Live in the Philippines

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Our new neighbors

Adjustment, Philippine Culture / by

In the Philippines, there basically is no zoning when it comes to real estate, so you never know for sure what kind of neighbors you will be getting.  In most developed countries, land is zoned – there are areas that are designated for businesses, industrial, residential, etc.  In the Philippines you might have a business move right into a residential area, there is no law against it in most cases.

A couple of years ago, a new building was constructed on the land behind our house.  As I sit at my desk in my office, I have a clear view of this building.  It is a commercial building, and in the back there is a large area that the land owner uses to grow orchids.  I’ve never had a problem with these folks, and also had never met them before.  It is an older couple who owns the land, and I see the man and his wife out there tending to their orchid gardens nearly every day.  There is a rather high wall between our properties, so we can’t see each other if we are each in our backyards, though, so we never met.  However, if I am in my office, which is on the second floor of our home, I am looking over the wall, down into their orchid garden, so I can easily see them out there.

The building itself houses a number of businesses.  It is a 2 story building, and on the first floor there is a coffee shop and a business selling model remote control vehicles like cars, helicopters and such for hobbyists.  On the second floor, there are also two businesses, although to be honest, until recently I never knew what kind of businesses either of them were.  They never caused me any problems, so I had no reason to find out.

They never caused me any problems, that is, until last week.  Suddenly, last week, a new business moved into the 2nd floor of the building.  When they moved in, our ability to sleep at night came to an abrupt end.  Several times during the night, there would be groups of people out on the balcony joking around loudly, laughing boisterously and generally being quite unruly.  We are about 100 meters away from the balcony, but they were so loud that they woke us up.  This would generally happen at about 1:30 am and 3:00 am or so every night.

On the third night that we were awakened by these folks, I decided to go over to the house and talk to the people and see if they could hold the noise level down.  So at 3 am, I walked over and talked with a fellow named Bernard.  I was nice to Bernard and told him that they were so very loud that they were waking us up, and we were unable to sleep.  He promised that they would hold the noise down, and for the rest of the evening they did.  That was on Wednesday night/Thursday morning.

When Thursday night came along, we expected that we would finally get a decent night sleep, which we badly needed.  But, again, at 1:30 we were awakened by these loud folks!  Apparently, my discussion with Bernard from the previous evening had been forgotten quickly.  So, again, this time at 1:30am, I walked over.  When I got to the gate, I gave out a holler “Ayo, Ayo” (that’s what you say when you approach somebody’s house and are asking to be let in).  Nobody answered my shout.  I called and called, but nobody would come, although I could hear the people still being boisterous on the balcony.  At this point, I opened the gate myself (it’s not a house, but a business building, it’s not like I was going into their house or anything), and went and talked to the people on the balcony.  They complained that they were already quiet enough, and basically blew me off.  I talked to Barnard again and learned that he was the person in charge.

I explained to Bernard that my family could not sleep because they were so loud.  I told him that although I didn’t want to do so, if they could not hold the noise level down, I would have to go talk to the Barangay Captain and I was sure that he would put a stop to the problem.  For the rest of the night, all was quiet, which made me happy.

The next morning, when I saw the older couple who owns the property working away in their orchid garden, I asked Feyma to come with me, and we went next door and explained the problem to the land owners.  They were quite shocked to hear of the problem.  They told us that the business there was a call center, and they thought that these people would be very quiet.  But, what we found out was that during the break times, these folks would go enjoy their break outside on the balcony.  They didn’t think about it that they were in the middle of a residential area, and they were waking up all the other neighbors with their loud behavior!

About 30 minutes after speaking with the land owners, I was sitting at my desk, and could see over at the building.  I saw the owner talking to Bernard.  Ever since, nearly a week later, I haven’t heard a sound out of these call center agents!  Ah, sleep is nice too!

If it’s not one challenge it’s another!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  4. It took me nearly two years to get solutions to the roosters, late night kareoke,all night drunks, barking dogs ( all night ), loud music at 5am every frigging morning.
    What really annoyed me most was the burning of rubbish everyday, I put a stop to that as well.
    Unfortunately I took more extreme measures which worked out very well.
    Now we have peace and clean air.
    The Philippines can be a beautiful place, people just have to get off their collective lazy backsides and do something.

    • Hi Boss – We don’t have a rooster problem where I live. We do have dogs that can get loud in the neighborhood, but I have kind of gotten used to that over the years, though. I am happy that I have not needed to take “extreme measures” as you say! 😆

  5. Hi Bob – Happy ZZZZzzzzz’s to you and all in Martin Manor. 🙂

    No such problems like that here, out in the boondocks. If there’s a group making loud noise, karaoke, drinking, etc., 99 time out of a 100 we’re part of it! 😆

  6. I live in the neighborhood of hell. Next to us is a house that has decided to raise chickens… lots of chickens… and rabbits, and God knows what else. It stinks to high heaven because they don’t muck out under the cages every day. On the other side is Mr. Beep-beep. He’s a driver and brings his vehicle home every night at around midnight, 1am and you guessed it, lays on the horn until the harried maid comes and opens the gate for him. On a diagonal from us is a Seaoil station that has a resto-karaoke bar upstairs that is open air. Yep Karaoke all day everyday until 2am. That at least got quieter because the seaoil has an attourney living behind it who wasn’t going to put up with the noise.

    Zoning has little to do with noise. Some of my quietest neighbors over the years have been businesses but the noisiest were always the people living in the neighborhood.

    • Hi brspiritus – Just to clarify, when I was talking about zoning, I did not say, or imply that zoning has anything to do with noise. I extrapolated that zoning has to do with mixing businesses in with residential units, and that one such businesses has totally interrupted my ability to sleep, or did for a time.

  7. Bob
    I have to say I really don’t think that I could have handled that in the diplomatic way you did. My manner of handling noise issues at night in my neighborhood would not cut it there in RP. I will admit I need to work on anger management.

    They kind of go something like this: Neighbor kid races his unmuffled car up and down our streets over and over, fed up with it I run outside in my Boxers with a flashlight and cellphone, stand in the road shining flashlight into the drivers eyes, he stops I get his liscence plate call the cops while in the middle of the street, he speeds off and slings a beer bottle at me.

    “Wont Ya be my Neighbor”

    • Hi Neal – Ha ha… well, the first night that I went over there, I was very diplomatic. The second time, the diplomacy level had abated to some extend! 😉 When I talked to the landlord, I was again quite diplomatic. That’s the best way to get results! 😉

  8. Neal in RI, I laughed till I cried. I’ll be your neighbor. You are hillarious! I can imagine how to get the kid back; by throwing beer bottles at his car, but not near your home. He’ll never know what hit him.

    Thanks!

    • Griff
      Im glad you are amused by my tainted type of neighborhood watch.
      Funny thing, I never seem to get invited to any of my neighbors holiday cookouts.

  10. Good deal Bob. Many foreigners might approach it politely the first time offense and even the second time but you did it right all the way through. Threatening Barangay involvement and then talking to the owners was very prudent. Fortunately, the owners were very understanding. I have seen situations where the owners are even bigger AH’s than the offenders. I have used the Barangay two times: once against a fellow foreigner for slandering my wife and the second with a landlord for harrassment. Both times were ruled in my favor so I am doing pretty good with: immigration/visas, cops/tickets and barangay stuff hehehehehe.

    • Hi richard – I really believe that the Barangay system here is an excellent system, which we really don’t have an equivalent for in the States. For resolving disputes between people, this system is effective, and generally free too. We Westerners could learn a lot from this type of system.

  11. Next topic suggestion could be on how to deal with dogs that do the same thing as the call center people. Of course they can’t be taken to the Barangay of as most are strays. Perhaps you have some tips. Dogs in the Philippines can even try the best of dog lovers in us. Honestly, since living in the philippines I was not in any way emotionally affected by the whole Michael Vick thing. Frankly, I have come to hate dogs here as most are uncontrolled strays that need to be rescued or put to sleep!!! as they ruin my sleep nightly. Seems only the top end subdivisions have rules about this.

    • Hi richard – Dogs can be a real problem, no doubt about it. They are very loud and annoying. I don’t know that I could write an article about it, though, because I really don’t have a solution, other than just get used to it. Getting used to it is not easy, though! 😯

  12. Wow! The only thing I saw wrong with this story was… Your a braver man than me. I don’t think I could ever go over to a house or building where there is a party like situation going on especially at that time of night, and try to tell them to quiet it down, seems like you could get into some big trouble, you were not looking for. Why didn’t you wait untill the morning to do some complaining? Better be careful Bob, not trying to be your Dad or anything, but that seemed scary,…However it seems your ok now and that’s good…

    • Hi Lenny – I’m not sure that you understand what was going on. There was not a party. This was an office where people were working. When they went on break, they were very loud and woke up my family. I have kids who need to go to school and such, and they need sleep. I did nothing for the first two days. On the third day, I went over there and politely asked if they could be more quiet, since it was late at night. Could I wait until morning to complain? Well… by morning, the call center was already closed. They work at night, since they serve a US clientele. Oh well, it didn’t seem scary to me, I suppose you and I might do things differently. Doesn’t mean my way is wrong, or your way is… they are just different. All I know is that it worked out fine.

  13. I always wondered what that place was when I went to your house. Haha.
    I deal with a similar problem where I stay. Right outside my window is Holy Child’s gym. People are out there from 6am-11pm most of the time. On weekends sometimes its up to 12am. I even once heard em being loud at 2am (setting up something for the next morning cause I heard music blaring). Honestly, I ain’t really annoyed with sound, but my curiosity annoys me. I can only see the back right part of the gym, and I usually cannot see what is happening. This past Sunday the even had a worship service in the gym. Aggggh, curiosity is a pain. LOL

    • Hi Jawz – It’s not the 11pm or midnight that bothers me, but 1:30am, then again at 3am, then at 5am again, every single day… it just got to be too much! Ha ha…

  14. Good to hear Bob, that the owner talked to Bernard & end the problem. Most importantly, you got ur sleep this time.

  15. Bob,
    Living in an appartment building I can understand your situation. Several places I have lived here I would wonder what the people above us were doing. I remember once the guy above us had his friends over and they were playing rugby at 2 in the morning, in their living room! Well I found my solution also. I just moved to the top floor and now everyone complains about how much noise we make!
    Wishing you many nights of good zzzzzz’s.

  16. Bob, as far as the barking problem: The other residents around me thinned the herd by boiling and making stew out of the noisiest of their pets. They offered, but I smiled nicely and declined. As the Colonel would say, Mmmm, paw licking good!

  17. Hi Bob,

    We had similar problems when we lived in the city. We lived across the street from a very old, but quit nice school tat occupied 2 city blocks. It was great during the day, but at night teenagers would hang around doing the usual.. This would go on most weekends. The police would show up and move them along, but on many occasions there would be fights and bottle smashing. Eventually we got tired of it and moved to a tiny island, away from the city. Now the only thing that wakes us up is a nearby rooster and snoring ; )

    Trevor

  18. I had a problem when someone had made and iron works shop across from my house.I fixed this problem by using my welder one night to weld thier gates shut that fixed the problem for a few hours but the noise contiued.Finaly me and my nieghbor went to the barangay captain after the iron works owner said i didnt have a right to complain cause i was a forginer.So i got the brgy.capt to adjust his attitude and he actualy made him relocate his shop.

  19. Very ilustrative story, Bob. It makes an important point aside from keeping your temper in check and working through channels .. or threatening to do so.

    The point? Take action. So many suffer in silence, moaning and botching. Call centers are a fact of life. Due to the way the world and time zones work, call centers mostly operate in the sjeep hours here. People on break from work … in most every country … tend to get loud … it doesn’t take much at 3am. because the call center workers hours are all ‘upside down’, it just doesn’t occur to them that others are asleep … human nature.

    If you did nothing but stew about the situation, it will only get worse. Even though the ‘first warning’ didn’t work, you kept on addressing the situation. In most cases this works, in most cases many foreigners are too timid to take action.

    I did get laugh and a half out of Neal’s story and a few others who talked about calling police. I don’t know what the response would be there in Davao, but the local police wouldn’t even bother with such an issue here in Luzon … it’s strictly a barangy matter … the PNP are not local ‘dirty jobs’ servants the way many police departments are in the USA. A fact of life people moving here want to consider is .. calling the police is like Dial-a-Prayer for atheists … no one answers 😉

    • Hi Dave – Indeed, here in the Philippines, you don’t call the police for this kind of thing. You either work it out yourself with the offender, or you talk to the barangay people and they fix it if your gripe is legitimate. I think it worked out well the way I handled it. Like you said, most foreigners are too timid to do anything, and I’ve been there. There have been lots of these kinds of issues in the past where I just suffered through it, but I am tired of doing that. Especially if it is goin to be an ongoing thing like this was.

  20. You mentioned earlier that you weren’t aware of anything in the States that resembled a barangay captain settling neighborly disputes. There is one example I can give you that is similar to it with of course some slight differences. I used to work at a restaurant many years ago that was located in a private lake community. Home owners had to adhere to certain rules and regulations to live there. There was a homeowners association and a president. If any neighbors had a dispute they could bring it to the homeowners association president to get it resolved or if it was something not in the rules it had to be voted on by the homeowners association. Now the difference is that there were exact rules to follow, more black and white, and getting something resolved was easy when it broke the rules. When it comes to Barangay Captains it seems to be more of a gray area since no set rules are in place that neighbors have to follow.

    I can relate to this story as my fiancee in Bacolod recently moved out of her home with her family due to a sari sari store next door. Many drunks there late at night making a lot of noise and disturbing their sleep. I of course with my kano ways of thinking said “talk to the police”. Not a solution, they wouldn’t dare do it. So I also mentioned talking to the barangay captain about this and it seemed that she and her family were not willing to raise a ruckus about it and just deal with it the best they could. Well they could no longer deal with as they didn’t feel safe there and they are now in a much better place where they can sleep peacefully and are renting out their old home. I am sure your other neighbors are much happier to sleep now. I am also sure they would not have said a thing and just dealt with no sleep at night.

    • Hi LJinIL – I had not considered the Homeowner’s Association, but there are some similarities there. You made a good catch on that. My only thought, though, is that there is a big difference, and that is that the Barangay Captain has more standing. He is an elected official and he can impost legal sanctions. I agree, though, that the President of a Homeowner’s Association can do many of the same things that a Barangay Captain could do. One catch also is that not every home in the USA is under a homeowner’s association. Every home in the Philippines has a Barangay Captain to answer to.

      • That’s the best I could come up with on such short notice. LOL.

        You are correct though not every neighborhood in America has a homeowners association and for the majority of Americans if you can’t resolve the dispute cordially with your neighbor then you only have a few options. Vigilante style justice, call the police, or move out.

        In America by choosing to do the first two options then it can of course cause “bad blood” between you and the neighbor. I don’t doubt that having to get the Barangay Captain involved could also cause “bad blood” between neighbors even if the dispute has been resolved. Luckily you haven’t had to take it that far yet.

        • Hi LJ – The other option in the States is to file a lawsuit… but the Philippines is not such a suit crazy culture like the States. I like the way it is here.

  21. Bob
    Are the Barangay Captains crooks? Do they come around looking for kickbacks and donations? Im just curious.

    • Hi Neal – I can’t speak for everybody, but I have never been asked for a single peso (even implied) by a Barangay Captain. I have actually only had one experience working with a Barangay Captain, and in that case, somebody took me to Barangay Court, trying to squeeze money out of me. The Barangay Captain listened to both sides of the argument, and immediately sided with me, no questions asked, no request for compensation, nothing of the sort. I don’t know if it is this efficient in other Barangays, but in my case, this is how it worked.

  22. Bob I can understand the problems with the roosters. I have a neighbor whosw rooster must have serious problems because it crows at 2am every night. Since I live in an upscale subdivsion in the city this shouldn’t be a problem. I have spoken to the people incharge and they say since it is a newer development and there is no homeowners association yet, rules have not been set. I think Im going to go find the biggest meanest rooster I can and challenge them to a cockfight.

  24. well, im a pilipino myself but most people here in philippines doesnt have enough brain to think if they are waking up their neighbors,..all they know that they enjoy what they are doing..i already encounter alot of this but i made a complain right away..if they wont stop i make a complain in our barangay..

  25. we bought this lot in the province and my parents started to build a house in it, after the house is finished we decided to put a gate in front of it because their is no space on both side anymore because of the neighbors who continue to move from both side. when we decided to build the gate the baranggay chairman who happens to have the biggest house in the area told the carpenters in a loud annoying manner to stop working because our gate will out oft the line where the houses should be.My mom told the lady that she can talk to us properly and no need to shout on the people who will work at that time. In front of the house is a huge space because it was the old dancing area before.My parents explained to the baranggay chairman that we just need half a meter from our wall to build the gate and yes we are 10 inch out of the line but considering its our lot. we have paid for it.We don’t understand why she strongly against us to build the gate.She exclaimed that she will not allow us, and if we insist, she will bring the police.

  27. Hi i am an australian lady married to a filipino. we purchased a lot second from the beach only because the owner of the subdivision said the front lot was not for sale because she was going to put nipa huts there for the residents. We work in australia and when we came over recently, we see she has built the whole way accross the front of our house and blocked our ocean view. she has built a 5 door hotel and karaoke bar that is outside and just 20ft from our front door! not only that but 3 of the hotel rooms overlook out lot because she built the wall right on the boundary line and put windows in the wall. so now we have no view, bad loud singing and crowds of people staring at us. i cant believe that she is permitted to do this. Any one got any ideas

    • To be honest, I doubt that there is a single thing you can do. If there is some kind of language in your purchase agreement, your deed or any kind of neighborhood bylaws perhaps you can, but I seriously doubt that any of those things exist. To be honest, what you describe is not, in my opinion, unusual at all for the Philippines.

      Sorry, but all I can say is “Welcome to the Philippines.”

    • Jaclyn; As a real estate broker for many years, I can attest to the most famous words spoken in real estate; “Nobody will ever build anything there!” Fortunately in the USA, and I’m sure in Australia also, there are covenants and building restrictions in most developed residential areas which prevent things like what you described. In the Philippines, the only restriction is money (cost to build). 🙁

  28. so maybe you want to build a firecracker factory on your property and conduct some evening time testing.

    • That’s OK, too, as long as you have the barangay captain and town mayor in your payroll, and the provincial governor is your son’s ninong.