Tell Your Neighbors when You Do Home Project
The refinishers were the low bidders. You get what you pay for. Unless you live on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere, any change you make to your house will somehow affect your neighbors.
Say you are having your front porch repainted. The color may not be an issue, especially if it is white or some neutral color that fits well into the rest of the neighborhood. The work itself can lead to ill will, however.
Issues can include where the painter parks his truck, what time the painting crew starts and ends its work, the dust and noise created by scraping and sanding loose paint, the odor of paint being burned off surfaces with an acetylene torch, and environmental issues created by the residue, especially if the paint being removed is lead-based.
Then there is the noise—especially of the radio that most work crews can’t seem to do without. The issues involved grow with the scope of the project, especially if it is a major addition requiring planning and zoning action that is dependent on the neighbors’ concurrence.
A California developer once observed that when neighbors appear en masse at a hearing on your project, the battle is over already and you’ve lost it. Even after neighbors have agreed to put up with the disruption that your project will cause, you’ve got to protect their interests from start to finish.
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