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The stereotype of a nosey neighbor, peering around living room curtains to monitor fellow neighborhood residents, may feel all too real. With seemingly innocent curiosity, a nosey neighbor can bring stress into neighborhood relationships. If you're faced with a neighbor's unwanted nosiness, try keeping your shoulders relaxed, staying positive, and remembering that you don't have to answer uncomfortable questions. Even in the face of nosiness, you can steer a conversation any way you like.

Oftentimes, nosey neighbors will remark on things that are none of their business. "Whose truck was that parked outside your house yesterday?" they might ask. Or, the comments may be subtler: "It looked you were having a party last weekend." Such ramblings come from a "spying nosey neighbor" - a person who keeps tabs on neighborhood happenings. Naturally, no one likes feeling watched in this way. Still, the best approach is to write off such nosey behavior from neighbors. Downplay your life's happenings ("Oh, that was just the plumber's truck parked outside." Or, "No, it wasn't a party - just a few friends from work.") Keep your responses friendly but short, so as not to open the door to further questions. Hopefully your neighbor will take the hint. At the very least, making yourself sound uninteresting may inspire a nosey neighbor to get bored and move on to monitoring someone else's comings and goings.

In addition to spying nosey neighbors, there are also gossipy nosey neighbors (although the two can overlap). Gossipy nosiness may seem more vicious, but at the end of the day, the same rules apply to the gossipy neighbor as the spying neighbor. As they say down South, "Don't give 'em anything to chew on." If a neighbor asks you questions that make you feel uneasy, you can still offer short, dismissive replies and steer the conversation toward another topic. If the neighbor tries to gossip to you about other neighbors, be similarly nonchalant and avoid responding to specifics. Whether you're the subject or a participant, it can be difficult to untangle yourself from a web of gossip down the road. It's much easier to stay uninvolved in the first place.

The other thing to keep in mind is that - annoying as they may be - nosey neighbors are distinguishable from outright bad neighbors. Bad neighbors may damage your property or act generally careless. They don't care in whose yard their dog urinates. They are inconsiderate of noise levels and wake the neighborhood

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