Tenants being harassed by neighbors

[Natalie Cloutier]

We built a 4plex last year on a country road where several houses have been there for 20+ years. The entire time of the construction we got dirty looks from the neighbors and even 1 woman stormed into the building one day angry at us for choosing the same color siding than her and for building apartments near her house....

Now that the building is fully occupied, 4 houses around have formed a click and are harassing our very carefully screened and chosen tenants. They started a verbal fight with one of our tenants for using his pressure washer for over 30 minutes at 2pm on a weekday... Then they started calling and emailing us saying we needed to do something about our building because there were too many cars in the driveway and because on garbage day there’s too many garbage cans lined up on the road and because their snowmobiles are noisy...

Look I get that they’re mad that there’s a 4 plex next to their house now but they’re not doing anything illegal! we spoke to all our tenants and we visit the property regularly and nothing is out of place and our tenants are good people. All 4 units get along great with each other but they all feel harassed by the neighbours and now so do we.

What’s the best way to deal with this??

[John Teachout]

Go to one of their houses and offer to buy it. "I've heard you don't like living here so I'd like to make an offer on your property."