Best way to approach a honking neighbor with little experience doing so?

[socalfusions]

@Finagle

I’d try asking politely, but with low expectations. If someone’s oblivious enough to the conventions of polite society to think that it’s acceptable to honk their horn at 7AM, then they’re likely to react with hostility to anyone who suggests that it’s an inconsiderate thing to do.

I likewise have low expectations for such a situation, I guess I just don’t have faith in people that would engage in this type of behavior in the first place. That being said I did have a friend who would beep their car horn with their keyless fob in highschool after our group and another group were feuding and some hotheads in ours decided to damage the other groups car, my friend was paranoid and ended up beeping his car at all hours of the night anytime he thought he heard something outside, one of his neighbors asked his dad if he could stop and he was actually surprised he didn’t consider it could be bothering anyone and stopped.

@Dinsdale

While I am happy to be friends with some of my neighbors, my primary goal is to be polite and respectful towards them all. Friendly, w/o being friends. My wife and I describe it as being a “Hey neighbor.” When you see your neighbor outside the house, you smile and say “Hey,” and then both go about your business. Of course, whenever doing anything that might affect your neighbors’ enjoyment of their property, or that is outside the neighborhood norm, you at least take that into consideration.

Anything more friendly runs the risk - if things change, you’re still living next to each other. Easier to maintain a cordial distance, than a friendship.

I also try to be polite and respectful to any neighbor I don’t already know growing up with them which ends up usually being new neighbors. This particular neighbor is on a wave to eachother basis but we’ve never had a sincere conversation. Definitely easier to maintain a cordial distance over friendship.

@Ravenman

This is a rather straightforward problem of the type that normal adults inevitably face. The first approach is, as others have said, to deal with it as an adult and have a polite face-to-face conversation. No ultimatums, no buying presents, no bribery, no threats. Just talk.

Leaving a note is what kids do to ask a girl out: “Do you like me, check yes or no!”

Of course, if the polite conversation tactic fails, one could consider other things that kids may do, like ding-dong-ditch at 3am. If that fails, you’ll probably have to go with the flaming bag of poo that’s attached to one of those squeeze-bulb bicycle horns. They’ll get the message.

Yeah I almost loathe the idea of spending a cent to have them in my good graces though I’ve heard of people doing just that to change the situation from a request to a gift in a way. It does seem like notes generally don’t work unless they are worded very meticulously and signed so that the receiver doesn’t feel under scrutiny.

I’ve considered ding dong ditch actually haha, it seems ideal at disrupting their current routine with excessive noise while not bothering any other neighbor. Problem is once I approach them about the honking they will probably realize I would be the culprit though I suppose it wouldn’t matter too much if they were inconsiderate enough to continue honking after I politely requested them not to.

[jnglmassiv]

Obviously, talk to the adults.

OP, would you feel differently if it were a school bus that was honking every morning? That isn’t uncommon.
How about courtesy honks when a car is about to pull out into a blind sidewalk?

[John_DiFool]

Simply tell him that he’s activating the cruise control by mistake each time instead.

[TriPolar]

Ask them to come over for dinner.

[bengangmo]

What’s the specific problem with honking?
7am doesn’t seem that early to me - unless you work shifts or something similar - and if you do work shifts, it’s perfectly reasonable to explain this to neighbour and ask them not to honk.