Rotten Neighbors
Posted: December 6th, 2007, 8:35 am
http://www.rottenneighbor.com/
See if your neighbors are on there or add them.
'Rotten neighbor' site gets lots of Houston hits
5Dec2007 - Houston Chronicle - By ALLAN TURNER
City rates fourth in nation at online home for griping about others' faults
So you think you've got the neighbor from hell?
Obviously, you haven't met the River Oaks-area guy who putters around his kitchen buck naked. Or the Tanglewood resident who let his wood fence rot and collapse. Or the West University Place neighbors who'll park in your driveway.
Or any of the other quirky residents spotlighted on rottenneighbor.com, a darkly humorous online consumer guide to urban real estate.
Houston ranks fourth behind Los Angeles, Chicago and New York in the number of reader-generated complaints on the site.
Late parties, drinking
Brant Walker, a 27-year-old Internet marketing worker for a San Diego drug rehabilitation program, launched the site in July after moving into an apartment, only to encounter an ever-present, nauseating odor.
"It was coming from the neighbors, a rotten smell, like food," he said. "That gave me the idea: What if there were a Web site that let people know about bad neighbors before they moved in?"
In the Houston area, rottenneighbor.com scribes barely can control their glee as they describe neighborhoods filled with unruly children, permanently adolescent early morning partiers, drunken landlords and yapping dogs who seemingly are the very hounds of hell. Such reports, though, raise concerns among industry observers who, admitting the stories are entertaining, worry about the site's fairness.
Typical of the reports is that of a Webster-area neighborhood where a "nosy neighbor" tyrannizes nearby residents.
"She actually told me that she uses her daughter's second-story window to spy on me and the family that lives next to me," the anonymous user wrote. "Her 8-year-old daughter is out of control. ... Her pack of dogs are always barking at all hours of the night. ... She is extremely manipulative and unstable."
A Montrose-area man complained that his landlord constantly was drunk and frequently engaged in screaming quarrels with his wife.
"I don't feel safe around him," the writer complained. ... Don't move here!"
Then there was the University of Houston-area man — he claimed to be 72 — who groused that his "showgirl" neighbors never sunbathed nude. "Life," he lamented, "is short."
Occasionally, user complaints border on the hateful, and, on the Houston page, at least one complaint lists the name of the purported offending neighbor.
Walker said he relies on readers to flag inappropriate comments, and when the concern seems legitimate, he removes the posts from the site. Still, he admitted, with thousands of user-contributors, policing the site can be difficult.
Rottenneighbor.com has drawn mixed reviews from real estate professionals.
"From a consumer's standpoint," said Texas Association of Realtors spokesman John Gormley, "people looking for a house should use all the resources they can to check on a neighborhood before they make a purchase."
And yet, Gormley added, "This rating of one's neighbor is a whole new concept. I'm not sure of its fairness."
No immunity from libel
Charles "Rocky" Rhodes, a South Texas College of Law professor with expertise in First Amendment and constitutional law, said comments on the Web site could lead to lawsuits.
"The real concern this raises is, when I post something about my neighbor and this neighbor is capable of being identified through the Web site, can he turn around and sue?" Rhodes said. "There's no immunity from libel just because you made the comment via the Internet."
The chattily malicious site can be fun to surf in a voyeuristic sense, said Blaise Timco, lead instructor with Dallas-based Schoolestate, an online real estate school associated with the University of Texas at Arlington.
But, he worried, it also can have a darker side. Neighborhoods can effectively be "redlined" by postings on the site, he said. And potential residents can be steered to rule out certain neighborhoods that are portrayed as populated by miscreants.
"I know the site has the potential for positive and negative postings," Timco said. "But if I have a positive experience, I'll go knock on my neighbor's door or take him some muffins."
See if your neighbors are on there or add them.
'Rotten neighbor' site gets lots of Houston hits
5Dec2007 - Houston Chronicle - By ALLAN TURNER
City rates fourth in nation at online home for griping about others' faults
So you think you've got the neighbor from hell?
Obviously, you haven't met the River Oaks-area guy who putters around his kitchen buck naked. Or the Tanglewood resident who let his wood fence rot and collapse. Or the West University Place neighbors who'll park in your driveway.
Or any of the other quirky residents spotlighted on rottenneighbor.com, a darkly humorous online consumer guide to urban real estate.
Houston ranks fourth behind Los Angeles, Chicago and New York in the number of reader-generated complaints on the site.
Late parties, drinking
Brant Walker, a 27-year-old Internet marketing worker for a San Diego drug rehabilitation program, launched the site in July after moving into an apartment, only to encounter an ever-present, nauseating odor.
"It was coming from the neighbors, a rotten smell, like food," he said. "That gave me the idea: What if there were a Web site that let people know about bad neighbors before they moved in?"
In the Houston area, rottenneighbor.com scribes barely can control their glee as they describe neighborhoods filled with unruly children, permanently adolescent early morning partiers, drunken landlords and yapping dogs who seemingly are the very hounds of hell. Such reports, though, raise concerns among industry observers who, admitting the stories are entertaining, worry about the site's fairness.
Typical of the reports is that of a Webster-area neighborhood where a "nosy neighbor" tyrannizes nearby residents.
"She actually told me that she uses her daughter's second-story window to spy on me and the family that lives next to me," the anonymous user wrote. "Her 8-year-old daughter is out of control. ... Her pack of dogs are always barking at all hours of the night. ... She is extremely manipulative and unstable."
A Montrose-area man complained that his landlord constantly was drunk and frequently engaged in screaming quarrels with his wife.
"I don't feel safe around him," the writer complained. ... Don't move here!"
Then there was the University of Houston-area man — he claimed to be 72 — who groused that his "showgirl" neighbors never sunbathed nude. "Life," he lamented, "is short."
Occasionally, user complaints border on the hateful, and, on the Houston page, at least one complaint lists the name of the purported offending neighbor.
Walker said he relies on readers to flag inappropriate comments, and when the concern seems legitimate, he removes the posts from the site. Still, he admitted, with thousands of user-contributors, policing the site can be difficult.
Rottenneighbor.com has drawn mixed reviews from real estate professionals.
"From a consumer's standpoint," said Texas Association of Realtors spokesman John Gormley, "people looking for a house should use all the resources they can to check on a neighborhood before they make a purchase."
And yet, Gormley added, "This rating of one's neighbor is a whole new concept. I'm not sure of its fairness."
No immunity from libel
Charles "Rocky" Rhodes, a South Texas College of Law professor with expertise in First Amendment and constitutional law, said comments on the Web site could lead to lawsuits.
"The real concern this raises is, when I post something about my neighbor and this neighbor is capable of being identified through the Web site, can he turn around and sue?" Rhodes said. "There's no immunity from libel just because you made the comment via the Internet."
The chattily malicious site can be fun to surf in a voyeuristic sense, said Blaise Timco, lead instructor with Dallas-based Schoolestate, an online real estate school associated with the University of Texas at Arlington.
But, he worried, it also can have a darker side. Neighborhoods can effectively be "redlined" by postings on the site, he said. And potential residents can be steered to rule out certain neighborhoods that are portrayed as populated by miscreants.
"I know the site has the potential for positive and negative postings," Timco said. "But if I have a positive experience, I'll go knock on my neighbor's door or take him some muffins."