Your neighbours in Portugal

We moved to Portugal from Canada, and we found that neighbours in Portugal are not as caring and respectful as was the case in Canada.

We actually had an extremely negative experience with our first neighbour in the apartment above us, who was walking with hard heels on wooden floors for hours and hours during the night and exercising inside the apartment late at night.

We tried to talk to her, we wrote her a letter with our concerns, she stopped using hard/high heels for a few days but then returned to her habits.

There was no way for us to get her to stop, so we chose to move to another apartment.

There are problems here as well, but of different nature. There is a small park in front of our building, and lots of dog owners gather there at night between 10 and 11 PM, shout, call their dogs, laugh loudly, dogs fight and bark, it's a real pandemonium for about one hour every single night. People in the building tried to talk to them and have them move to a different place or at least try to keep quiet, to no avail. We are always glad now when it rains outside at night because this prevents them from getting together.

So there you are. Two years spent in Portugal, two different experiences in two different places, which show us a face of the Portuguese people that we do not like and will be hard or impossible to get used to. We are under the impression that people here care mostly about themselves, what they want or like, while giving absolutely no thought to people around them.

We purchased a home in SB de Alportel , in a slightly rural area, with predominantly Portuguese locals andvthe odd expat. As we dont yet speak much portuguese we expected to find it difficult to connect with our neighbours but we couldnt have been more lucky. One of our neighbours has shown me how to prune the vines, which olives were ready to harvest and how to brine them. our neighbours have shared produce with us and we have in turn shared ours. When we had an issue with our drains another neighbour offered her bathroom for our use. Collecti have made suggestions for day trips, local trades, local restaurants, advice for doctors etc. They have made our transition from Canada to Portugal such a joy and remind me so much of my Irish home life and good neighbours. we count ourselves very lucky to be able to live in portugal and believe we are the ones that need to adapt to the Portuguese ways, as after all we have chosen to live here !

As has already been made clear, it depends.

One thing I've read, and observation seems to bear out, is that when you see other people with your neighbors, they're family.  You, presumably, are not family.  Our neighbors have been pretty nice, but obviously their children are the priority in their social life.  We spent a little time last weekend with a younger local woman who's eager to get some experience speaking English -- and soon we expect to meet her mother.

@ctomac. Then don't move to the U.S....I live there and find Americans nowadays are as self centered as they come.  Just my opinion

@ctomac

How Strange!

I once stayed in an apartment where someone upstairs did precisely the same in the small hours of the morning .

Walking up and down constantly in high heels across a wooden floor for 30-60minutes a time.

The flat appeared to be occupied by a single male . It was never so bad that I had to challenge it, but I always put it down to him indulging in his weird fantasy/repetitive actions after dressing up in his more feminine attire and walking to/fro in front of the mirror.

@rspencerkeith

What's US got to do with it? The question was about Portugal. You probably should write your opinion on a US-related forum, shouldn't you?

Hello everyone,

Thank you all for sharing your experiences here.

Please let's keep the discussion on topic, as the questions here concern to Portugal. Thank you.

Cheers,

Cheryl

Expat.com team

I could really identify with some of the posts. I moved in February to a new apartment and the walls and floors aren’t as thick and insulated as I thought they would be. The person upstairs walks around… thankfully not in heels, but many nights I hear this thumping when I go to bed between 12:30 and 1:30. Sometimes it also sounds like furniture is being dragged around. I lay their wondering what’s going on. There’s a dog up there too but thankfully it doesn’t bark too much late at night. My biggest problem though is the smoking. I swear whoever’s up there hangs out the window whenever they smoke. My living room gets a very smoky smell and I have lots of ashes on my balcony railing. for me, the smoking is the worst part of being in my apartment.

I am also across the street from a park. When the weather is nice… Particularly when it’s very hot, people are across at the park at all hours of the night. I’ll go to bed at 1 o’clock and they’re talking loudly and laughing. I’ve decided that since there’s nothing I can do about it, I close my blinds and balcony door and put my fan on so I have some white noise. I’m usually able to fall asleep and ignore them. I wish I could do the same with a cigarette smoke 🥵

@slugsurmamates

Yes, I also found it very weird. She was starting her walking around 10 or 11 in the morning but that was not bothering us because we were awake anyway and the ambiental noise would mostly cover it. But at night... man, was it bad or what? She would walk incessantly for hours through the whole apartment, and it would only stop around 3 or 4 in the morning when she was probably going to bed. She was also banging various drawers from time to time, just to add spice to it.

I have lived in many different apartments all around the world, but this was by far the weirdest and the worst of all, especially considering the total lack of empathy and respect for those around her...