When a Neighbor Problem Needs Raising
For the noise, the parking or the fence that has been bothering you for weeks. It gets the specifics down, puts a knock before a note, names the one change that would fix it, and keeps the whole thing off the neighborhood group.
Neighbors · Assertiveness · Boundaries · 8 items · whenever you need it
The checklist
- Write down the dates and times it happened — specifics travel further than a general complaint.
- Ask whether they could even know it is a problem — plenty of noise has never been mentioned to anyone.
- Knock before you write a note — a note is easy to keep and hard to answer.
- Open with the problem, not the person — the hours and the bins, not what kind of neighbor they are.
- Say what would fix it in one sentence — “after ten on weeknights” is something they can actually do.
- Keep it off the neighborhood group — an audience turns a small thing permanent.
- Know your next step before you knock — the landlord, the association, the city, in that order.
- Decide what you can live with — you will still share a wall with them tomorrow.
Use this checklist Free account: tick items off and keep each day's record.
How to use it
Run through it whenever you need it, honestly and without scoring yourself. A checklist is a way of noticing, not a test: an item you cannot tick is information about the day, not a verdict on you. Over a few weeks the pattern of what gets ticked and what does not says more than any single pass.
With a free Theraglee account the checklist remembers each pass, so you can look back. Without one, you can still read it here and keep your own copy.