Do you talk with your neighbors?

[NJmaverick]

Is it rude not to?

[mainegreen]

1. Yup. Plus we've had them babysit for us.

Nice people.

[Chan790]

2. I try to avoid it...

Most of my neighbors are family...and I have a complex relationship to my kin. We're estranged and I'm happier about that than they are.

The one household who isn't related to me doesn't like me because I was the only witness to the burglary of their house in broad daylight and didn't make a very good witness, thus the crime remains unsolved.

[NJmaverick]

7. Why didn't you make "a very good witness"?

Was it because you just didn't notice or remember things or was it because you didn't want to get involved? If you wanted to help, but was unable to, then your neighbors were way out of line.

[Chan790]

10. PMed.

I don't want to post that publicly. Mostly the second.

Edit: Errr...the first. I wasn't paying attention. Also, somewhat the second...for the reasons I PMed.

[NJmaverick]

20. I got it, and I see you were right and they were wrong

[johnnie]

3. The neighbor on the one side of me I do

He is a great neighbor and we do a lot for each other. He snow blows my driveway in the winter, let's me use his hot tub when I want and is just an all around nice guy.

My other neighbor was an old man who I only talked to once or twice. He didn't have much to say. He went missing about a month and a half ago and no one knows where he is. He has no family and the cops said they have no idea what happened to him. I think he was taken away and killed, but I just don't know.

The day he disappeared I came home to find 3 cop cars and 6 cops around my house. They told me that another neighbor had called after seeing his front door wide open and they went in to check and he was nowhere around. The back door had glass broken from it and so did a basement window. Later that night a cop called me from his cell phone and asked if I could secure the back door. :shrug:

The next morning the board I had put on the basement window was torn off the house. I called the cops and the woman said they wish they knew where he was but had no luck in finding him.

Nothing has happened yet and I am afraid that as long as no one misses him the cops will just wait until a body is found.

[Midlodemocrat]

4. Wow. That is just horrible.

That poor old man. How awful to live your life and have no one miss you when you go missing.

I hope that this turns out okay.

[johnnie]

6. He had a brother that lived there but died about a year and a half ago

It is sad. I am a little hesitant on calling the police to see if they had any information because I don't fee like becoming a prime suspect..lol.

Another thing is that the cops were there about a month earlier because he said people were breaking into his house at night. So the cops took him in for a psychiatric evaluation. WTF?

But yes, it is really sad and I feel so bad for him. I go home every day hoping that I see him or at least the boards taken off the doors so I know that someone is doing something.

[NJmaverick]

8. Wow that is really wierd

Do the police have any working theories?

[johnnie]

9. I don't really know

The last time I talked to anyone at the station was the following day when I reported the board being torn off the house. At that time they had nothing.

As I said above, I am hesitant on calling. I'm just wondering if they will just wait a few years until the house collapses on itself before anyone does anything.

[DarkTirade]

5. On one side, yes. On the other side, I just never see them.

Only time I've had occasion to talk to them was when we were doing some repairs on the barn and I knocked on their door to ask if we could put a ladder in their yard so we could get to one side of our barn.

[MountainLaurel]

11. Yes

For all the stereotypes about living in an urban area, my neighbors are all incredibly friendly, and came over to introduce themselves when we moved in. We have been chatting with the folks next to us fairly frequently because we had a dead tree removed that straddles the property line. The house on the other side is a rental (with 3 apts.) that is currently empty; it'll probably be occupied when the college students return next month.

[femmocrat]

12. I just say "Hello".... or "Nice day, isn't it?"

Never anything beyond that. Honestly, if I saw my neighbors in any other setting (than in their yards), I wouldn't even recognize them. It's kind of like that out in the country, I have found.

[TZ]

13. Some of them

I always say hi to everyone though..well there was this one crazy neighbor (and she WAS crazy believe me) that I tried hard to avoid, but fortunately she moved away.
I definitely am closer to some neighbors than others though.

[MrCoffee]

14. The chicken people on one side are very nice to the kids

and the guys on the other side just gave me an awesome Charcoal Chimney when they were cleaning out their garage.

I have really cool neighbors.

[Blue Gardener]

15. I have great neighbors

We all watch out for each other, which is really nice.

[LostinVA]

16. Our neighbors were horrible, but they moved

We never talked to them. They used to park in our driveway constantly, run over our shrubbery, get stuck in the snow while parking in our driveway, then leave their broken shovel in our run-over shrubs, etc.

If they just asked to use our driveway, and didn't run things over, I wouldn't have minded them.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

17. one of them i had to threaten, he is kinda scared of me.

the others i say hi to.

its always funny to me when people are scared of me given that i am barely 5 feet tall

[PVnRT]

18. No

Although, if they can't learn to turn off their fucking alarm clock at four fucking thirty in the morning, I might have to start retaliation.

[LibDemAlways]

19. The people on either side of me mind their own business,

and we limit our interaction to "hello" and small talk, which is fine. Our across the street neighbors, however, suck. He inherited big money and doesn't have to work. Instead he's a professional busybody, keeping tabs on everybody in the neighborhood. His wife gets my vote for biggest snob and coldest person in town. I've never met her, but that would be impossible since she'll cross the street to avoid contact. Years ago I had ankle surgery and a three year old to contend with. She'd stand on her front lawn watching me on crutches trying to juggle groceries and a toddler after a trip to the market and not saying or doing anything to lend what would have been a much-appreciated helping hand. What a useless waste of DNA.

[NJmaverick]

22. Makes you wonder why good things happen to bad people

[BarenakedLady]

21. I know all my neighbors

But we all pretty much keep to ourselves. It's the country.

[latebloomer]

23. My next door neighbor is psychotic

She's an old lady, and before I just saw her as incredibly rude and controlling, but now she is descending into mental illness- perhaps dementia?

Even before we moved in, she was up our asses, wanting us to cut down a tree in the back yard. Our lawn never meets her standards, and she will stand screaming at the door about how my husband MUST MOW NOW!! She called us "tramps" for going out for the day while our lawn remained unmowed. She stands inside her screened-in porch, yelling and raving at everyone who has the nerve to pass by. No one in the neighborhood meets her standards, and she spends much of her time on her screened-in porch confirming this fact.

Once her landscaper blocked my driveway and when I asked him to move his truck she started screaming at me that he had every right to park there. I threatened to call the police, and that solved the problem.

Her husband and grown son are utterly whipped and I have heard her scream at them in a similar way- "Shut up! This is MY house! I bought this house!"

Last week's rant was that we were being supported by our mothers- my husband lost his job and I am working pt-time while recovering from an illness. Not sure how she jumped to that conclusion, but she feels she has every right to proclaim it to the whole block.

My policy is to utterly ignore her, though occasionally a "mind your own business" will slip out under duress.

My neighbors on the other side are quite pleasant. However, I read in the public notices that their house was going into foreclosure. :(

[Blue Diadem]

24. I talk with a few but the others are neighbors from hell and quite frankly can kiss my ass.

I'm in a weird situation, our property is only 1/2 acre, but we have 13 neighbors that border it. When we moved in, no one, not a single person acknowledged us, but they did ride their snowmobiles through our yard and ruin an ice rink we made for our kids and used our yard as their own. Our first Thanksgiving, we'd been here a few weeks and we had about 20 strangers playing football in our back yard while my guests inside were asking me "who are all those people?"

The first lady to acknowledge my hello was a neighbor across the road. I miss her, she's in a nursing home now. We are friendly with 3 neighbors up front of our property.

The problem with the rest of the neighbors began with them thinking they owned our back yard because each had mowed portions of it before we bought the property. They thought they had adverse possession or as one of their relatives told me "out here, if you mow it, you own it." One neighbor went so far as to erect and cement in a full sized goal post/soccer thing smack in the middle of our yard shortly before we moved here. They'd tell our kids they couldn't play in our own yard, meanwhile various neighbors(adults too) would be playing football or baseball or shooting pellet guns or playing golf or riding snowmobiles or driving their frickin trucks through it. Oh..and a few of the teenagers used it as their urinal.

After a few years of the neighbors ignoring my pleas(and posted signs) to stop, my youngest being bullied on his way to school by one of the neighbor kids over "stealing" his yard, I'd had enough so I verbally declared to each neighbor that I was holding a "this is my yard" tree planting ceremony and we surrounded the yard with evergreen type trees. Wish you could have seen the uproar that caused. I can still see the mouths hanging open with hands on their hips glaring at me as we dug each hole for the trees. Only one rushed out to have his property surveyed. He was surprised that our trees were well within our boundaries and he didn't own any of our land. As expected, a few trees were killed, but they were replanted. We still occasionally have a problem, most recently some strange kid riding a dirt bike in our back yard and nearly hitting our cars.

Ya know my son is experiencing the same darn thing, but luckily he only has two neighbors. While we bought a single Mom's home(I later found out that she had 5 kids and she was bullied and bossed terribly by these neighbors), he purchased an elderly couple's home who we've now found out were also taken advantage of. His neighbors claimed they were helping the couple by caring for parts of the couple's lot, leaving the center of the yard's plants and shrubs to overgrow and/or die but keeping the side portions clear and nicely kept. One neighbor's dispute was minor and settled after a few weeks. The other neighbor had even paved an area and now they think they own about 1/3rd of my son's yard. He had a survey done shortly after he bought the place and his neighbors knew and said nothing, but now, a year later and once he began to landscape, that neighbor is flipping out, ripping up his landscape stakes for new plant & shrub beds, coming outside and screaming at him. The other day he caught her taking a tour of his yard, circling his house and property and as he walked outside to see what she was doing, she ripped up his ribbon around his future plant beds and began screaming at him. He's learned from our mistakes, he's already called the cops on her twice.

[carlyhippy]

25. we have lived in our neighborhood for 5 years

and have never talked to the people across the street, my next door neighbor we talk to them, because we have known them for years.

[Iggo]

26. Mostly the kids.

We have a 13 yr old girl on the weekends, and there's a lot of kids around her age in our immediate neighborhood. Kids are always cool. My friendliest grown-up neighbors seem to speak only spanish, which is kinda fun. My nextdoor neighbor is the one who told my 76 yr old purple heart earning Kroean war veteran dad that he was what was wrong with this country (after my dad wouldn't sign his little petition against gay marriage). So we don't talk. The rest of them seem nice enough and happy to just smile and wave and maybe engage in the smallest amount of small talk.

When I was a kid in the previous century, a neighbor who didn't talk to the other neighbors was seen as rude. Nowadays, sadly, it seems to be normal.

[BreweryYardRat]

27. I talk to them if I have a reason to.

And vice versa. It's not rude not to talk to them.

[sniffa]

28. Not at all

I mind my own god damned business and I expect them to do the same.

I'm pleasant like that. :D

[sniffa]

29. Not at all

I mind my own god damned business and I expect them to do the same.

I'm pleasant like that. :D

[EFerrari]

40. I do but with limits. If we're on the sidewalk, we're friendly

if I'm on the driveway, I want my privacy.

It works out better than you'd think.

[bigwillq]

30. We talk to most of them.

One lady up the street doesn't talk to us for some reason but her hubby and kids do. We don't know what her problem is.

[LisaM]

31. Most of them, yes. We do have unusual neighbors on either side

There's a guy on one side I'll call Boo Radley. He is very pale, and somewhat mysterious. He likes to stand on his back porch in his bathrobe, even during the day and early evening, smoking cigarettes. He also does a ton of yardwork. He seems to appear whenever I go to the window or go outside. I don't know if he's trying to be friendly or if he's just weird. He asks questions like, "who owns your house" that seem wildly inappropriate (because I can't tell why he wants or needs this information - is he going to try and buy our house?) He lives there with his mother and her fairly recent husband - their marriage makes no sense whatsoever to me, unless he is doing it for the green card. They have nothing obvious in common and don't even seem to be the same age. It's an odd household. They clearly all prefer being outside to in, as well.

On the other side, we have shamans. There have been various renters there over the years. Prior to the shamans, there were four young guys, kind of Goth looking, but in reality, about as harmless as could be. They put up a badminton net and croquest wickets in the back yard, which was at odds with their appearance (they also put them up so they went into our yard, our houses are owned by the same landlord and the yards overlap). The current neighbors, the shamans, are nice. There's a revolving group of women there night and day. They have some kind of school, and occasionally hold retreats or something - which they hold mostly in our yard, which is strange. They drum a lot. At first, I thought the sound was our washer getting out of balance and I'd run downstairs to check, but it was just the sound of drumming. They held a big party last fall and invited us - TONS of people come to their parties, about 200. We all ended up in the back yard (again, ours!) in a circle holding candles, while fire eaters pranced around. It was unusual, but not in a bad way. It balances out Boo Radley and his family on the other side!

[Fox Mulder]

32. Hell no.

Just because they live next to me doesn't mean I have to talk to them.

I want them to mind their own goddamn business.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

33. I talk to the little boy when he's riding his bike past our house

No, I do NOT yell "You kids get off my lawn!" We don't even know the neighbors' names, sad to say. It's certainly not the way I grew up - in those days we knew all the neighbors' business and visited back and forth, took shelter from tornadoes, etc. etc.

[Skittles]

34. if I see them, yes but I don't see them much

my world is completely opposite (Midnight is noon to me).

[LisaM]

35. You and me both

As I'm looking for something to watch at 2:00 a.m., I often wonder if other neighbors wonder why our lights are on all night. There's one other lone light that late, but I don't know if they are just too lazy to turn it off. They had their Christmas tree up till about March this year. I could see it in their lighted window late at night.

[Skittles]

37. LOL LisaM you sound like me

I can be taking a walk around the neighborhood at 02:00 AM and be thinking, "Why the f*** are they still up?" when I see lights in other residences :7

[azmouse]

36. I never see them.

Our backyards in the Phoenix area are fenced around with block walls so we never see our neighbors when we're outside.
I like the privacy.

[Breeze54]

38. I usually wave to them and them to me unless we want to bitch about the landlord!

Then all hell breaks lose! :P But that's rare... :(

Usually we just wave and nod. It's better that way.

I've learned to not get to involved with neighbors

but I live in an Apt. Owning a house would be different. ;)

[Kerrytravelers]

39. We're still in an apartment.

I so want to be in a townhouse or house.

Our neighbor across the hall just took down her Christmas wreath from her door a week ago tonight. Until last week, we had a wreath covered in Christmas tree balls and tinsel. Now her door is covered with red, white and blue patriotic images. I'm sure that will be there until next January. She is ok, but a bit loud. Randomly at 2 AM sometimes, she'll blast her stereo. One evening, we heard a terrible scream coming from her apartment. Thinking she may be under attack, my 6'1, 200+ pound husband burst out of door and pounded on her door, calling in "Are you ok? Do you need me???" As he was doing this, the other neighbor came flying out (this is the Head Maintenance for the building and his wife.) They, too, thought there was an attack happening. Our neighbor opened the door, shocked at our concern. She had been cheering for her favorite college football team. She thought it was funny that we were all worried about her. We didn't quite see the humor.

Our other neighbors, whom I mentioned above, are kind of strange. Sometimes they say hi, other times, they will walk by and completely ignore you.

Our building is sectioned off, so you don't have too many immediate neighbors. We have the most unfriendly building in town. No one speaks. Everyone just passes you in the hallway without really talking. It is so weird.

It is also silent. When someone is playing their music, everyone hears, because no one is making any noise.

I get the sense that there are a lot of professional people who work really long hours. When we signed the contract, the manager (who is grumpy as hell!!!) said that this is usually the last apartment that people live in, as most people here are saving for a townhouse/condo or a house (just like we are,) or are graduate students and two of the nearest universities. These are pretty prestigious universities, so I can understand the need to be in a quiet building. The only time I have actually seen my neighbors was when there was a fire in the garage garbage-room (someone tossed a lit cigarette down the trash chute. :eyes:)

But, it is in a nice area, near a school and many housing areas. It is within walking distance of a grocery store, our bank and other necessities, so we're happy here until we can purchase real estate.

I grew up in a house, and was friendly with all my neighbors. It is weird not even knowing the name of our Head Maintenance man's wife, who is a neighbor.)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

41. Not much.

they are all young yuppies with really good jobs who moved in in the last few years, as the original owners have died off. I moved here in '84 and I was the second generation.

They have over-improved the houses, they drive shiny pickups and SUVs, and they are pretty boring. They have hot and cold running yard guys shaving their lawns down twice a week. We even have teardowns here, and people are building $500K yuppie castles on 1/3 acre lots.

We drive 15 year old cars, so they think we are lower-class, probably. We also do our own lawn mowing. Our college & grad school educations are equivalent or better than theirs, though.

The guy next door is nice, we yak sometimes with him. His wife (we call her "Muff") used to turn me in to the City all the time so a City Weasel from "Neighborhood Protection" (doesn't that sounds like Vaterland Security) would come hassle me about things like: leaves around the bottoms of my trees, sticks in my yard, poison ivy on my back fence, etc.--I kid you not. This hood is over 50 years old so we don't have those extreme deed restrictions that tell you what color you can paint your house. But these people WISH they had that kind of power.

Once the wife came over, and marched up the drive way yelling at me and my partner because he put one of the cars on OUR grass on OUR property to wash it. She screamed about how "It makes the neighborhood look bad!!!". She's about six feet tall and intimidating.

I suspect that Biff (as we call him) is whipped.

Strangely enough, the visits from Cityweasel stopped after THEY HAD TWINS!!!! :toast: :bounce:

There are two young fellows across the street that we yak with about house prices and improvements.

But no, I am not really friends with any of these people from the last 23 years.

[MorningGlow]

42. The ones to the east and the ones across the street, yes

Older couples--retired, folks of leisure (damn them! as we suffer remodeling our house from hell :P)--both couples are quite pleasant, and the man nextdoor snowblows our apron on a regular basis.

The neighbors to the west...er, not so much. Bob the Pothead and his dain bramaged children are annoying as hell. I feel sorry for the kids, because they have no parental supervision whatsoever. Mr. MG haaaaates the whole brood because the kids are always all over our yard (even up on our back deck), Bob doesn't even attempt any upkeep on his house, their car's muffler has been deafening for more than two years, and the billowing pot smoke is a bit much. x(