Miss Manners: Calling the police on neighbors doesn’t count as ‘ignoring’ them

[petrea_mitchell]

That was the actual headline.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Our new neighbors are well-known for being troublemakers. We are maintaining a cold and distant relationship with them, due to their famously disrespectful ways, and we have already been warned they are gossiping about us because of this.

I had to request intervention from the police due to them constantly blocking the entrance to my garage. I need to know if there is something polite I can write in my social media feed, which they follow, to the effect of, “The original homeowners are always remembered for their excellent behavior, respect, good boundaries and friendly relations -- things that the new owners are completely lacking.”

We are ignoring them, but they haven’t forgotten my call to the police and are constantly gossiping that we are the bad ones.

GENTLE READER: Etiquette will sanction your ignoring the new neighbors you so dislike -- or, when forced to interact with them, keeping your relations merely civil -- if we can agree that attacking them on social media and calling the police on them cannot be fairly called either cold or distant.

Miss Manners recommends actually ignoring them because it requires so much less effort -- and because civilities fail once the attacks begin.

Comments

[feast_of_regrets]

I can well imagine that the neighbors are also jerks, but "their famously disrespectful ways"? LW is so caught up in their neighborhood turf war hobby that they can't even hear how insufferable they sound. And that's before we get to calling the cops, a subject on which I agree with everyone who's already posted, and writing in to Miss Manners to ask for help in composing their social media nastygram.