Sunday Morning Strategy Discussion: Neighborly Disputes
August 19th, 2007I’d like to start doing a weekly post on Sunday Mornings for strategic discussion. I’ll present the situation and what my strategy would be, and readers can leave comments and other suggestions that I will incorporate into a revision to be re-posted the next Sunday. This first discussion is how to deal with disagreements with your neighbor. Specifically, what to do when your neighbor throws raw chicken in your trash bin.
The Situation
Our porch and driveway smell like a dead animal. Which they should since some raw chicken still in their packages got thrown into our trash bin by someone. Of course, this isn’t enough to really warrant any action on our part, but suppose what was happening is that someone doesn’t like you, and they have decided to express that by doing random things that make your life considerably less pleasant.
The Goal
Get the person to stop making your life miserable. If they’ve caused significant property damage, get some kind of retribution.
The Strategy
The first step is to find out who it is that is doing these things. How to do this depends on the situation. If the events happen regularly every day while you are at work, try taking a day off and pretending to go to work before sneaking back and keeping a watch on your place. If the events happen at night, try getting up at a variety of times, or even staying up all night. If it’s really bad, maybe it’s worth investing in a camera or rigging a tripwire to a camera and an alarm so that you get a picture of who it is.
Once you know who it is, you can begin a response, either by speaking to them to trying and resolve the issue, retaliating in kind, or taking them to court. It would be a big mistake here to engage in any activity unless you are absolutely sure that you know who the culprit is. To me the response would depend on who it was, their motivation, and the damage and disruption it caused. If it is someone’s kid, I’ wouldn’t care about much except getting them to stop. If it is an adult that caused damage, I might take them to court.
Because the fighting or argument can’t continue forever, and because there are many legal ways to make someone’s life difficult, coming to a resolution so that further incidents are more unlikely seems really paramount. This could be in the form of a post-conflict discussion apologizing for whatever kicked the whole thing off, or a peace offering of some sort. Of course, nothing says they will take it, but if they do it’s a whole lot better.
Tell me your stories of dealings with neighbors and how you resolved them. If there is anything I missed, or something you would do differently, let me know and I’ll incorporate into a revision of this post.
-zot
Support The Decision Strategist.Popularity: 6%
