site we’re (not really) psyched about: rottenneighbor.com
We thought we found an innovation when we wrote about a site that rated neighborhoods by their walk-around-the-block appeal. Well, that’s been one-upped, in a major way with rottenneighbor.com. Exactly how it sounds, it’s a site where you can go and report lousy neighbors who don’t take out the trash, watch tv on the front porch, and let their dogs poop with abandon in other people’s yards. Quel horror! Interesting concept, but it sort of gives us the creeps. Why do we imagine that the only people who could be bothering to do this are ones that are themselves rotten neighbors — the nosey kind — and we wouldn’t want to live near them. How ’bout just having a conversation with your neighbor, and asking her to pick up the poop, rather than posting it anomymously like a digi-coward? But that’s just us. What do you think? Would you want to read about bad neighbors before you to move to new place?
October 30th, 2007 at 8:10 am
I poked around the site a little. All of the entries I saw were so vague as to be unhelpful anyway. if you really wanted to get a feel for your neighbors, a vague reference to “yelling guy” on a certain block doesn’t really tell you anything. I thought this was going to be about falling-down houses or rats or something. Plus a couple entries struck me as downright racist. Pass.
October 30th, 2007 at 9:14 am
This is a terrible idea and site! (Though there are a few good entries on the rotten neighbors at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Zip 20500, along with some pretty offensive ones.)
October 30th, 2007 at 3:27 pm
Apparently my neighborhood is rotten free. Creepy idea.
October 31st, 2007 at 2:53 am
I checked out a few entries near where I live, even though I’m not moving. I actually do have a yelling guy in my neighborhood, by the way, a political yelling guy, and I don’t know which neighbor is leaving the dog doo on the sidewalks, but it’s a pretty okay street. There are things you might complain about your actual neighbors being noisy that’s too specific even if anonymous to make where you live a “bad neighborhood” but there are conditions like the town/city not taking care or a noisy restaurant with inadequate parking that intrudes on the surrounding streets after hours. I saw at least one entry with the street being unpleasant because someone who lives there decided it was his duty to complain directly to everyone about everything they do that he doesn’t like.
Put it in the “doesn’t help much” pile of people who need to file their opinions somewhere, and feel free to ignore it.
October 31st, 2007 at 7:25 am
Seems like many of the posts were used as another place to vent frustrations and problems. Someone moving into the new neighborhood may not get the same treatment from their neighbors. The posts describing properties that weren’t well kept seem useless unless you haven’t visited the neighborhood in person before moving there.
I was a bit concerned about what happens when you move into a place that previously had a “bad neighbor” reputation on the site. Hopefully these can be disputed without needing to hire an attorney. I left the site feeling that some disputes are best left to the authorities to sort out and we don’t need another place to behave as if we were on the “Jerry Springer Show”.
I will say that there were a few posters who were trying to leave helpful information. I especially liked the post that stated “beautiful neighborhood”.