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| Welcome to the Neighborhood |
Well, you've come to the right place! As an avid renter for years and a former property management professional, I can provide you with five foolproof tips ensured to create animosity in your neighborhood and guarantee that your neighbors despise you!
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| With an evil glint in your eye and one man band in your soul, you'll steer your neighborhood any direction you choose! |
1. Noise, noise, noise
When I was managing properties, this was the number one complaint we received in regards to tenant disputes. If you want to be ostracized, the fastest way to accomplish this is be loud. Not just arguing loudly. I mean really, really insanely loud. Hold wild parties frequently where your 700 sq. ft. apartment is transformed into the hottest nightclub in town. On the weeknights and ends, play your awesome music selection loud enough so people within a five mile radius can learn your favorite song by heart. Because honestly, who doesn't want to enjoy their neighbor's Screamo while trying to host a dinner party for their in-laws? If the walls of your unit are made of paper mache, vacuuming at 3am is also a creative and unique way to unite the community against you.
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| Don't underestimate fifteen pounds of determined barking! |
2. Be a bad pet owner
For someone as responsible as you, this may be hard to accomplish since it will require, basically, irresponsibility. You will have to claim you love your pet and post hundreds of pics with you and your 'baby' meanwhile lacking any knowledge on training animals or any follow through to take care of one.
If you have a canine, when taking your animal out to do it's business, simple leave its little chocolate mounds all over the common area where other people picnic or take their kids to play. Make sure to do it repeatedly in the same area, thereby guaranteeing some ripeness when the July heat rolls around.
But it takes more work than disgusting laziness; oh yes, you must build up an immunity to dog barking. You need to let your dog bark whenever at whomever it wants. If a butterfly flitters into its outdoor territory, let your pet unleash a furor of cries that will cause those in the neighborhood to wonder if the area is being invaded by guerrilla soldiers. Be sure to leave your dog out all night just to make sure he keeps it up into the wee morning hours. While everyone else is jostled from their sleep about a dozen times during an eight hour period, you chug down some bottom shelf vodka and pass out.
If you have a cat, well, that's your problem; what you need is DOZENS, none of them spayed or neutered ensuring your precious cat colony will live on for generations, eight toes and three eye mutations be darned!
To really get into this, defensively claim whenever someone complains that they just hate animals.
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| *Ahem* Jim. June. This is looking a little private and low key. If you could amp it up a few notches that'd be great. |
3. Air out that dirty laundry!
Totally and enthusiastically disown the idea of privacy! Make sure to be in multiple dysfunctional relationships with toxic friends, family, and boyfriend/girlfriend. Then, whenever an argument with one of them reaches a Jerry Springer climax, move it outdoors to the front lawn for all the neighborhood to enjoy. This also includes angry phone calls.
I once had a neighbor that had mastered this art. All the strangers next door knew how the custody fights in the family were going, the gritty details of her bad relationships, etc, simply because the second something blew up, she'd race outside to yell and scream angrily on her phone, insuring that we all could share in the drama.
To really embrace this practice, use the old west saloon motto of 'take it outside boys' as your life code. Relish in the show you put on, shamelessly wanting everyone you don't really know to KNOW the soap opera that is your life.
Believe me, this is a great way to disinvite yourself from the community BBQ and Christmas caroling projects all the while making the topic of your life a legend among the gossips at the neighborhood rummy club.
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| Ah, 'tis a thing of beauty |
4. Revel in filth
Now, I'm not talking about the college kid who has a collection of fifteen pizza boxes sitting inside his house. Oh no, I'm talking about really going out of your way to make a mess, so much so that your despairing neighbors will wonder if you're doing it on purpose. But really, this one is an easy habit to acquire; just a few times of really getting up to your elbows in mess will make cleaning seem like an insurmountable task.
Don't be afraid to be creative -- at the mail box, absentmindedly and instantly throw all the junk mail you received on the ground; purposely walk three feet past a trash can to carelessly chuck your styrofoam Big Gulp on the grass; throw so many cigarette butts around your neighbors will wonder if they are seeing the remnants of a Marlboro parade which must have passed through while they were at work; have such an enormous amount of junk littering your front lawn that on Saturday mornings passing motorists slow down, wondering if you're hosting a garage sale.
Unlike the other annoyances, this one possesses the charm of never ending. While the music can be turned down and the drama breaks for lunch, your messy nest of vulgarity is an eye sore to greet everyone else each time they drive past, giving them no time to forgive you during a respite. It's endless and will serve your purpose well.
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| What's that? You want to know who threw the pink crayon in the dryer? BWHAHAHAHAHA! Why, it was I! Bob from 309! Who knows where I'll strike next! |
5. Be the Phantom Jerk
You know this person; the guy whose vehicle is always in your designated parking space or the doofus who chucked your laundry all over the floor at the coin op. The person who left their ginormous pickup behind three cars, thereby blocking them in, because it was raining and the driver didn't want to walk further than necessary. They steal newspapers. They damage a part of your property and never say anything about it. You see the wake of these agents of discord, these ninjas of disregard, but rarely are you able to put a face on the stranger who doesn't seem to realize there are other people inhabiting this planet besides him.
Do you have what it takes to pull this off? Very few do, for only an individual with blatant disrespect for others while still enough shrewdness to never have their crimes against their fellow humans witnessed can enter into this level of obnoxiousness.
Normally these daring little monsters are schooled in this art starting at birth and continuing through adolescence into adulthood. It's not easy, but their parents have worked hard, devoting hours of indulgence and careful patronizing to make sure their offspring grow up believing they are the center of the universe and everyone else comes second to their momentary wants.
Is it too late for you? Has your chance to be an inconceivable twit passed you by? Hard to say but, hark, there may yet be some hope! You, my friend, must unlearn every ounce of decency your family tried to teach you. You much practice the art of floating through life with blinders on and lose all ability to see past the end of your own nose.
It sounds hard but, really, it doesn't take as much energy as you would think and, once sworn into this Phantom Jerk Brotherhood, you will find yourself so miserably enjoying your squalor of selfishness, you just may never want to leave.
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| The truth of the matter? You miss out on so much, even a piece of your humanity, when you choose not to consider your fellow man. Be kind. Be considerate. You'll be surprised how many people need it. |
Photo credits:
photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/zouny/4349026082/">Design By Zouny</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/">cc</a>
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photo credit: <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nataliaromay/2619054151/">Natalia Romay Photography</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/">cc</a>
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