Building in Good Neighbours!

We can build and use our homes in ways that increase our positive bonds with the people who live nearby.

Sit on your front porch or steps if you have them from time to time to increase the neighbourliness of your neighbourhood.  Keep up your property, mow the lawn when it needs it, for instance, to also boost neighbourly good feelings.  We’re better neighbours when we know where our property begins and public and other people’s spaces end.

If you place a few plants at the edge of your property line or to separate the public walkway/sidewalk in front of your home from the edge of your front lawn, your bonds with your neighbours will deepen and become more positive, there will be fewer incursions on your space, both people walking on your lot and also from people littering, etc.  Any subtle signals of where your property begins will do the trick:  whether they’re a change in surface material on pavement, a step up or a step down, a white picket fence, or something else entirely—your neighbours and passers-by will notice and show more respect for “your place.”

Thinking of adding CCTV?  It will give you tape of any incidents that happen, but research shows that when people know they are being filmed they don’t feel as safe, which can significantly alter their behaviour.