Paranoid Neighbor.....

I sincerely ask for advise as this has seriously gone out of control.

How do I tell a neighbor that we are not her doormat in a nice way trying to maintain a good relationship?

We have been neighbors for almost 5 years now. Where did the good old, good neighbor manners go????


-since the mother works out of home, their children, at least once a week, comes to our house to spend time instead of having them out. They have dinner and a bath with my children due to the curfew they are suppose to be back but, for the curfew, if 1 minute late, I get a call, without any thank yous.


- We lend them our BBQ grill sometimes for their usage but, last time, it was simply just put in front of the block entrance door( outside the secured door) without any thank you's nor "hey we left it outside!!!" notice. We only noticed as another neighbor told us.


- this Saturday, I took my older one who is still not confident in swimming to the compound pool. We bumped into the mother and 2 children, and they decided to join us. 1 started swimming, 1 is still on arm bands. Thought the mother would watch but no!!! She was flipping though her magazine while I was making sure, apart from my own daughter who is still on the process, that her children were safe in the water and entertaining them. And again, no thank you's, just a comment on how good a motor I was for their boat. She never realized how her older one was clinging on to me not panicking where I had to tame her not to.


- she accuses me of using her helper where, it's not even me that asks her helper, her helper just wants to do things for us voluntary as she thinks that we have been her life saver so many times. Although, the funniest point is, she asks our helper to help her without letting us know, I know this as our helper told us one day to have this mother stop this nonsense of accusing me.


Now, if this was someone outside our compound, I would care less and just cut them off but, they do live in the compound and our compound is quite small.

How can I imply to this lady that enough is enough.



Thank you so much for your advise.

Or......if you want to be more direct, you could ask your friend to coffee for a chat with just the two of you and say: "I have really valued our friendship over the years and the fact that our families have been able to help each other in so many ways; however, I'm starting to feel uncomfortable with our most recent interactions. I feel taken advantage of when you don't thank me for help and seem to assume that we are always available to do things for you. I don't want to lose your friendship and thought I would be up front about my concerns so we can come up with a solution together."


Good luck!

Then give examples: "When you left me to watch both our kids during swimming, I felt overwhelmed. It would mean a lot if we could take turns watching them so I can have a break."


Model: "When you did X, I felt Y. I would like you to do Z instead."

I think Cara's advice is better no need to be too direct as Nutmeg suggest.

sounds to me as though the 'indirect' approach outlined by cara will be water off a ducks back. I would definitely go for a blunt 'tell is like it is' approach. Life is too short to pussy foot around with politeness when none is required.

Are you and your neighbour of different nationalities? If you are, perhaps her customs are different to yours. There might also be some language or comprehension problems.


My strong advice would be to try to get along with all your neighbours, and if you cannot get along with them, at least be nice to them - which does not mean doing favours for them, it just means being polite.


It is far better not to have an on-going conflict with anybody who lives near you.

Thank you every one.


@ Cara, once again, you give out great great advises from being the person's shoes!!!! I read a lot of your replies to other threads and always think, ok, it's going back to basic and why did I not think of it?????


@ Nutmeg, thank you so much for your advises as well, next time she is willing to speak to me, I will sit down over wine or something and have a chat as, for me, the most important thing is that the children are ok. We are kind of a community here and the neighborhood has watched out for each other's child and I still want to keep that going as you never know when someone can save your child.


@FIFIB and boddingtons, thank you so much for giving me the "push"!!!


@woods99 yes, we are different nationalities. And I have taken that into account( you can never fully understand another culture principle understood) thus, I have been very observant. I was really taken back and decided that this has nothing to do with cultural differences as isn't it a mother's duty to watch over a child's safety at the same time pushing them to be independent? I thought this has become a "sensibility" issue for me. But, you are right, will not have this incident rain over my principle of we are all different people. And you are right, I should be very polite so that conflicts do not happen!!


@Jim Fit, no worries, this is not my only worry, I have tons, having 2 children not knowing when my husband is going to get fired( touch wood but it could be this evening!!), or where we are going to go, far away from home where my parents' health is an issue, my own health issue from having a bad pregnancy and giving a difficult birth, my younger one having hearing problems and always have to worry about his speech delay, trying to keep a home front where my husband can relax, if you want a full list of my more major issues, I can do it but, I think it's a family problem and we do have specialists working with us. I have enough on my plate that I have to start unloading them from minor issues or else, I can't go on.

I have come to this forum as I know that simmering it by yourself or talking it to your own circle of friends sometimes does not solve the problem. There are people on this forum whom had the same experience and this forum is just a good medium to get in touch with them or have a bird's eye view on the situation. Sorry if it bored you but, heyho, people have different agendas in their life, no? ; )


Anyway, thank you all so much for giving me the advises, I think i know what I have to do now!!! (and that is NOT charging for the gas they have used out of our BBQ!!!!!!)


Xshoequeen

I wish that something like this resource was available when I first moved to Hong Kong!

Why get so obviously taken advantage of when you are too generous?

There is nothing wrong with being generous, in my experience, over many years, having had many neighbours, I would say that good neighbourly relationships are wonderful, and I have never, ever had a neighbour who took advantage of my generosity. In fact, I have probably gained more from my neighbours than I have given.


There are exceptions, for sure, but at the end of the day I would rather live to my standards, rather than lower them. Having high standards of behaviour does pay off, virtually every time.

Hi again!!!


@jamesgve, you're right, I do acknowledge that we are being taken advantage but, the trickiest part was that we are neighbors and have been family friends for the past years.... and since we bump into each other so quite often, and also I was telling myself that this must be a cultural difference, it got out of hand, my bad, but at the same time,


@ woods99, i completely agree with you. The scariest part is that the children are super watching how mommy and daddy interact with other people. They pick up bad mentality quickly than good ones...they also pick up from their friends but, that is the parents' job to correct and a good opportunity to tell them that they are different from their friends but, with mommy and daddy, there is no escaping, they are 100% a pure mirror of you. Somedays, I feel so beaten by not having the skills to survive HK but, the one impatience I demonstrate on that day, it sticks around....... Thank you so much for reminding me the important factor!!!!



Have a great day!!


Xshoequeen