Whether you live in an apartment, a condo, or a house, there’s a good chance you’re going to encounter a nosy neighbor at one point in your life. I mean, unless you live out in the country, I guess, but small towns have their own issues.

If you’re dealing with a neighbor right now who just can’t mind their own business, the internet has a few suggestions!

Just an ending.

I had an old neighbor like this once.

It was back when I lived in a small conservative town in the US midwest, still pretty freshly married and also freshly out my own with my wife.

Anyway, my wife and I would always be sitting on the front porch of the place we lived (upper\lower styler duplex) we both worked a lot. Seeing as how we were working minimum wage jobs at the time we had to work a lot so we could pay bills, and eat, and put some money back. So the little time we had to relax and unwind together was pretty precious to us, (still is tbh).

So a few months pass of us living at this place and one day this very tall, very bald, black man just walked up onto the porch while we’re sitting there relaxing. We’ve had a pretty good amount of sketchy people see us on the porch and either ask us to bum smokes, or if they can have some loose change, or if we know where to get “any good drugs”

(I only mention his race because this is very conservative town in the pretty rural midwest)

We kinda look at each other and him as he’s walking up, and say “Hi how are you?” Not knowing what what to expect.

He replies, “haaaaayyyyyyy, how y’all doing tonight? My name is Thomas but y’all can just call me T. I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself, I live in that house right over there, (holds his arm up and flips his hand down to point at a nearby house very effeminately), and I just wanted to let come meet the neighbors, and let y’all know if you need anything ever. Just let me know. Welcome to the neighborhoooooood”

Us: “oh hey thanks for introducing yourself man! My name is Atlas_is_my_son and this is my wife Atlas_is _also_my_son. That’s very cool of you to walk over here and do that, we’ve only met our upstairs neighbor so far, and that’s because I work with him and we have some beers with him occasionally. Think the neighborhood is nice so far, etc etc, small talk.”

His response to this (to me) was, “Ooooooo, you mind if I come and smoke a cigarette with y’all and talk for a second? I’ll fill y’all in on all the dirty details of the neighborhood. Nothing too bad really sorry, it’s not dirty, but I’ll just tell y’all a little about the other neighbors.

Being too polite to say no so far at this point, “yeah sure, come on up and have a seat wherever you’d like”

So he grabs a chair beside me and sits down.

Looking at my wife, “so is you two really married?”

Us, holding hands and wearing our wedding bands, “yeah, working on our first year pretty soon”

Thomas, still looking at my wife: mmph girl you are one lucky lady to be married to a MAN that looks as good as this. I’m not gay or anything but guuurl if you didn’t say you was married just now I’d be trying to get him to drink some beers with right now. (Now looking at me, bashfully) Heeheehee.

Anyway, I’d say anywhere from once a week to once every few months, Thomas would randomly see us sitting on the porch and come up and make vague flirtatious remarks to me, and tell us how wonderful we were and how happy he was that we were neighbors.

He eventually came out to us officially (lol), and was so happy that we were still accepting of him “even though he was a sinner” he cried and told us we were the biggest blessing he ever had in his life.

Many many times he was annoying, and I\we just wanted to sit on our porch alone and enjoy the peace and quiet. But as a gay black man, in a small mainly white, very conservative, town, he needed our support more than we needed the peace and quiet those nights.

And oddly enough, even though he wasn’t an incredibly bright man in a lot of regards, he always seemed to say something that was incredibly insightful and thoughtful to what was going on with us either at work, or with distant relatives or something that there is literally no possible way of him knowing about us, and he always said in about himself.

He drank too much and smoked to much weed, but he was always just looking to escape the pain of literally everyone being un-accepting of who he was as a person, and him just wanting to be liked.

Anyway, there isn’t a happy ending or a sad one.

My wife and I moved back out west to be near family and finish school after we had our daughter, and that was the last I heard from Thomas. We exchanged phone numbers so that we could stay in touch, but he never contacted me and the two times I tried to contact him he was out of minutes or had maybe gotten a new phone number.

Be nice?

I live in an extremely religious community ( Mormons) so this happens all the time. I used to try to be vague and give hints but the best technique I have found is this one.

“I am kind of a private person.”

And then I compliment them on something I have noticed. “Nice grass” or “Hey thanks for checking on me, I know it comes from a good place.”

Every single time.

I ‘made friends’ with my neighbor at the beginning if lockdown. Now whenever I go out front of my house, he comes out. Every single time. Even when we just open our front door, he comes out and just sits.

One time, amazon dropped a package off when I was working on the side of the house. He opened his window, proceeded to YELL to me that amazon had delivered a package.

I don’t go out of the front door anymore, unless going to my car. I just hang out around back and even take my dogs on walks leaving through and arriving through the back yard.

Just keep an eye out.

I’m that neighbor. I’m an older lady who lives alone and I’m just trying to make a connection with my neighbors.

If something happens to me or my pets, I’d like someone nearby to at least notice they haven’t seen me in a while or worry about my pets.

With a smile.

I’ve always just casually said, “Eh, that’s kind of personal.”

When said with a smile, it usually works.

Good terms are preferable.

Look, it is important to be on good, if not, friendly terms with your neighbors. You will have them in your life for a long time whether you like it or not.

The responses that recommend short, vague answers where you follow up with questions of your own are the best. You may very well discover a new friend or you may both realize you don’t click and you will naturally not take it any further. But you will be left with a neighbor that is at least on good terms. Remember they may be the person to notice you being robbed when you are not home, or notice the smoke from a fire first, or be accepting of the noise from a large party you decide to throw.)

There could be a lot of reasons they are talkative and not all of them are them just being nosey or a dick. (They could be genuinely interested, lonely, had a bad neighbor in that house previously, etc to name a few. )

Not the Midwest guilt!

My partner and I just moved in to a house and got cornered by a neighbor for 30 minutes. My Midwest sense of guilt needs to clarify a few things.

We were on our way to do stuff, this neighbor started talking and didn’t stop for 30 minutes. I’m not exaggerating. Half an hour. Non stop talking AT us, not with us. We tried every little polite out we could take. Plenty of “welllp”s and “Damn, that’s crazy”s and even a few god damn “well we should really get going”s. I even started leading the conversation into the middle of the street hoping a passing car would seperate us. None if it worked. We only finally made it out of there because it got dark.

I’ve decided the next time this happens I’m just going to tell her politely, but firmly, that I need to take a dump and then just walk away.

You never know what people are going through.

I share a duplex with a retired widow whom I thought to be obnoxious and nosey, at first, but then I realized that she is actually super lonely. It’s the least I can do to chat for a few minutes here and there.

Plus she has definitely come through for me by letting me borrow stuff, keeping an eye out for packages, and stuff like that.

He has experience.

Anyways, I am generally a magnet for weirdos, so I have oodles of experience with this. The simplest way to deal with the nosey person is turn a lot of the questions back at them.

“Oh, thanks for asking, but I really need to know where you bought that fern. It’s so neat looking”.

“Oh, my job is boring. Tell me what you do for a living”.

Most of these busy bodies are looking for info to tell others. They’re so bored in their lives they have to know everyone else’s business. Either turn the question back at them or practice giving vague answers that say nothing.

“Oh, we’ve been married a while. Y’know, time flies”.

If you can’t or don’t want to talk to them, make sure you have very visible headphones on (even if your not actually listening to anything). Don’t remove them when they speak to you. Either just lift one each time they speak or leave them on and yell really uncomfortably loud when responding. Occasionally misunderstand what they said because you couldn’t hear them. If they push it, say you’re listening to classes to learn a foreign language for work. The boss put you on a deadline to learn it. (Pick an obscure language)

If all that doesn’t work (those extra special nosey people), start feeding them really strange information that they’ll sound weird repeating to the neighbors.

Of course, the best remedy is to just talk to them for a minute, then excuse yourself and tell them you really have to get back to whatever you’re doing. Then step away. But it’s sometimes fun to mess with the annoying ones.

Listen to your gut.

I’ve learned this lesson a very hard way I’ve know my neighbor (56m) for around 15 years and considered him a family friend. He watched me grow up and our families have even takin a vacation together. He was always nosey and asked personal questions but I shrugged it off as that’s just how he is.

That was until my girlfriend (20f) moved in with us. He slowly became more and more friendly with her. Asking her where she works. About her family. And slowly changing his personality to hers. I suspected something was going on. Keep in mind he is married with a daughter still in highschool. One day I came home from work and my girlfriend was sharing a beer and talk with him in his garage nothing out of the normal he frequently invited us over for beers and what not so I thought nothing of it.

A few days later my girlfriend comes to me in tears. And not of sadness but of frightened tears. After what seemed like forever she told me. That the night she had a beer with him he told her horrible things. That he wanted to f*ck her brains out and steal her and tie her up. He’s thought about breaking into our home and taking advantage of her. He as well broke into her car and was leaving her love notes.

My once friendly neighbor went crazy. I confronted him about the situation and he admitted to it and told me I was no good and did not deserve her. And keep in mind he told me this in his backyard with his wife and daughter home.

Fast forward a month later. (In this time he hasn’t showed his face since). My girlfriend gets off work early and as she is walking into our house he was hiding in the bushes asking if she was afraid of him. She ran inside and we had to call the police.

And for the next Two months he sat on his property line next to ours with a small foldable chair and just watched our house. So the best way to deal with a overly nosey neighbor is to cut the convo short and walk away.

The devil you know.

Be as polite as possible. Seriously, its better than having a bad one who you are constantly at odds with.

Quick but polite.

If you’re not very open to chat, just keep things polite yet quick. It’s nice to have a good relationship with your neighbors. If they do delve into personal questions, just say “that’s a bit personal, I’d rather not talk about that.” Most important thing is to be polite. Don’t be an a**hole, or act standoffish when it’s not necessary.

Honestly, just use some common sense. Don’t be a “redditor”, is all I’m saying.

Give them more than they bargain for.

Look honestly I have very poor social awareness and no filter at all so they would probably hear about how my chronic illnesses have resulted in constipation so bad that I have to be on laxatives for 6 months to restart my bowels and the consequences that all of this has on my s*x life.

I fully accept that I am the reason that I have very few friends

Some people go way too far.

Try having a neighbor who tracks when you leave and arrive back home. Talks to your boss about your work schedule and when you’re actually supposed to be at home. Asking my boss if I had Covid when she noticed I hadn’t left the house in a couple days.

The list goes on and on. I f**king hate nosy neighbors, is your life really that miserable you have to worry about STRANGERS?! I told her off and we are currently looking to move.

Some people are just bad neighbors.

A short, vague answer.

I don’t mind overly friendly neighbors as much. Giving a short vague answer to certain questions you’re not comfortable with is probably best.

The problem I have currently with a [new] neighbor is that they are not respectful of others space or property. They have over 7 adults and 5 minors living in the house. Cars parked in front of my home, rv’s, old scrap car in their driveway (city violation). They let their kids run all around my driveway, play with my doorbell, throw rotten fruit in my backyard. One of the adult men likes to leave his trash in front of my driveway, constantly yells at night. Power washes all of his cars and rv’s close to my driveway (all day). Several neighbors I have spoken to have had nothing but negative things to say about them, but no one does anything about it.

I try to actively ignore people like this, as they are renting the home and I have no idea how long for. But my patience is running thin.

I feel more prepared now for the next time this happens to me.

I do hope it will be awhile, though!