Home renovations can be disruptive both for you and your neighbors. You may be able to put up with the mess, the dust and dirt and debris because it’s your project and you want to improve the value and usefulness of your home but what about your neighbors? There is no reason why you should expect them to tolerate the inconveniences. You want the work to get done but you need to find solutions to these inconveniences so that you can maintain a good relationship with your neighbors.
So let’s discuss some of the problems and their potential solutions:
1. Extra traffic:
As I have already mentioned during your home renovation work, there are going to be a lot of trucks coming and going from your place and some of them will also be parking on your street. This may lead to traffic problems and create some safety concerns for their children.
The solution is to designate to the workers and delivery guys where they can park and remind them to be considerate of the neighbors. The contractors also should be warned that they are responsible for any damage to your neighbors’ property.
2. Dirt and dust:
Any home renovation work will create some dust, dirt and debris. This debris can easily pile up on your property and may even collect on your neighbor’s property because of the wind.
The solution. While not much can be done to control this problem, the contractor can be asked to keep the job site as clean as possible. It is important to do this especially near the neighbors house and they should also at least once a day make sure anything that has blown into the neighbors yard is collected. As a goodwill gesture you could provide your neighbors with free car wash coupons and offer to get their windows washed.
3. Extra Noise:
Most home renovations will involve some extra noise from the tools and equipment that are being used as well as all the extra vehicles coming and going, bringing in materials and workers. Children are particularly affected as they typically sleep during the day and sometime this is true of seniors as well.
The solution to this is to keep your neighbors informed well in advance about the schedule of work. You need to also assure them that you are going to do everything possible to reduce the noise and to complete the work in a timely fashion. Also asking the contractors to work only during certain hours of the day (like only between 7am and 7pm) and not on weekends.
4. Nuisance factor:
Home renovation can be quite a nuisance for your neighbors; the sight building materials piled high for long periods of time. Also the safety concern these piles might be to the neighbors.
The solution is to secure the work site suitably so that the children of the area can not play inside the work area. You might also try to have deliveries as close to the work being done as possible.
5) Foul language:
It’s also fairly common that construction workers use foul language a lot on the job.
The solution is to warn your contractor that this is inappropriate language especially where children are near by and it won’t be tolerated.
Finally you can do yourself a favor and after the home renovation work is complete, is to throw a party for your neighbors and give them a tour in order to thank them for tolerating the inconvenience caused to them.