My parents live in a small neighborhood composed of five sets of three adjoining houses. Each trio of houses faces the road, and each house has a courtyard in the back. The courtyards are connected by gates that allow contractors, such as landscapers, and visitors to pass through from one end of the row to the other. The middle courtyard is blocked off from the street on both sides, and there is no alley or road touching the courtyards that would allow another mode of entry other than through the front of the house. Consequently, the neighborhood homeowners’ association (HOA) requires that all connecting gates remain unlocked.

In March, The New York Times ran a story about a feud between two neighbors in Fairfax, Virginia, over an unsightly, three-story home addition. The homeowner’s next-door neighbor was angered by the 32-foot-tall addition, which towered over her single-story home from the edge of his property. After complaints about the addition drew local news attention, the zoning board investigated and found that it was 7.2 inches too close to the neighbor’s property, which violated the required 8-foot setback rule. A stop-work order was issued, and construction stopped. Now, the addition stands empty and unfinished, useless to the homeowner and an eyesore to the neighbors.

In 2019, a single-family home located at the entrance of my suburban neighborhood was bought to be rented to families looking to live in the county’s best school district. Previously inhabited by a quiet couple who worked hard to keep their yard presentable, the home was now victim to a slew of families moving in and out on a yearly basis. The third rental tenant to occupy the home in 2021 made it immediately evident that yard upkeep was not one of their priorities. Three months into their rental period, the tenants allegedly experienced a bedbug infestation, prompting them to burn their mattresses in their backyard. Placing them only a few feet from the home, they doused the mattresses in gasoline and watched them, along with the grass and the back of the house, burst into flames.

In my childhood house, there was a pathway that ran through the neighbor’s backyard, continued through our backyard, and ended in the communal alley at the end of our row of houses. Issues often arose over the communal uses of these pathways to bring items out to the alley, requiring that neighbors trek through each other’s backyards. These issues most often resulted from discontent over the lack of privacy in one’s own backyard when neighbors traipse through, especially during the summer months when people are more active outside.

Have you ever felt like you were living at work? Now, you might be. Post-COVID-19, more people are working from home than ever before. Even after recent return-to-work orders, office buildings are still only seeing 63% occupancy. Office to residential building conversions have been proposed as the creative solution to repurpose unused buildings and revitalize abandoned downtown streets. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the county instituted a tax abatement called PILOT, or “payment in lieu of taxes,” under which office buildings converted into residential spaces are wholly exempt from real property tax for twenty years. However, many cities have land-use restrictions in place that may force developers to go through the time-consuming and costly process of requesting a variance, an exception to zoning regulations. So, are cities actually being revitalized through office to residential conversions when there are strict land-use restrictions in place?

In 2010, my family had new neighbors move into the house behind us—their backyard shared a fence with ours. Our neighborhood allowed for most houses to have a backyard and a substantial amount of space, but not an excessive amount. For example, I could see the yards of my neighbors on all sides from my yard. For a few months, there was no change. However, after about six months, they got chickens. Not one or two, but an entire henhouse of chickens and a rooster. Not only did the rooster wake the neighborhood up with its crowing at dawn, but the chickens attracted the ever-growing fox population in my Pennsylvania suburb.

Imagine finding out that a person suddenly gains ownership of your property. This would send any person into a frenzy. But that is exactly what the doctrine of Adverse Possession allows. While it doesn’t frequently make headlines, Adverse Possession—sometimes referred to as “Squatter’s Rights”—is a growing concern among property owners nationwide. It essentially enables a non-owner to gain title to land or personal property after the owner fails to recover possession.