What's your worst experience with a neighbor?

[Clem Marques]

I had an interesting experience with a mainland parcel and it left me curious about what others have dealt with when it comes to rude neighbors.

A while ago, I saw a 1024m roadside parcel available in one of the Kama City regions and thought it looked nice. However, there was a neighbor right behind it: A gaudy, full bright store with animesh dancers and lots of adult pictures for sale, facing the street. After considering it, I decided to buy that piece of land and went on to build my house there. I placed a 1.5m fence around the property, which is not tall at all and did not block the view of his store. As an act of kindness, I bought one of the horrible pictures that guy was selling when I moved in.

Didn't take long for my IMs to suddenly get flooded with curses, threats and complaints out of nowhere. The guy was outraged by the fact that I bought that empty parcel and had the audacity to build on it! I wasn't offended, just confused and sort of amused. I asked him what was wrong and tried to find a middle ground, but he said that I should remove my house and my fence because they "blocked his road access" and that it would negatively impact his business. I offered to remove my fence, but that was not good enough for him. He wanted my parcel to have nothing at all on it.

He then proceeded to place a 50m high explicit, full-bright picture of lesbians right against the property boundary in an attempt to piss me off or get me to move out. Sure, his land his rules, that's the nature of Zindra and I would never want to change that. But doing that type of thing just to harass a neighbor is quite bad. I covered the picture up with a black square that was the same exact height as his object, and told him that I'd remove it when he removed the porn. Then I went ahead and blocked him, because I got tired of dealing with verbal abuse from a crazy stranger.

The neighbor then went on to rent a parcel that was next to mine to put another gigantic explicit picture there, but luckily the landlord was very good and kicked him out immediately when he saw what was going on, and told me about what the guy had attempted to do (props to that landlord for helping!) After a few weeks, the enraged neighbor finally relented and took down the ridiculously huge picture. I promptly removed the black square and we went on to peacefully and silently tolerate each other's existence for several months. 😂

I guess a point could be made that I was a bad neighbor too, but if building a house on my land is a crime... lock me up!

What's your worst experience with a neighbor?

Edited December 15, 2023 by Clem Marques

[Spiffy Voxel]

Thankfully, my experiences with neighbours over the years have been mostly positive where we've had any interaction at all. (Many cases, they were probably online at different times to me or busy elsewhere and I never saw them.) While I might not have appreciated some of their design choices, most of the time they were out of direct sight. Different strokes for different folks.

I've seen those kind of properties in my occasional travels around Zindra, which is fair enough since it is the Adult Continent after all. Honestly, I guess people must really like the novelty of being able to let it all hang out, so to speak. Definitely not the worst things I've seen in-world.

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

Years ago, I had my home on a parcel along one of the railroads in the Atoll, and I had a security orb on it. The orb didn't do anything awful to anyone, nor did it impede travel for other residents. It just controlled who could enter the parcel, because for some reason it was a popular spot for random folks to wander into my house and stand around like it was a rest stop.

Anyway, one day I was home with a friend, just hanging out in the back yard, when I suddenly got an enraged IM from the person who owned the parcel next door. She was positively outraged that she was not able to just march onto my parcel and come back to where we were chilling so she could introduce herself. She berated me for being a bad neighbor, and then...

ROTATED HER HOUSE SO THAT THE BACK OF IT FACED MY PARCEL. 

Funniest thing I ever saw in SL!

[Abnor Mole]

I've seen those things around the mainland. I always called them "eff-you walls". They just make me shake my head because it doesn't just affect the person immediately next to you. everyone else has to look at it too.

As much as some bemoan the covenant in Bellisseria and long for 'freedom'... it does tend to prevent those sorts of situations. 

[Clem Marques]

25 minutes ago, Abnor Mole said:

As much as some bemoan the covenant in Bellisseria and long for 'freedom'... it does tend to prevent those sorts of situations. 

That's very true. Bellisseria is better than Mainland when it comes to this type of situation. Lived there for a while and never had any issues.

Edited December 17, 2023 by Clem Marques

[Michael Blackwood]

Gesh.. to be honest: Even after now right precisely 17 years in SL (yay rezday on the 8th this month!) I can not remember more than one incident like that. And technically that wasn't even a neighbor dispute, but more so an ex partner that was pissed at being "politely let go". She took over plots around my home land on a private sim and placed obnoxious, huge signs all around me for a day. Thankfully the sim owner was kind, and I was on good terms with him, so after informing him he swiftly terminated her, banned her and removed the signs. Also that was many years ago.

Other than that I can honestly not remember one single neighbor incident... 😮

Edited December 17, 2023 by Michael Blackwood
Spelling

[Clem Marques]

1 hour ago, Michael Blackwood said:

Gesh.. to be honest: Even after now right precisely 17 years in SL (yay rezday on the 8th this month!) I can not remember more than one incident like that. And technically that wasn't even a neighbor dispute, but more so an ex partner that was pissed at being "politely let go". She took over plots around my home land on a private sim and placed obnoxious, huge signs all around me for a day. Thankfully the sim owner was kind, and I was on good terms with him, so after informing him he swiftly terminated her, banned her and removed the signs. Also that was many years ago.

Other than that I can honestly not remember one single neighbor incident... 😮

Yeah, luckily it seems to be rare for neighbors to behave like that, even in Mainland regions (that tend to be messier... and arguably more fun)

I posted about my situation because it was so unusual to me. It has only happened once in 7+ years and I was quite jarred by that encounter. It left me wondering if anyone had been through something similar. @Sylvia Tamalyn's post was a funny example  There are all sorts of people out there, some angrier than others and we need to learn how to coexist with them. It's just how life goes.

Sorry you had to deal with the obnoxious signs, that must've been annoying. Glad the sim owner stepped in to help and didn't let that go on for very long! 

Edited December 17, 2023 by Clem Marques

[Elora Lunasea]

Years and years ago, at the first land I bought, another resident had created some kind of "boys club" group and to say the place was overrun by teenage boy avatars is an understatement.

This I could ignore but what I couldn't was their apparent desire to buy up the entire sim piece by piece as other residents left.

Eventually I was the only holdout and they started erecting those giant prims all over the boundaries of the land they owned to force me out. Never offered to buy my land, just wanted to piss me off and make me leave. Eventually they blocked me in and I lost nearly all my water views. That left me no choice but to AR them but I never saw evidence that it made any difference. 

I stuck it out for months because if nothing else, I'm a stubborn girl and was not going to go down easy. But man those mega prims sure were annoying.

 I met Ghosty around this time and we eventually decided to find a place together and wanted more space than what I had myself, so I did abandon the land. But on my terms!

[Prokofy Neva]

There are so many I don't know where to start.

Some five years ago, a new neighbour put up a giant photo-real wall that really blighted the view on two-three sims all around. He didn't have a build on the ground -- his main build was up in the sky. So it really didn't seem necessary to put up the ugly photo-wall, which always looks jarring in-world -- you can uncheck "avatars can see me" and be invisible on your land -- and in his case, this would be the rare times he would be on the ground. It was nuts.

The owner of another rentals company, another long-time neighbour, and I all IM'd this character and asked him at least to make the photo-walls clear on our sides -- we would be looking at nothing then. Some people want the "sense of privacy" or enclosure such idiocies ensure, but of course if we were really keen to spy on this fellow, we could cam in through his wall lol. He was never there. 

Instead, he doubled down -- as such people often do -- and put up a giant, ugly picture of a disabled Black man leering into the camera. We AR'd it as racist and targeted behaviour such as to harass. Multiple times. The Lindens ignored us. The other company eventually abandoned their land and left, not only because they couldn't rent land near that idiot, of course.

I put up one of Felix's giant stone/tree walls as a backdrop and put a skybox for rent there which hardly ever rented. The down side of that photo real monstrosity is that it rezes first when you came on the sim, leering up at you 

And there it will stay, ensuring that no one buys or rents any land around it for years, because spiteful little men like this never tire of the sense of power over other people they gain in a virtual world, clearly lacking in their real lives.

[Aero Huntsman]

I've had pretty good neighbors over all, but I did have a bad one a several years back when I was still somewhat new and had first started living on the mainland. I had a nice little 8k roadside parcel that I'd purchased from a friend who had won it in an auction recently but later decided to tier down. All was well for maybe a day or two, before a former neighbor of his jumped in my box asking to buy the land from me for next to nothing. I assume that he had tried to get it during the auction and didn't realize that I had bought it from the original winner. He didn't take kindly to me politely declining his generous offer and proceeded to wage war on me for the duration of the time that I spent on that land.

He first rezzed out a big, flat, full-bright prim with a privacy fence texture on it facing my parcel but invisible on his side, which seemed a little passive-aggressive, but I didn't really care. A few days later, he changed the picture to an animated gif of a hypnotic spiral... to hypnotize me into selling him the land? I will never know. He never messaged me or responded to any of my messages after I told him that I was not interested in selling to him our first interaction. This lasted for at least a month or two, but I just put out some trees to block my view of the spiral and ignored him. He then rezzed out a humungous solid black, textureless tower that shot out red particles at it's tip. I'll never forget seeing him in the only usable space, at the top, sitting and looking out over the world like some kind of crazy supervillain. To this day I have never encountered such a strange neighbor.

Eventually, I got sick of the lag over there and sold the land cheap enough that someone (probably a bot) snatched it up within minutes. By this time, almost everyone else in the area had abandoned their parcels or simply moved to the sky.  Lord only knows who lived there after that. 🤣 I only hoped it would be someone could enjoy feuding with him, maybe they would even fall in love.

[Chloe Bunny]

Recently on a parcel I rented from a large landlord I started to put some things out of my inventory to resize and consider. I knew the covenant didn't allow certain heights etc I am very used to this particular covenant so I quickly started resizing and placing. I didn't have anything particular in mind I thought let's work out what to do here - I was using very popular building items.

A couple of these had been rezzed for 5 seconds tops when a message from a neighbouring tenant came through. There was no hello just a copy and paste of the covenant rules. I asked if they were connected to the Landlord they said they were not, only they had been watching me rezzing out and wanted to remind me of the rules.

I replied saying thanks but its okay I know what the covenant is and what I am doing - it's not finished, its been out 5 seconds and it may not stay or it may get whooshed up into a skybox I don't know yet its been 5 seconds.

They copy and pasted the covenant again as a response so I told them it was quite rude to be so enforcing over others' stuff within such a short space of rez.

They replied my stuff was ugly, (sorry Studio Skye!).

I made a complaint to the Landlord who told me to have a nice day.

I abandoned the parcel immediately, didn't care to mess with a refund just wanted to be away from such prying.

I also won't rent with that particular branch of big Landlord ever again. 

[Spiffy Voxel]

20 hours ago, Chloe Bunny said:

Recently on a parcel I rented from a large landlord I started to put some things out of my inventory to resize and consider. I knew the covenant didn't allow certain heights etc I am very used to this particular covenant so I quickly started resizing and placing. I didn't have anything particular in mind I thought let's work out what to do here - I was using very popular building items.

A couple of these had been rezzed for 5 seconds tops when a message from a neighbouring tenant came through. There was no hello just a copy and paste of the covenant rules. I asked if they were connected to the Landlord they said they were not, only they had been watching me rezzing out and wanted to remind me of the rules.

I replied saying thanks but its okay I know what the covenant is and what I am doing - it's not finished, its been out 5 seconds and it may not stay or it may get whooshed up into a skybox I don't know yet its been 5 seconds.

They copy and pasted the covenant again as a response so I told them it was quite rude to be so enforcing over others' stuff within such a short space of rez.

They replied my stuff was ugly, (sorry Studio Skye!).

I made a complaint to the Landlord who told me to have a nice day.

I abandoned the parcel immediately, didn't care to mess with a refund just wanted to be away from such prying.

I also won't rent with that particular branch of big Landlord ever again. 

Wow! While that kind of Covenant rule is fairly common, it doesn't justify such a snappy & passive-aggressive response.

I did recently come home this past Sunday to be confronted by a very tall image-border that had been erected by a new neighbour, but it was late in the evening UK time & I was tired so I just logged out for the night. Thankfully the borders were gone the following day, but if they'd still been there I'd have sent the neighbour a polite message pointing out that it was against the Covenant rules.

[Love Zhaoying]

1 minute ago, Spiffy Voxel said:

such a snappy & passive-aggressive response.

If you're referring to the landlord saying, "Have a nice day", it's sad if that statement has come to be seen as passive-aggressive! 

[Spiffy Voxel]

Just now, Love Zhaoying said:

If you're referring to the landlord saying, "Have a nice day", it's sad if that statement has come to be seen as passive-aggressive! 

I was actually thinking of the neighbour's copy-pasting the entire Covenant into an IM, and not bothering to communicate.

I can sorta-understand landlords not getting involved in minor disputes between neighbours, but maybe just say so instead of "have a nice day"?

[Love Zhaoying]

2 minutes ago, Spiffy Voxel said:

I was actually thinking of the neighbour's copy-pasting the entire Covenant into an IM, and not bothering to communicate.

I can sorta-understand landlords not getting involved in minor disputes between neighbours, but maybe just say so instead of "have a nice day"?

The neighbor's "bullying" tactic certainly worked in this case..

[Chloe Bunny]

For me in this case it was the overly rapid and not so neighbourly shoot down on what I was doing. I expect I think at least half an hour to organise things and if I had left offensive items out and disappeared - sure - maybe alert the Landlord about it and let them remind me.

The Landlord firstly said they would come and see what I had put out but my issue was with the neighbour. I didn't want this parcel next to a person who behaved like this - all I said to the Landlord was - this neighbour hasn't given me a chance to do NUTHIN. That's when they said "OK Dear. Have a Nice Day" so I guess it is just my principles. For me, rude communications = out. 

I know that one man's trash is another's treasure and what is ugly is down to perception. But I am a person of champagne taste operating on lemonade wages - Studio Skye is beautiful and I will re use it everywhere!

 

[Sid Nagy]

I always lived on private parcels and sometimes a few weeks in Belli, and to be honest the worst thing that happens is that the neighbors love full bright. Full bright trees, full bright house, full bright you name it. But that is just a small peeve. In such a case I pack my bags and move to another place. I ain't gonna argue about that. Each to their own. But I don't like it.

People wise I never ran into problems with neighbors.

[Rowan Amore]

Having rented almost my entire time in SL.on private estates, I can't think of one instance where the neighbors bothered me.  The estate company I rented from always had most of their estates divided into.parcels using mountain ranges.  Unless I specifically cammed around the mountain, I never saw a thing.  I'd never rent a.parcel on flat ground where I could see everything.  

Right now on my Horizons parcel, the guy a few parcels over has a bunch of bdsm crap on temp rez so even though I've gone.over and derendered everything he owns, that stuff still.pops up.  I hate that!

[Chloe Bunny]

17 hours ago, Love Zhaoying said:

The neighbor's "bullying" tactic certainly worked in this case..

They did me a favour to show me the true colours upfront so instead of what might have been an ongoing feud that I want to avoid it was an easy decision to make - going elsewhere the better option!

[Medusa Torok]

yeah  while ago i was renting a mainland plot to keep a few breedables on, there was open land all around, but one of the neighbours adjoining me had some sort of adult sex club somewhere high up in the sky. Which I wasn't remotely interested in or offended by, nor had i tried to go and snoop... why would I... the owner's profile told me all I needed to know and didn't want to know.. lol...   anyway whilst trying to position a barn on the ground  I must have inadvertently gone over their border by a tiny margin.  Found myself instantly ejected without warning and permanently banned from their land. I was somewhat amused by this, and thought the neighbour must be very ashamed of what they are doing in that skybox, to do this. I understand they want privacy, which is fine, but it seemed a bit extreme to me. They could easily have set it to group only access only or something. or put up a barbed wire fence with rottweilers on guard, I dunno.  I found it funny tbh....