How to deal with an unfriendly neighbor?

Question

Hi everyone,

We recently closed on our first deal! I am so excited about that! It is located in California and is going to be a house hack where we rent out two sections of the property (a huge single family house) and live in the third section. We have already submitted our plan to the city and it is ready for approval conditional on the approval of our adjacent neighbors. We are going to change a window to a sliding door on one side and add a french door to the opposite side of the property. The neighbor on the french door side has already signed the city form, however the other neighbor (on the side of the sliding door) doesn't want to sign the form. His reason is that he works at night and sleeps during the day and his bedroom is right where the sliding door is going to be, so he doesn't want people to use the door while he is asleep! This neighbor seems like an always angry person. He has already caused a lot of issues for us in the few weeks we have closed on the property including calling the city to stop work, yelling at our contractors for parking in front of our house (their car had gone a tiny bit in front of the neighbor's driveway), etc. He is also very suspicious... parks very large vans (about 4 to 6 at a time) in front of his property and on his driveway to cover the house, has cameras everywhere, is hanging cloths from his patio cover so no one can see the inside of the house, etc. Do you guys know how we can get this person's approval? Any suggestions on how to approach an angry suspicious person in general?

BTW, We haven't mentioned anything about our house hacking plan to the neighbors.

Steve Davis · Answer

@Negar P. Sometimes there is not a whole lot you can do. Generally neighbours hate infill developments, construction, and any sort of change taking place to their neighbourhood so try not to take it personally.

If there is an alternative to have the sliding door elsewhere on the property or another alternative to make this triplex work maybe run it by him and it will show him that you care and are willing to cooperate with him...

Negar P. · Answer

@Leo Chun Thank you for your response :)

We have talked with only one other neighbor so far, she said the angry guy has caused issues and nuisances for everyone in the tract. Also the seller of our property had put down in his disclosure that there had been some nuisances and back and forth between the angry guy and the other neighbors including our seller over him parking many vans, etc. We didn't think too much into this because we thought we won't care about his vans... however, it seems like he is just an uneasy person in general. It seems like he doesn't even want to speak with us (tries to cut the conversation short as much as possible or avoid it)

I think it is a great idea to talk to the other neighbors, they may know him more and be able to help

Leo Chun · Answer

Hi @Negar P., congratulations on closing your first deal! That's a huge milestone that will be remembered for the rest of your life! Sorry to hear about the bad neighbor situation, that can always be an irritating inconvenience.

For this situation, I would recommend checking in with the other neighbors and asking how they feel about him and what their suggestions may be. See if your other neighbors are having similar suspicions, it may be something multiple people have to work out.

If you want any luck with getting this neighbor to sign, I would recommend getting to know them and talking it out. Tell them about your new endeavor, and some things about yourself. Be nice, be smart with your conversation. Know what you want to talk about before going in there.

If you think the suspicions start to grow with this neighbor, you can start taking notes and pictures. This way, you will see if this is a real problem or not. Alongside this, if anything comes down to this, you will have a record to show authorities.

Good luck with this!

Leo.