unkept home

Keep your neighbors happy by avoiding these bad habits.

Allowing Exterior Paint to Show Signs of Wear and Tear
An old historic house is an absolute delight to see, but when you start to see paint is chipped, peeling or has rotting wood, revisit that thought. Your neighbors will consider it an eyesore and devaluing home prices on their street.

Letting Trash Accumulate
If you have so much trash that you need to stack the trash bags around your trash bin, you’re most likely irritating your neighbors. A common sense solution is to get more your more bins or containers to put your weekly trash inside. Nobody wants to look outside their window or go for a leisurely walk with their kids or dog down the street and notice bundles of trash bags stacked up every single week.

Abandoning Old Furnishings In Your Yard
You may think that tossing your old couch in the woods behind your house is an easy way to avoid hauling it to the dump, but if your neighbors see it, it becomes an eyesore and your neighbors will think you’re lazy!

Really Ugly Paint Colors
What’s equally as bad as chipped paint on a house? How about a lime green colored house? What about vibrant pink? Purple certainly doesn’t blend in well with the neighborhood either! When it comes to standard neighborhoods in Orange County, those colors are usually unwelcome and likely not acceptable by any HOAs.

Too Many Cars Parked Around the House
While some communities have restricted parking or won’t permit you to park your car on the street at all, some neighborhoods have no rules whatsoever. To be polite to your neighbors, don’t have too many cars parked on the street for very long.

Car collectors and those who have a hobby or business to restore 60s and 70s muscle cars and classics may be inclined to keep them parked around their home. Be careful of it appearing like a mini auto body shop to your neighbors. Residential zoning and code enforcement laws will probably be notified by a neighbor if it’s a nuisance.

Leaving Pets Outside
If your dog is joyfully enjoying itself in your fenced yard and running around barking at birds, at people pr things it hears or sees, you’re sure to make some enemies. It goes without saying, but owning numerous cats that roam your yard and trash area is annoying too.

Letting Your Grass & Bushes Grow Too Long
There are unwritten rules in neighborhoods and having overgrown grass and bushes looks sloppy, messy, and irresponsible. It may even be against city ordinance laws if you are not keeping your lawn properly cut because wild animals, pests and rodents are encouraged to make it their new habitat.

Never Taking Down Seasonal Decorations
It’s the month of April, but you still have Christmas holiday lights in the tree and bushes and you still turn them on at night. Or it’s August and you still have a huge Easter bunny and flourescent colored eggs in your front yard.

There’s not a lot of excuses. When a holiday is over, decorations should be promptly removed. No neighbor or visitor is going to want to see a six foot casket open with Dracula propping out on the porch in February.

Your House is Under Construction All the Time
A big renovation can certainly bug your neighbors, but as long as you have a game plan, and everything goes accordingly, you should have an end date you can give everyone.

However, when you keep changing contractors, altering plans, and adding more improvements that take a year or more to complete, the associated noise and mess that comes with it is definitely going to make some neighbors upset and who may make calls to local elected officials.

Your Security Light Shines Into Neighbor’s Window
Your security light may be effective in dissuading thieves and criminals, but it could also get you in hot water with your neighbor if you don’t angle it properly. Make certain that wherever you position it, it is both optimal for your home security and won’t shine into your neighbors windows, specifically their bedroom window.

Throwing loud parties
Frequent loud parties are a problem in some neighborhoods and apartment complexes almost everywhere. A large party can have guests taking up all the street parking, loud music playing, people jumping and playing pools, and it doesn’t stop until the morning hours.

This is intruding on your neighbor’s right to peace, quiet and even safety if you have some guests who become drunk, loud and aggressive guests leaving your home.

Too many yard sales
Having a yard sale two or three of times a year isn’t a huge problem. But if your part time job is weekly yard sales, your neighbors will definitely not like you. This brings in more people driving slowly to view your items for sale, more parking concerns, and more foot traffic. In addition, it can bring in criminals who may notice you or a neighbor’s home they can rob or do worse.