Is the exterior of your home quietly making you enemies around your neighbourhood?
Not everyone has the same decorative tastes. However, there are some things that are almost universally unpopular in most neighborhoods across North America.
Maybe something about your home istoo loud. Or maybe your décor is too modern or too outdated. In either case, neighbours love to gossip and nobody wants their home to be the subject of dubious conversation.
To keep you on everyone’s good side, here are 5 things you will want to avoid.
1. A Loud Garage Door
One of the easiest ways to alienate people is to wake them up at night. If you can’t leave for work early in the morning or get home late at night without waking people up when you pull into the garage, it’s time to make a change.
Today’s modern residential garage doors options and openers are far more silent than previous generations.
You can also add an insulated garage door to lower your utility bills, while you actually increase your home’s resale value.
2. Your Lawn or Garden
Not everyone has a green thumb. Nor does everyone have the time or inclination to take the best care of their lawn.
However, if you have the worst lawn in your neighbourhood, it can really stick out for all the wrong reasons. If you don’t have time to stay on top of it, feel free to outsource your landscaping to an area teen for a few dollars.
3. Overloaded Trash Cans
This is more of a behavioural habit than a decorative problem. We know a lot of neighbourhoods have bag/can limits on garbage day, but avoid the temptation to put an overflowing trashcan in front of your home.
This looks terrible, to begin with. Also, the slightest breeze can send your overflow all over the neighbourhood.
Avoid becoming(quite literally) the trashy neighbor. Buy bigger garbage cans that make a tight seal when you close them.
4. Tacky Lawn Decorations
Your neighbour may not know that you’re being ironic by adding plastic flamingos or palm trees to your yard. Nor will they care.
A gnome in your garden may be cute,but turning a toilet into a planter may be asking too much patience from your neighbours.
5. Your Christmas Decorations
We could write an entire blog on the etiquette of being a good neighbor over the holidays.
You can put your lights up too early, or take them down too late. You can be too loud or too bright. And of course, there is being too tacky and clashing with the rest of the tasteful neighborhood.
Your best bet is to take your cues from your neighbors. Never be the first, the brightest, the loudest, or the last.
The exterior of your home sends a message to your neighbors, and you don’t want that message to be, “I don’t care.”
Take a little bit more time to be mindful of how your home looks (and sounds) and you will be far more popular among your neighbors.