Being a good neighbor is all about having consideration.

This starts with the basics, like keeping the noise down and maintaining a clean property, and it extends all the way to helping out the people that live around you. Developing a good relationship with your neighbors can be very rewarding, and is one of the crucial building blocks towards creating that community that we are all told we need to pay more attention to. It is, in most cases, a good thing to do.

That being said, enjoying a cordial relationship with those who live near us can sometimes be a struggle. No matter how you try to spin it, some people are just terrible neighbors with whom even basic politeness is going to take a lot of effort. Others may appear friendly and decent, but when you help them out, it becomes a tacit expectation that you should be there to solve all of their problems. While supporting neighbors is a great thing to do, the reality is that everybody has their own obligations that mean they may not always be able to come to the rescue. There is a certain type of person who will not hesitate to guilt trip about this.