Living in apartment complexes where your neighbor is not on the other side of your fence but rather on the other side of your wall, your floor or your ceiling introduces interesting problems you don’t really have to deal with elsewhere.

Laying the right foundation with your neighbors and knowing how to approach them with problems you may have are key to easing some of the stress of living in such close proximity. Here are a few suggestions for handling neighbor conflict.

Know Your Neighbors

Before you ever have a problem with your neighbors, meet them. Introduce yourself and your roommates, learn a little about them and their roommates, get on friendly terms. People are more likely to listen to suggestions if they already like and know you than if you are a stranger. (Click here for an entertaining site that lets people complain about their neighbors. Practical application: it also lists the residences of sexual predators.)

Communicate!

Don’t wait to talk to your neighbors until you are completely fed up with the problem. After the first few times of encountering the problem, head over to your neighbor’s place and let them know, politely, that [insert problem here] is affecting you negatively and ask them if they would mind changing it. Your neighbors may not realize that something is bothering you and, once they know, may be completely willing to work with you. (Click here for a few more specific suggestions on dealing with neighbor conflict.)

Second Attempt

If that doesn’t work, try again. Come up with a few ideas for a compromise, then head over again and—again, politely and calmly—discuss the problem. If they are just completely unreasonable and the tension escalates, you have a few options: hire a mediation company, involve the police or apartment management (if the problem you have violates a city ordinance or apartment complex rule), learn to just live with it, or move. (Think you have it bad? Click here to read stories about horror neighbors.)

Things to Remember

• Be specific in explaining the problem’s effect on you. Certain complaints have become so stereotypical, some people dismiss them without really seeing the situation from your perspective.

• Your neighbors have rights, too. Remember to look at the situation from both perspectives. Here’s a list of suggestions on how to be a better neighbor.

• Avoid having your neighbors complain about you by keeping them updated on what’s going on at your place, so late-night noise, etc., doesn’t come as a surprise to them.

• When you approach your neighbor, be prepared to also listen to what he or she has to say; most people will see the gesture as showing you really do care about having the problem resolved and not simply having it your way.

Written by: Laura R. Aiuto

As a first-time renter, especially in student apartments, there’s a few things you need to learn involving etiquette, the first and foremost being that you can’t force anyone else to display any etiquette towards you–fortunately, displaying etiquette in grotesque amounts usually will get you somewhere, even with the most annoying roommates and neighbors.

But what exactly is etiquette? If you’re thinking it’s all pleasantries and small talk, you’ve got another thing coming, and it’s a thing you don’t want to experience too much of: a big fat reality check. Check out a few of the biggest etiquette rules for first-time renters below and keep yourself from embarrassment and of course, making too many enemies inside your student apartment and out.

Sit down and get to know your roommates

You have all semester/year to get to know your roommates, right? So why bother wasting all that time sitting down and talking to them? If you’re in a dorm or a campus apartment and you have roommates you’ve never met before, take this next sentence VERY seriously–campus staff doesn’t always pay attention to your surveys and…remember this, people LIE on those surveys because they don’t want anyone to think they’re too stingy or too lax. You may be the most relaxed person on the planet and willing to share anything and everything you have and get paired with a roommate who doesn’t want to share anything with anybody, least of all…you. Sitting down and asking your roommates point blank how they feel about certain situations–do you want to share the responsibility of doing dishes or should we each do our own? do you mind if I bring friends/my significant other over? what time do you go to sleep at night/get up in the morning? do you have allergies? what kind of music do you like and how loud do you listen to it?–can keep you from confrontations that occur nearly everyday for people who refuse to follow the first rule of communication…”seek first to understand, then to be understood.”

Understand your surroundings

Are you on the second or higher floor of the building? If you are, consider the people beneath you before you start rocking out with your air guitar and chasing your roommates during a pillowfight at 2am. This is important no matter what setting you are in, but if you are in a standard apartment, you never know who is living below you–perhaps a grumpy police officer who loves to enforce the noise ordinance and peace hours for the apartment complex. On the flip side, if you’re on the bottom floor, you may want to make a point of meeting the people who live above you, befriend them and make sure they understand how important sleep is to you–this goes the same for neighbors who can keep you up all night if they really like to party. Also remember, if you are in the dorms or campus student apartments, there’s a chance your walls are made of cinderblock. That means noise travels further than you could ever have imagined possible.

Find out the rules and stick to them

It’s easy to break away from the “straight and narrow” when you’re a first-time renter living in a student apartment. But just like at home, student apartments, dorms and other housing facilities have rules and you are required to follow them. In addition to rules, they also have guidelines they strongly suggest but can’t typically enforce. You should familiarize yourself with these guidelines. If someone is angry with you and says you’re breaking the rules, you’ll always be able to intelligently work out the situation whether or not you are at fault, and if you understand the guidelines, you can always use them as a shield, “It’s not that I don’t want to, but the student apartment rules say that we can’t and I really need to keep out of trouble.”

Remember, when you’re living with and around others who aren’t used to you, it’s important to make an effort to get to know them and allow them to get to know you. It’s the easy way to keep yourself in check and those around you in check. After all, whether you like it or not, you’re all in it for the long haul.