Spy on your neighbor? Really?…
The truth is with a little careful research online, you can find out just about anything about anyone these days.
In fact, this is one reason that some people (about 6%) decide not to be Internet users at all.
Still, there are times when it is critical to find out information about your neighbors.
Reasons You Might Want To Know More About Your Neighbors
- The possibility that a neighbor may be a convicted sex offender.
- Your neighbors always seem to know what is going on in your house and have no problem discussing it with you, even though you never told them anything.
- The possibility that your neighbor may be a convicted drug dealer who is dealing drugs again.
- Your neighbors seem to keep an abnormal number of dogs, and you’ve heard what you think are dog fights going on.
- You’re suspicious that your neighbors might be using your wireless connection to spy on your home, or the contents of your computer.
- Your child tells you about some disturbing behavior (doesn’t have to be sexual) on the part of your neighbor and you’re concerned about the safety of all children in the neighborhood.
Those are just a few reasons that you might want to find out who your neighbors are.
Good news…
There are 6 online services that help to find out further information about your neighbors — legally!
6 Legal Ways To Spy On Your Neighbors
Start here:
- Reverse Address White Pages is a tool that makes it easy to find the names of your neighbors! Curious who lives in a certain house in your neighborhood? Just type the house address into this database, and you’ll see the owner(s) name(s) immediately. Another fun idea… use the Property Assessor’s website for your specific county (in the U.S.) to see how much they paid for their house, and how much it sold for before them. You can also see how large the home is, when it was built, how much land is included with their property, when/if they remodeled, and how the value of that home has changed over time.
- National Sex Offender Public Website is a site run by the U.S. Department of Justice. You have immediate access to sex offender data nationwide. This is the only U.S. government website that links public state, territorial and tribal sex offender registries in one national search site.
- Family Watchdog is a great website that allows you to do more than just research your neighbors to see if they have a criminal record. You can also find out about food, drug, and product recalls, get a free family safety guide, and get free safety alerts. This website is geared towards keeping you and your family safe and has lots of useful information. Just enter an address or a ZIP code and then an area map will be generated with markers representing offenders in that area.
- SpotCrime is a site that pinpoints exactly where reported crimes took place in your neighborhood. The information is gathered from police records and news reports. It is quite comprehensive. You can also sign up to automatically receive alerts any time a crime is committed in your area.
- Free Background Checks USA is a site that tells you how to do free background checks on your neighbors — by state. They have a 3-step process where you can find the address of a person, then check the National Sex Offender Registry, and then contact the local law enforcement groups for the different areas of the state for which you’re checking. It’s quite thorough! This site makes it much easier to find out if your neighbor has any kind of a criminal record.
- Nextdoor is a website that makes it easier to know what’s going on in your neighborhood — without actually chatting with your neighbors face-to-face. You can see what your neighbors think about new things in and around your town in general, as well as things taking place in and around your neighborhood specifically. This is a great outlet for speaking your mind on matters that affect you and your neighbors, and a good way to stay on top of things that you might not find out about otherwise.
And finally…
If you happen to be interested in knowing which political campaigns your neighbors are contributing money to, you can check out these online tools.
Personally, I think this info should be private. Why knowing whether your neighbor is a Democrat, Republican or Independent even matters escapes me.
The online tools mentioned in the link above are designed for those nosy neighbors who think it’s their right to know every detail of their neighbor’s private lives.
The Bottom Line
It’s clearly not wrong to spy on your neighbors in these ways.
So if you’re feeling the need to know more about the people who live around you, those are 6 good ways to do it — for the purpose of keeping your family safe.
It’s a sad world that we live in that we must be so suspicious of others. But these days, there’s just no telling who is moving in next door. Right?
