One of the most important things to consider when picking a business location is your neighbours. Whether you want to work at home or rent out an office, there are plenty of reasons why you should consider who you’ll make your neighbours.

Good Relations Means Good Business

There are plenty of reasons why maintaining a good relationship with your neighbours is beneficial for your business. First of all, you never want to move next to a competitor. There’s a reason why Apple’s offices are nowhere near Microsoft’s. Secondly, you want to be able to rely on your neighbours for certain things. For example, if someone is lost and needs to find your business but they accidentally knock on your neighbour’s door, you’ll want them to be able to find their way to you. If your neighbours hate you, then they’ll probably just shrug and slam the door on them.

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Keep it Down!

First of all, you’re making too much noise. If you record music for clients, use industrial tools or generally make a lot of noise, then you need to invest in an acoustic enclosure. Sometimes it’s not so much the sound that matters, but the vibrations caused by your noise. For example, if you have a machine that vibrates the floor around you and you can see your cup of coffee jolting around on your table, then rest assured, those vibrations are probably knocking off ceiling lights and wall decorations of people around you.

If you have received even a single complaint from one of your neighbours, then chances are your excessive noise is affecting everyone around you and not just the person that complained. In times like this, it’s worth considering serious upgrades to dampen noise and vibrations. However, if that isn’t feasible then moving to a more isolated office or location is perhaps a much better solution for the long-term.

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You Smell Bad

Whether you and your workers get sweaty due to your type of work or you deal with smelly chemicals and other foul substances, it doesn’t help if you make your neighbor's life worse by introducing those smells into their office. Our noises eventually become desensitized to certain things. For example, our noises might not notice that we stink of sweat, or that our clothes are lined with smoke and other fumes because we’re simply used to it. However, if those smells escape the ventilation systems or seep out of doors and effect other businesses, then chances are you’re going to get a lot of hate.

The best way to deal with these sorts of issues is to upgrade or install new ventilation systems to exhaust all of the foul smells out of your business. Some chemicals that release foul smells can actually be harmful or dangerous, and smoke is never a good sign. A new ventilation system (or a good clean of your old one) can drastically improve your business’s air quality and also exhaust all of the nasty stuff to help both your employees and to make your business more bearable for your neighbors.