Extremely loud and incredibly close

As a neighbour, you want to build relationships based on mutual respect - but that's sometimes easier said than done. Here's what to do should drama come knocking.

- Jonathan Rowe

It's 9pm in Brooklyn USA, and my upstairs neighbour's Lab Retriever is running wall-to-wall sprints worthy of the athletics. Across the hall, a young couple is laughing hysterically and smoking something funky. And the Italian seniors next door are having sex and playing the Righteous Brothers so loud, I've definitely lost that loving feeling.

The good news is, the dog dash is always brief, the sky-high lovebirds let me borrow their drill, and the oldies fans tire easily so, all in all, they're good neighbours, which can be a rarity in New York City.

But I've definitely encountered some nightmare neighbours in the city like the perpetually shoeless man who taught his three foul parrots to curse loudly for days at a time. I also spent two decades in suburbia, which was no commune, either. In third grade, a schizophrenic neighbour said God told her I was evil, and spread glass shards in our yard - a jarring experience at age 8, but in retrospect, a memorable lesson in the art of neighbouring.

Home sweet homes

Your home should be your sanctum, a safe space in an increasingly chaotic world. Yet when moving into a new home you're likely to find yourself surrounded by strangers. In concept, it's a pretty threatening juxtaposition. In practice, however, it's actually something to be embraced.