Now for the good news: It's a wonderful time for passive-aggressive, conflict-averse home-buyers. Let's give it up for rottenneighbor.com, a national real estate search engine that allows users to read about, and rate, the abominable behaviors of those who live around them.
"These are the rudest people alive!" writes a Minneapolis poster under the heading, "Crappy." "They picked my dog up by his neck and threw him over our fence." Under "drunk and noisy," another Minneapolis writer spews about neighbors who "party every night of the week on their balcony ... even lighting off fireworks in the middle of the night."
There's harassing "Baby Man," in St. Paul, "Freaky Neighbor" in St. Louis Park, and "Sir," a condo-dweller whose colostomy bag leaks in the hallways. Other complaints are, blessedly, more garden-variety, such as endlessly yapping pooches, music blaring and stinky food wafting from windows.
The site, which notes with not a whiff of irony that it "will help you find your dream neighborhood," was founded by San Diego native Brant Walker, 27, after he noticed a rotten smell coming from his neighbor's door. Just a year old, rottenneighbor.com receives 750,000 visits daily, Walker said. While the site also encourages users to point out good behavior (represented by green Monopoly-style houses), few do. Who has time for niceties when there are so many badly behaved red houses keeping us up nights?
Fortunately, rottenneighbor .com offers a forum for sharing helpful solutions. The most radical idea, of course, is actually talking to one's neighbor to try to work things out. But if that doesn't appeal, users will find the site welcome therapy while they figure out how to purchase their island.
GAIL ROSENBLUM
