{"id":560016,"date":"2026-03-24T00:24:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T00:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/560016\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T00:24:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T00:24:08","slug":"ive-been-asking-australians-to-anonymously-rate-their-neighbours-heres-what-ive-learnt-so-far-comedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/560016\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019ve been asking Australians to anonymously rate their neighbours. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learnt so far | Comedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year I saw my neighbour throw dog poo at a man. It happened while my wife and I were playing catch with a Vortex in a South Yarra park. Yes, we are both 31 years old \u2013 thank you for asking.<\/p>\n

We saw a lady who lives in an apartment above us approach a man who was waiting for his dog to finish going to the bathroom. She had a plastic bag over her hand and determination in her eye. I watched her bend down and scoop up the man\u2019s dog\u2019s poop while accusing him of never picking up after his canine companion.<\/p>\n

A kerfuffle ensued, culminating with my neighbour flinging this man\u2019s dog\u2019s faeces at him. I\u2019ve seen stuff like this online but it turns out poo throwing is just like music \u2013 it\u2019s much better live. Watching this take place was quite possibly one of the most thrilling and humiliating things I\u2019ve ever watched one human do to another human being. And I\u2019ve seen MAFS.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard not to see this insane incident as anything but a metaphor for what it\u2019s like trying to live in society right now. We\u2019re divided. We\u2019re lonely. We\u2019re flinging stuff at each other. We\u2019ve lost the art of what it means to be a good neighbour \u2013 in a time when we need it more than ever.<\/p>\n

For the past few weeks I\u2019ve been trying to find the most neighbourly neighbourhoods in Australia. In the interests of scientific rigour, I built Rate Thy Neighbour<\/a>, a digital platform that asks Australians to anonymously rate the people next door, converting their results into an Uber-style rating for their street and suburb.<\/p>\n

I wanted to rate neighbours on multiple categories, from letting you put stuff in their bin to how likely they are to lend you some milk \u2013 or, depending on where you live, almond milk. These ratings are then broadcasted live on a national leaderboard<\/a> so that everyone in Australia can see which suburbs and streets are more friendly than others.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s early days but here\u2019s what I\u2019ve learnt from this experiment so far.<\/p>\n

Nothing unites like a common enemy<\/p>\n

Nosy landlords, pesky councils, a new Westfield. A substantial number of high-rated neighbours have come from trauma-bonding and making the best out of a bad situation. At the extreme end of the spectrum are neighbours in Sunbury (Victoria) who developed a friendship after a unit in their complex was burgled and they teamed up to figure out who had committed the crime. While effective, community through vigilantism should always be a last resort (unless you\u2019re deliberately angling for your own Netflix doco).<\/p>\n

Acts of service are still the best way to connect<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s a Rosehill (New South Wales) man who helped his neighbours rip up tiles (and consequently sliced his hand open on a shard), or a Glen Forrest (Western Australia) neighbour lending out his credit card when someone couldn\u2019t find theirs, radical acts of generosity are the essence of being a good neighbour. Just make sure they\u2019re consensual. Don\u2019t be like the Toowoomba (Queensland) resident who walked into their neighbours\u2019 back garden unannounced to spray weed killer. At some point, you become more annoying than the lantana.<\/p>\n

We can handle annoying \u2013 just be decent<\/p>\n

A Fitzroy (Vic) neighbour escaped a low overall rating because, despite yelling at their dog at all hours of the night, they are always there when neighbours lock themselves out. However, data suggests there are some automatic disqualifiers \u2013 like leaving notes on cars, defending Hitler at the street Christmas party, or being an amateur DJ. That was a hard way to learn I\u2019ll never be the next David Guetta.<\/p>\n

A lot of people online have accused my neighbour rankings of being a \u201cKaren App\u201d. The irony is that it was fuelled by a desire to stop Karenism; a belief that there are better solutions than flinging faeces. I guess it\u2019s true \u2013 either you die a hero or live long enough to watch yourself become a Karen.<\/p>\n

Much like turd-hurling, anonymously rating your neighbours is not a long-term solution to building better neighbourhoods. I\u2019m just trying to get us talking about what it means to be a good neighbour, in a time when we could all use more of them. It turns out it involves a little more community through vigilantism than is ideal. But desperate times call for desperate measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year I saw my neighbour throw dog poo at a man. It happened while my wife and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[64,63,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-560016","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}