Chile Forum

All of this is quite general as my experience is very very different.. I have never had any problems with neighbours and visa versa.. I find that there is an unrealistic expectations by gringos that somehow Chileans need to behave the same way their fellow countrymen behave back home.. its just not going to happen.. the best you can do is learn to roll with the ponchos! I guess if you live in an apartment your experiences of noisy neighbours will certainly increase despite the geographical location... just a thought..

STORKLADY53 wrote:Charles...on another note/question/concern. My husband was discussing a nuisance dog with his mother. We are living in his mother's little cabana near the sea. The neighbor next door, who comes on weekends only generally...has a dog that barks continually. Whenever he is out and we are out in the yard he barks angrily at us. It is driving us both batty. When he asked his mother what could be done, she basically said nothing. She said 'don't do anything to the dog or you will go to jail'. Now I am not proposing harm to animals...but really...what do we have here? are the dogs the 'sacred cows' of Chile. Are there not noise/nuisance ordinances anywhere? What I mean to ask specifically is...is there indeed a law on the books protecting dogs?

Jill

Jill, as for the neighbours dog that wont stop his barking and so forth.. you can go to the Municipalidad and file a complaint.. if the dog is left unattended and no one cleans after him this is a serious health problem that the Municipalidad will have to look into.. hence why people let their dogs out on the street.. thus they dont have to deal with it.. dogs are not sacred they are just loved by people here who have come to learn to live with this 'problem' rather than spend money they should/could spend on other more 'serious' problems.. but as for the dog in the yard barking all day and no one to clean after him.. can definitely be reported.. surprised that you husbands family does not know this or is it that they dont want to cause problems with their neighbour?

Some fair points mentioned above, though I can't really agree with the superficial friendship/cordiality claim (only with regards to where I used to live and where I come from - a working class, housing estate with people from the lower rungs of British society of which I'm proud to be part of, no silver spoons here)... My experience has been that people in the community will help you and form real lifetime friendships that are not by any means superficial. And that old cliché is clearly true that the less they have got the more they will give.

I can't comment on anywhere else in Europe or USA because I have never lived there.

I think that maybe the problem in our different opinions is that we were and are foreigners living in a foreign country. We see it through completely different eyes. Whether it's a Brit or North American living in Chile or a Chilean living in France, Britain or USA for example.

In regards to departamentos, respect for your neighbors varies on the environment and class origin factors.

That's something else that confuses me living in a Santiago centro apartment and talking about class origin. As I mentioned, I come from a 'low' working class family that always struggled to pay the bills and never owned their own house etc etc but we had and still have respect for our neighbours and their feelings...

What's fundamentally wrong with the people where I live right now?
Help, please!

The thing I have found with neighbors in Chile is that you got to kind of want to have a relationship with them. If you open the possibility with more than just a occasional discussion or an invite over for a beer, you will open the door to friends. On the other hand the really nice thing about Chile is the neighbors will leave you alone for the most part. So, you got to kind of invite a friendship. Of course, the more rural you go the friendlier people get. In fact, there is almost a magical rural line where neighbor, acquaintance, family, stranger, friend breaks down to a point of being fairly well meaningless. I think it happens in town around a few thousand people or so. At least in the Patagonia it does. Not so much in Southern Chile in General.

My only problem with neighboors was the kid who always kicked his soccer ball against my apt. door. He would dribble it down the stairwell and at the bottom kick a goal into my door. After a couple times I told him to knock it off. To no effect. After a few more times I told him he really needed to quit it. He kept doing it. One time he did it as I was opening the door, he ran away laughing when he saw me. Finally one day I waited for him. After he kicked the ball against my door and ran away I followed him out and found him. I grabbed his shirt and said.... something..... I really don't remember what I said. But it is amazing how well I speak Spanish when I'm pissed off.
Yes, I admit this may not have been the best method of handling this problem. The next day his father knocks on my door, rather loudly. He's talking a mile a minute and making like he wants to kick my ass with the macho posturing and all. I stand there sort of in the doorway and let him vent, and vent and vent. When he's done I calmly explain the situation to him, I apologize for grabbing the kids shirt but I tell Dad that I had asked Junior, several times, to stop smacking the ball into my door everyday. Junior was standing there all innocent until now. I can see Dad now understands Junior was being a jerk by kicking the ball into my door but Dad persists with the loud threats anyway. So I patiently wait for Dad to stop yakking and walk away which he finally does, (Hey, I understand he wants to look good in front of his kid) finally he turns and starts walking back up the stairs - but he comes back to do some more yakking and macho posturing! Now I've about had enough and step out of the doorway with a dead-serious look on my face - up until then I didn't want to embarrass him in front of his kid but this is too much. He see's I'm ready to rumble, if he wants to, and he turns quickly and walks back up the stairs. His mouth wrote a check his body couldn't cash. I was ready to body slam the skinny f*ck*r to the concrete if he touched me. I can roll with and accept a lot of things but I had to draw the line there. And you know what? Problem solved. That kid never kicked his ball against my door again. Needless drama. Could have turned out bad with a gringo in jail for assualt but it didn't.

Noise? no problem. Kids playground next to my dept. window? OK, I got used to it eventually. Stereos at 3 am? no problem, I learned to live with it, I'm up anyway. Soccer ball against my front door..... no.

Oh, and the funny part of all this, the next day a Carabeneiro knonks on my door! My heart was in my throat - I thought Dad was being a jerk and called the cops. But the carabeneiro only wants to know about my next door neighboor (not the kids Dad, they were upstairs) apparently the guy skipped out on his rent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meow wrote:While cats occasionally vocalize to one another ... they generally communicate with one another through body language ...

I love when that happens!