Six ways to coexist with your neighbors

October 29, 2025

OPINION by GARY KIRKLAND

The following are six ways one may use to coexist happily with one’s neighbor, three honorable, two dishonorable, and one partly honorable.

One honorable way to deal with the neighbor is to just live with whatever the neighbor is doing. A second honorable way is to buy the neighbor out. If one cannot afford to buy the neighbor out, maybe one could get other neighbors to chip in funds.

A third honorable method to deal with a irritating neighbor is to move away.

A rather drastic dishonorable way to deal with a frustrating neighbor is just kill the person. This method may not only be drastic, but also illegal.

The second dishonorable method to deal with a recalcitrant neighbor is to run off to a heavy handed government to deal with the situation.  I have observed this to be the most popular way to deal with neighborly problems.

The partly honorable way to solve this sort of problem is to find something that annoys this sort of problem and start doing that. If the target objects negotiate. “I will stop doing what annoys you if you stop doing what annoys me.”

Be a good neighbor.

Gary Kirkland is a retired teacher, an Atascadero resident, 35-year-old stockholder in the Atascadero Mutual Water Company and president of the San Luis Obispo County Libertarian Party.