Nosy Neighbors, Part One

You spend enough time photographing homes in all kinds of neighborhoods and all kinds of times of day, you run into some nosy neighbors.  Some are funny.  Some are annoying.

This may have to be a recurring theme.

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Photographing a house you usually don’t park right in front of it just so you don’t have your car right outside the window.  So, parked at the neighbor’s one time I go walking back to my car carrying camera, lights, etc. and am putting them away in my trunk when the neighbor comes out.

Neighbor: What are you doing?

Me: Packing up to leave.

N: Why’d you park here?

M: I was photographing the house next door and didn’t want my car in the window.  Is there a problem?

N: You parked in front of my house with a camera.

M: (I didn’t feel like explaining that, being in public, I wasn’t doing anything wrong. )  A camera I never pointed at your house, by the way.

N: (So now she’s just going to be annoying and bitchy, evidently for the hell of it.)  This is my parking area. I’ve got friends coming over.

M: (I look around.)  I don’t see any private parking signs.  And, besides, if you hadn’t come out and hassled me for no good reason, I’d be gone by now.

N: (Turns and heads into the house.)

M: (Has a leisurely cigarette and answers some messages on my phone for about 10 minutes.)

Interesting addendum….  The house I shot next door was under contract in about a week, closed escrow 2 months later.  A little while later I was in the same neighborhood and noticed the nosy neighbor’s house was on the market.  Lousy photos — in fact the lady was in one of them.  Horrible.  House sat on the market for 8 months before getting an offer.