It helps if they're surrounded by trees.
I like that design style, but I also like the ingeniousness of Japanese modern house design where the windows are all placed in such ways that the daylight streams in but it doesn't violate privacy in the middle of a dense city. Like having a big open courtyard with the floor to ceiling windows facing inwards, or windows so high to the ceiling that all you see through them is sky. Frosted glass or gossamer curtains can also do wonders.
I'd rather be surrounded by dense bushes or nude men.
Our back yard is a jungle of native shrubs (particularly placed) and vines along the fence line to help with the general noise level but also the creepy crap of feeling stalked by everyone who walks down the alley.
Understand that I have neighbors who I like and we work together to watch the entire area where we live and we share things. like plants and beer. There are just so many strangers in our neighborhood in the past few years that none of us have the same old home town feel we used to enjoy. I generally do my patrols around four in the morning with a forty five auto in my butt crack and either a machete or a baseball bat and tactical flashlight in hand.
Ever since losing my fancy assed (eight hundred dollar) lawn mower and another neighbor losing her entire (very nice) lawn table and chairs and another neighbor losing a fairly cool expensive gas grille, we (six of us) have begun a kind of "neighborhood watch" thing to patrol at night. We are all deadly if challenged. One guy just does his midnight patrol with a shoulder strapped shotgun, because he does not even give a fuck who knows what he is doing.
I keep things a little more quiet though. My machete is generally on my belt and I carry my bat just casually on my shoulder. No one even suspects that I keep an eleven round forty five auto on my buttcrack.
Neighborhood watch, Baby!
