How to deal with an unfriendly neighbor?

[Negar P.]

Hi everyone,

We recently closed on our first deal! I am so excited about that! It is located in California and is going to be a house hack where we rent out two sections of the property (a huge single family house) and live in the third section. We have already submitted our plan to the city and it is ready for approval conditional on the approval of our adjacent neighbors. We are going to change a window to a sliding door on one side and add a french door to the opposite side of the property. The neighbor on the french door side has already signed the city form, however the other neighbor (on the side of the sliding door) doesn't want to sign the form. His reason is that he works at night and sleeps during the day and his bedroom is right where the sliding door is going to be, so he doesn't want people to use the door while he is asleep! This neighbor seems like an always angry person. He has already caused a lot of issues for us in the few weeks we have closed on the property including calling the city to stop work, yelling at our contractors for parking in front of our house (their car had gone a tiny bit in front of the neighbor's driveway), etc. He is also very suspicious... parks very large vans (about 4 to 6 at a time) in front of his property and on his driveway to cover the house, has cameras everywhere, is hanging cloths from his patio cover so no one can see the inside of the house, etc. Do you guys know how we can get this person's approval? Any suggestions on how to approach an angry suspicious person in general?

BTW, We haven't mentioned anything about our house hacking plan to the neighbors.

[Leo Chun]

Hi @Negar P., congratulations on closing your first deal! That's a huge milestone that will be remembered for the rest of your life! Sorry to hear about the bad neighbor situation, that can always be an irritating inconvenience. 

For this situation, I would recommend checking in with the other neighbors and asking how they feel about him and what their suggestions may be. See if your other neighbors are having similar suspicions, it may be something multiple people have to work out.

If you want any luck with getting this neighbor to sign, I would recommend getting to know them and talking it out. Tell them about your new endeavor, and some things about yourself. Be nice, be smart with your conversation. Know what you want to talk about before going in there.

If you think the suspicions start to grow with this neighbor, you can start taking notes and pictures. This way, you will see if this is a real problem or not. Alongside this, if anything comes down to this, you will have a record to show authorities.

Good luck with this!

Leo.