I live on the top floor of a crowded 3-story apartment building. It’s an old building, built sometime during a frugal period in the 1960s when insulation was apparently considered a frivolity. For what it lacks in amenities like insulation, it makes up for in lovely views. I’d like to think of myself as a good neighbor, but now that I’ve seen 3 families (and counting) in the apartment below mine come and go, I’m starting to fear otherwise.
First, there is the fact that I have two small children who consider flailing about on the floor, stomping in fury, and galloping around like horses all a normal part of the day. As a family, we tend to wake up early (and noisily) and go about a day punctuated by lots of talking, instrument playing, and sibling battles. Also, there is the fact that I have rabbits who reside half the time on the outdoor balcony, where they can bask in the sun and happily race around in the fresh air. Their hay and fur tends to blow about and end up on other people’s balconies.
My last downstairs neighbor was highly offended by all of this and more. He complained to me, he complained to the apartment manager, and he left numerous angry notes on my door. I was apologetic. I tried to reduce the noise, hay, and rabbit fur. I felt terrible to think I was making someone else unhappy in his own home. But he only got angrier, and ultimately, he moved out. Traumatized by all of this, I begged the apartment manager to find a family with small children to move in below me. She did, and now I get to hear happy family noises coming from down below, and while they probably find all the noise we make annoying, I’m ever hopeful that they might find the sound of a badly played trumpet at six in the evening an endearing sort of sound. Maybe even charming.
My September Blaze, Made You Look, was released this week, and it deals with neighborly relations of an entirely different sort. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything nearly so interesting happening through any of my own neighbors’ windows as what the heroine of the story sees, but as always, I’m ever hopeful.
How about you? Are you a good neighbor, or like me, one who wishes to be good but falls short due to noisy children and furry rabbits? What’s your favorite strange neighbor incident? Have you ever seen anything wildly interesting through a neighbor’s window?
Answer any of these questions and you’ll get yourself a chance to win my current Blaze, Made You Look, or any one of my previous releases (search my name on Amazon for a complete list of titles). Oh, heck, how about three winners? I’ll randomly pick three winners from your responses.
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About a year ago I had new neighbors move upstairs over me. They had only been there a couple of days when the man hooked up their washing machine. Needless to say he didn’t hook it up right and he flooded my laundry room. I’m disabled and it’s hard for me to make it up such a flight of stairs so I called my son-in-law who is in the same complex so he was here in five minutes or less. He went upstairs to talk to the guy. He had to come downstairs to my apartment to check it out. Then he says he didn’t get the drain hose on tight and it flooded his laundry room. Where did this idiot think the water was going. In our complex you are not supposed to do laundry after 10pm and these jokers do laundry all night long. I have to keep a fan going in my bedroom to drown out the noise of their washer going at 3 in the morning. I try to be a good neighbor. The only time I said anything to the manager about them was when they flooded my laundry room. It did some damage so the maintenance man had to come in and do some repairs. Sometimes apartment living is not much fun. I hope you have better luck with your new neighbors.
Linda Henderson
Yikes! Much as I’d love to have my own washing machine, I’d hate to live below someone else’s.
I also live in an apartment building and consider myself a very good neighbor. I never blast my music and have never had complaints from neighbors. The people who live below me sometimes play their thumping music too loudly, which is annoying.
I was the bad neighbour once. I fed the birds outside, not realizing that, like your rabbit, the mess they left on my porch drifted down and was disturbing my neighbour. I didn’t know it was an issue until I overheard her talking to a friend about “the woman upstairs.”
SO embarrassing.
I was much more conscientious after that. If she’d ever said anything to my face though, I would have apologized and stopped immediately – long before she felt the need to sneer about me.
OTOH, I had another neighbour who came knocking on my door when I turned up the stereo too loudly. I apologized, thanked her for letting me know and then turned it down and checked with them to make sure it wasn’t disturbing them any longer. I always made sure they were gone if i wanted to crank it after that.
I really respected her for coming knocking.
Hi! I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend so far!
We have lived in this house for 26 years now, and half of our neighbours have been here longer! I think I’m a good neighbor. When a neighbor’s parent, spouse, or sibling passes away, I am the one who goes around the 20-house neighbourhood to get donations for a plant and signatures on the card. I have organized a street yard sale every year for 23 years now, where we all have individual sales at our homes the same day so that we don’t have traffic disrupting our kids more than once a year for numerous sales instead (and it is cheaper for advertising). I help organize a street BBQ every year or two held in another neighbor’s yard.
Favorite strange neighbour incident? About 15 years ago, two sisters moved in next door. They had 2 indoor cats and 1 outdoor cat. We had been used to many cats in the neighborhood, but we soon realized that their 1 cat liked to walk up and down our car, and sharpen its claws on our car’s vinyl roof. The roof was a mess. Every time I would be carrying recyling out to the road at the same time as one of the sisters, that sister would turn around and walk back in the house. They refused to meet/greet us for their first six weeks. At the six-week mark, though, I got really annoyed with that cat destroying our car, so I marched over and nicely introduced myself. Then I proceeded to explain that we have a bylaw in town that both cats and dogs must be on a leash. “Oh no!” They couldn’t declaw the cat and have it stay inside. “It would just kill the cat to be stuck inside all day!” Besides, it would destroy their furniture! I commented that it was destroying MY car instead. I said something needed to be done. They suggested that they let the cat out at specific times of day; I said no, as we are not going to be guarding our car, etc. They suggested we park in our garage; I said no, as we didn’t have a garage door opener at the time. I left it with them.
Two weeks went by and still we had problems. I had called City Hall, the animal control officer, and numerous officials. Finally had a cage delivered here. It had a sardine inside the closed-in cage, so that when the cat got all the way in, it would touch the sardine, and the string attached to the sardine would pull the “back door” down, thus entrapping the cat. I put it on top of my car on a mat so that none of the other ten or so cats in the neighborhood would be affected. The next morning the trap door was down but there wasn’t a cat inside. The neighbor phoned that night and suggested a face-to-face meeting with me and my DH (since she obviously removed her cat from the cage that morning). I said DH was away on a business trip and had left it with me. I had called all these officials and was well within my rights to do so. Neighbor suggested that they would go half on a tarp for my car. I said no. I was not putting on and taking off a tarp 10 or more times a day most days! (I worked outside the home and picked up and brought home the kids for lunches, etc.)
They bought invisible fencing for their “baby” because they were not going to declaw the poor thing (although the other 2 cats were declawed). Cost them $1100 at the time. The cat walked outside the front door for the first time with the new collar and got zapped, then refused to ever go outside again! I presume they declawed the cat then and the cat has since died.
The neighbours didn’t talk to us for almost 10 years. Then the one sister got a job where I was working. She had a room just off the hallway where I worked. She had to walk by me all the time and she had to speak nicely to me.
I have since quit there to work from home instead, and amazingly enough, both she and her sister have been in our home a few times and now talk to us whenever we drive in the yard, etc. It’s a miracle….
I hope YOU have some miracles too, and good luck with your new neighbors!
Wow, that’s quite a tense neighbor situation you had to deal with! I’d be mortified if my cat was damaging someone’s car. And actually as a long time cat owner before I got rabbits, I know that merely trimming a cat’s nails regularly cuts down on approximately 90% of the damage they’re capable of doing to furniture. Too bad your neighbor wasn’t more willing to see things from your perspective.
We get along great with the family on the other side so I guess it is just that guy and his wives problem.
Hi Jamie, I think we all aspire to be good neighbors, and somehow or someway we fall short. I think that I am a good neighbor, but I think being single helps a lot. I live at a boarding school, and I have always had neighbors who had children. I am pretty tolerant, so I never tell them they are too loud or anything. I try to make sure that when I blast my music they aren’t there or the kids aren’t taking naps. Sometimes it is unavoidable, but I am pretty easy going. I am glad that you finally got a neighbor who has kids…now your kids could have new playmates, and you get someone to talk to. Nothing like commiserating over tea, coffee or whatever your drink about child-rearing and day to day things mom have to do. I am not a mom, but I have many friends who usually get away and visit with me when they need a break.
Peace and love,
Paula R.
Your new book sounds fab Jamie! My husband and I are very good neighbors. We have had some problem neighbors over the years that always complained about our yard but now we have two very nice families that live on either side of us. I am not one to look in other people’s windows but something funny happened to our previous neighbors.
Linda & Don used to live next door to us about 10 years ago. They were a really fun couple! I miss them! Anyway, Linda said she liked to clean in the nude. One day, she was sweeping the floor with a broom and started dancing all around the room with the broom in her hands. She said she caught of glimpse of something and turned her head to look. Old Mr. Wagner, taking his daily walk, was peering through her window and saw her dancing nude! She said she was mortified, screamed and ran from the room!
I asked her if she ever cleaned again in the nude. She said she was to scared for a long time to do it but I bet where she lives now, far out in the country, she can do it to her hearts content with only the birds to see her!
My parents are next-door neighbors of mine. I glance through the dining room on my way to the side door and find my Mom carrying on what seems to be an entire two-sided conversation on a regular basis. lol
Deidre
hot book congrats and great reveiws
i hear fights and kids running upstaris kind of loud and late at nite lol
It was a good book Jamie. I enjoyed it. It’s a plot that never really crossed my mind. I think that’s the reason I enjoyed it as much as I did.
As for being a good neighbor, I hope that my neighbors think I am. My husband and I moved into the house that had been my childhood home, upon my mother’s passing in 2006. Most of my neighbors have changed at least once in the 40 years I have walked this Earth. But they most all know me since my days of hide and seek and skinned knees. I guess this is the point where I should say that like most parents mine rasied me to be respectful and polite. I honestly can say I tried. What I am NOT proud of is of all things, THEIR behavior when I was a child. My father was very argumentative. Small things set him off. My mother felt the need to be snobbish and supportive of all the dumb things my dad did to tick off the neighbors. And they only spoke to maybe 3 of all our neighbors on the block in all of my time at home. I found this to be very wrong, and highly distasteful behavior from them. So about the time I hit High School, I called them on their behavior. But I was just their bratty kid, what did I know? I think I hit a nerve when I brought up the ‘golden rule’ from all my years in Sunday School. You know the one “Do unto others…” Needless to say, they backed off on some of their behavior, but not all of it.
My husband & I have now been back here 3 full years. I am proud to say I have a MUCH better relationship with all of these neighbors on my block than either of my parents did. We keep the house as tidy as we can, and I am proud to say it really looks good now compaired to when my parents were at the end of their lives. They tried, but could only do so much. I enjoy knowing that I can call up the neighbors and say “It’s a beautiful night. Wanna come over for a glass of Ice Tea on the patio?” And have them all say “Sure, what time?” Since I know my parents never even thought to take that route in life.
I am far from perfect, but I like to think I did learn from my parents lessons and mistakes. So I guess they succeeded in life. Isn’t that what every parent strives for?
Thank you Pamela! And if only we could all have neighbors like you!
I can say that I have seen some crazy stunts that some kids kept doing at the house behind mine. First locking each other outside on the porch roof, then dancing around naked on said roof, then jumping from roof to pool down below. Then one day hitting the house with paint balls… that place was a mess and it was a rental… I was so glad when they left!
Colleen, you just reminded me that I once found a neighbor’s children on the roof of their house. I was disturbed enough by it to call the police after demanding that the children carefully come down from the roof. Turns out the mom was in the shower and had no idea the kids were up there. Eek.
We have some good neighbors, but there’s a couple of apartments on our floor that play loud music all the time. They also have many strangers coming in and out of their apartment.
I have a question for you instead. You mentioned that your book came out last week. I thought that it had come out two weeks ago and have been searching the bookstores for it. When I saw that Walmart had out the second shipment of Sept. Harlequins, I gave up and special ordered your book and two other Blazes at Books a Million. My question is, “Why couldn’t I find it in the stores? Are Blazes part of the second shipment now? When were they released?
Hi Nancy,
I’m sorry you weren’t able to find my book in stores! Blazes are first cycle books and are technically supposed to arrive in stores on the first of the month. I have heard that some stores put them out earlier than the first of the month, which makes things incredibly confusing for all of us. I doubt Harlequin has any control over that issue, but I could be wrong. The best way I can think of to handle this problem is to pick a store where you prefer to buy your Harlequin books and ask the manager there or the book stocker when exactly they put the new Harlequins on the shelves each month. It’s likely a book stocking person would best know the answer to that question. I know it’s very frustrating though–I’ve had trouble finding my OWN book in stores! Which is why I order most of my books online now.
The houses on either side of me are rentals and the one across the street is a rental and strange things are always going on in one of the three but he worse was in the one across the street where the man and woman (I have no idea if they were married) were in the front yard beating each other up as I pulled into my drive way one afternoon. I had heard them yelling and cussing each other out frequently but this was the first time I actually saw fisticuffs going on.
Soon after they moved out involuntarily.
Yikes! That’s terrible!
I’d love to be a better neighbor but I usually fall short. I’ve never seen anything strange at the neighbors thank god.
Funny story: One day my husband and I were going to take a walk and we ran into our neighbors and asked them to suggust someone (a kid) to clean out our gutters. They didn’t know anyone. However, when we got home they had done it and gave us a bill for $40!
Oh my gosh, Laurie! The nerve they had boggles the mind!
Thank you to everyone for your responses! I want to reply to everyone but need to get myself off the computer for a while today.
It’s been fun hearing your neighbor stories. I’ll post winners of the contest tomorrow to give people who are away for the weekend a chance to enter.
Happy Labor Day, everyone!
Hi, Jamie! I like to think of myself as a reasonably good neighbor; we don’t have much in the way of pets or big plants, so the only way we infringe on our neighbors is when the kids are screaming in the backyard or worse, when I’m screaming at the kids ;p And thankfully we’ve got good neighbors! The one entertaining incident was when their dog started magically showing up in our backyard. We finally figured out that there was a loose board in the fence where she was sneaking through and we took care of that, much to her and my kids’ dismay (they liked watching out for her to appear).
The randomly chosen winners of the contest are… Fedora, Pamela J, and Patsy Roberts! Congratulations! Each of you, please email me at jamiesobrato AT yahoo DOT com with your full name, mailing address, and your selection of the book you’d like as your prize.
Thank you everyone for participating!
Congrats ladies… enjoy!
Hi Jamie! We make terrible neighbors, so we moved waaay out to the country. With three boys, at least that many guitars, and a night owl schedule that keeps us awake til all hours, it was the kindest gift we could give to the town. Now, we can only bother the rabbits! They feed themselves here, so when they get tired of us, they can take off for parts unknown. I like to think they favor me best since I’m the quiet one in the house
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