The word of the day today is grannsämja, a compound word made up of the Swedish word granne (“neighbour”), and sämja, which can roughly be translated as “harmony”, as in att leva i sämja, “to live in harmony”. 

Sämja is in turn related to the Swedish word sams (“in agreement”), with the negative being osams (“in disagreement”).

The best English translation of grannsämja would probably be “good-neighbourliness”, but it essentially just means getting on well with your neighbours.

Swedes have cared about getting on with their neighbours since 1487, when the first use of the word grannsämja (then spelt gransämia) was recorded. It can also be used to refer to other kinds of neighbours, such as grannsämja between neighbouring countries.

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Swedes consider grannsämja to be very important. Most will generally go out of their way not to disturb their neighbours, and will expect you to do the same.

In fact, irritating neighbours are one of the few things which will get a Swede riled up, as those of you who have read our bumper list of 33 different ways to offend a Swede will no doubt have realised.

Grannsämja is so important that many housing foundations or rental companies will have their own grannsämja policy document, outlining all the ways in which you are expected to visa hänsyn (show consideration) to your neighbours.

This is likely to include not making too much noise during certain times (usually around 9pm to 7am on weekdays and all day on Sundays), which means no building Ikea furniture or putting up shelves in this time, and waiting until waking hours to put on your dishwasher or washing machine if it’s particularly noisy.

It also means there’s usually a ban on using the laundry room outside of certain hours, and an expectation that you clean up after yourself and don’t do anything that would annoy others.

This doesn’t mean you can never have people over or host a party on a weekend – just warn your neighbours in advance with a note in the stairwell, providing your phone number so they can send you a text if you need to turn the noise down.

If your neighbour is being loud, hosting wild parties every weekend or leaving rubbish outside their apartment, try to raise it with them first rather than going straight to your housing association to complain.

Swedes generally dislike conflict, so it’s good to be as neutral as possible the first time you raise the complaint with your neighbour, as they may genuinely not have realised that what they’re doing is annoying you.

A good tip here is to check the rules and regulations (stadgar) in your housing association and use them to back up your complaint rather than framing it as an opinion.

For example, instead of saying “you make too much noise late at night”, you can lean on the rules instead, saying something like “the housing association rules state that it should be quiet by midnight on Saturdays, but last night you were still playing music at 2am. Can you make sure to put a note in the stairwell in advance next time you host a party and make sure to turn off the music by midnight?”.

If you don’t feel comfortable doing this face to face, or you’re not sure which apartment the noise was coming from, you can complain in true Swedish fashion by leaving a note in the stairwell airing your grievances.

It’s also a good idea to be aware of the rules yourself, so you don’t accidentally end up breaking them and getting complaints from your neighbours. If one of your neighbours does complain about something you do and you don’t agree with the complaint, check the stadgar to make sure it’s actually something the housing association’s rules cover.

Your neighbours can’t expect your apartment to be completely silent at all times: you are allowed to play music, have friends over for dinner or watch TV at an acceptable volume, for example, and being woken up by your neighbour’s crying baby at 3am is unfortunately just part of living in an apartment.

If you can’t come to an agreement about how to solve the issue between yourselves, you may need to get the housing association or rental company involved.

In the worst-case scenario, repeated complaints could result in evicting the anti-social neighbour, so understanding good grannsämja – and calling out your neighbours if they don’t do so themselves – can be really important.

Example sentences:

Det är viktigt att alla bidrar till god grannsämja.

It’s important that everyone contributes so that we all get on well as neighbours.

Vi har bra grannsämja i min förening, vi höll en gårdsfest förra året tillsammans som var jättetrevlig.

We get on well with each other in my housing association, we held a garden party last year together which was really nice.

Villa, Volvo, Vovve: The Local’s Word Guide to Swedish Life, written by The Local’s journalists, is now available. Head to lysforlag.com/vvv to read more about it – or join The Local as a member and get your copy for free.

It is also possible to buy your copy from Amazon US, Amazon UK, Bokus or Adlibris.