media regardless if the neighbor is rotten or rad.

So continue posting good and bad neighbors and feel free to give us any feedback you may have by visiting the contact page. RottenNeighbor.com is 100% community driven, and we rely on users just like you to alert others of good and bad neighbors so they can make a more educated decision when choosing a new home.

In our latest release, we have added photo and video uploading. We encourage all users to contribute to the site by providing evidence of either rotten or rad neighbors by uploading photos and video.

Users have several opportunities to upload photos. The first one is at the initial posting stage. On the post dialog box you will see a browse button. Use this to locate any images on your computer to upload to the post. Remember, at any given time after you have posted, you may go back and edit your post to change any information that might be inaccurate. This may include address, rotten or rad, title, description etc… This also includes uploading a photo.

You are not required to make a post to upload a photo. User can also contribute by commenting on existing posts. Here you will see the option to upload a total of three photos. Remember, if your photos are off topic, not related to the post or don’t provide evidence to back up your claims, they will be deleted accordingly.

For users wishing to upload video, we allow you to link to any existing YouTube videos. The only time this can be done is at the initial posting of a neighbor. You will notice a field to place the link. You can obtain these links from any YouTube video by looking for the line of code that says “embed.”