I also rented the house next door to my landlord, and also was on my “best behavior” since we loved the house and were getting a fantastic deal for the area.
One thing you might want to consider (if you can make this happen) – he wanted us to see him as a our neighbor, rather than landlord (it was the kind of neighborhood where we interacted with our neighbors a lot – xmas gifts on porches and bbqs and stuff). He had us call his contractor friend, rather than him, when we had broken things. The contractor friend usually would be the one arranging to fix things or recommending a repair person anyways, so it made sense for everyone, and there was no barging next door when we needed something.
