Not to mention that telling your neighbor “you turn it off” is not exactly the courtesy that OP might think it is.

My wife has a bunch of these that all took 3 1.5v batteries, so I soldered wires into them to run back to a “hub” that plugs into a 5v microsd charger and they are switched with a simple outlet remote. It would be a good idea to make them not permanently attached to the hub for when it’s time to put them away.

You could do it with a mix of 2 and 3 1.5v battery lights but you’ll want to add an appropriate resistor. A 100Ohm resistor should drop it 2v at 20mA. It’s kind of depends on how they’re wired, mine aren’t out yet. I don’t recall if I added a ~25Ohm resistor to the 3 battery ones but I probably should have if there wasn’t one already.

Anything that can be controlled remotely is always using a little bit of power. And these days probably almost everything else in your home is always using a little bit of power.

It’s Christmas season, head into target or Walmart and grab an outlet remote switch. They work on radio rather than ir so they will be responsive. Some are single, some have multiple in one remote. Some toggle and some have separate on/off buttons.