Do you know/like your neighbors?

[DawnMarch]

How are your neighbors -- do you know them? do you like them?

We've been in our house for about 18 years now with the same neighbors on one side who we adore. On the other side, we had long term neighbors that we always go along with even though they had a bit of a yappy dog who barked a lot. We dealt with it.

Then, they moved and we got new neighbors about 5 years ago. I made a point of stopping by to introduce myself and then introduced them to several of the others on the street. Initially, I was happy because they had cute little kids and did a lot of work on their house. I've given them a few things for the kids. We have watched their dogs when they were on vacation and my daughter has babysat for their kids.

Lately, I've come to mostly dislike them. Whenever they have a "neighbor" issue, instead of coming to us and just talking about it, they leave these weird, anonymous, passive-aggressive notes. First, it was about our dogs barking when we were out of the house. We have a doggy door and had no idea the dogs went out and barked when we weren't home (and usually there IS someone home since I work mostly from home). They rarely go outside or bark when we are home so I assumed it was the same when we were gone. If the neighbors had just mentioned it when we saw them in person outside, I would have been fine with it but instead we find an anonymous note taped to our house saying something like "Your dogs bark constantly while you are gone. IT'S NOT RIGHT! BE CONSIDERATE!" Um, ok, maybe not just jump to the conclusion that we are inconsiderate people but that maybe - since we weren't home - that we didn't know this was happening.

So, we've kept the dogs locked in when we are gone. Easy enough but it left me with a sour feeling about how it was handled. Then, this week, we get another anonymous note saying "Please consider what you are doing to your neighbors yard and pool by not cutting back your palm tree." That was the totality of the note. No "dear neighbor", no "gee, not sure if you realize this but stuff from your palm tree blows into our yard." And why not just talk to us or at least sign the note? How weird are these people? And then I happen to see that they leave a nasty, sarcastic comment on the Nextdoor neighborhood website about whether they can get their neighbor's palm tree cut back and leave all the leaves on their lawn. So, I try to take the high road and reach out to them - and explain that I understand their concerns but no one gets their palm trees cut back until late June because otherwise the seeds just grow right back and you have to do it all over again. I send the a link to an article from an arborist saying that and that we'll get them cut back soon. They respond with a very sanctimonious "well, I just know that I wouldn't allow something in my yard that would affect other people like that." Um, has the man never owned a tree? Trees have leaves and seeds and you can't 100% control where they go.

Yesterday, I learned that the neighbors on the other side of them (who are the nicest people in the world) don't like them either for similar reasons.

So, I know that is a ridiculously long saga and I probably don't have that much to complain about compared to some people. Our friends had neighbors at their cabin who were, essentially biker gang kinda folks who would have huge outdoor parties with people screaming, fighting, throwing beer bottles, etc. At least we don't have that!

So, how are your neighbors -- do you know them? do you like them?

[carrie1977]

Well...that's just annoying!

Yes, we've been in our house for 14 years now and have pretty much had the same neighbors. We all have children that go to the same school and have grown up together so they are outside playing all the time. In the summer, they will swim with each other. We don't have a pool but three of our neighbors do so they will swap pools. LOL! We haven't found a larger house elsewhere because we have such a great little community here. We will be here for as long as the kids are in school since the school is right around the corner. My hubby would prefer to be in the country (hence the ducks and rabbits..lol). He's a country boy trapped in the city for sure.

[DawnMarch]

Yes, we've been in our house for 14 years now and have pretty much had the same neighbors. We all have children that go to the same school and have grown up together so they are outside playing all the time. In the summer, they will swim with each other. We don't have a pool but three of our neighbors do so they will swap pools.

These are the neighbors we always wish we had!

[carrie1977]

Originally Posted by DawnMarch

These are the neighbors we always wish we had!

Exactly why we can't leave! We won't find this in the country.

PS...I really don't want to be in the country...critters and snakes and stuff are out there. Buuuuuut...Matt has tolerated the city long enough.

[LeeAndra]

Our neighbor across the street is a widowed single mom who cleans out houses, apartments, etc. after a move or death. She constantly has people coming to and leaving from her house who are buying? trading for? the things she finds. She has or had some sort of feud with the neighbor behind us from not picking up her dog's poop that the county brownies got involved in. She is nice enough but we are not friends.

Our neighbor behind us is a divorced 50something man who lives alone. He is nice enough but we are not friends.

The neighbors to one side are a young married couple with no kids or pets who only leave their house if they're going in their car somewhere; they don't spend time outside relaxing or anything. I don't know anything abt them except that the husband is my mother's pastor's son.

The neighbors on the other side are actually two separate sets of neighbors whose houses are so close together and surrounded by brush and trees that I don't know who belongs to what or where. There are at least 3 young-looking adults and 3 or 4 infant/toddler-aged kids. They play loud music when they are leaving or pulling up in their cars. One of the houses' fences in the back is broken down so their dogs (at least two) can and do jump over sometimes but it seems to 'only' be when they're already in the yard and they quickly corral them back in. They don't mow very regularly. That is literally all I know abt them. We've never spoken and I doubt we will.

It would be nice to live in a neighborhood with school-aged kids for my daughter to get to know and play with. Since she goes to school out of district, she's never met any kids that live in our neighborhood but I don't think there are any within 3 or 4 houses of us on any side.

[jak]

Our neighbours are all friendly but we aren't 'friends'... just neighbours. Everyone is pleasant to each other - we all wave, say hello, chat briefly if we're out the front at the same time, etc. There are zero kids amongst our immediate neighbours (there are quite a few retirees and people with grown kids) - we'd have to go nearly a block away to find any similar ages to mine, which is kind of odd considering this area is mostly young families. That's probably the only thing I wish was different - that my boys had other kids to play with nearby.

[NeverendingJen]

I haven't met most of my neighbors beyond a quick hello, but we are in an apartment and have only been here 2 months. We don't have outdoor spaces really so there's no way to really meet people

[britaneejean]

I feel like I need to draw a map of my neighborhood so it's not so confusing haha!

We just moved here last September...school had already started and it got chilly (to the point of not hanging/playing outside) a few months later so we didn't really get to meeting neighbors until this spring.

Our neighbors across from us don't talk to anyone (from what everyone's said) & there are always cars parked outside...like we have nearly hit their truck backing out because it's *right* there. And they frequently have a car parked in front of our house...and they're almost always blocking some part of our driveway. Our neighbors next to us are nice but we only say "hello" and other pleasantries. I don't know the living situation...if other families/siblings live there or not. There's at least 5 cars there though. Our neighbors behind us have gotten stray balls from our backyard and I know the girls babysit but that's it. We're on a corner with a field on that side of the street so no one else.

With that being said, I know many other neighbors in our few blocks because a lot of us go to the same church. So we see each other many times throughout the week and help each other whenever. My kids are making friends and it's nice to have families around that have kids the same ages as my girls.

We love our home and we love the area that we're in. I hope we have neighbors that we come to love & cherish soon.

[rdjrneace]

I had my mother-in-law as my neighbor for years and then when she downsized we got the "Griswold" family. It was a disaster - trash, no mowing, horses in the front yard (yes I live in the country but we share a common driveway).

They divorced and then mom died so house sits vacant which was about as bad since it seemed weird people would come and look at the house.

Finally we get a young couple who takes care of the property and has brought the old house back to life. We really don't talk since there is significant amount of land between us.

[GraceLee]

We moved here last September and it's the nicest little neighborhood. We'd only lived in town homes before and never really talked to our neighbors. Here, a lot of the neighbors go to the same church we go to so we see each other, and have little parties and stuff where we hang out. My kids love having so many other kids their age to play together. They've been sneaking out and just going to our neighbors' houses but that's stopped since I put in some locks on the back gate.

I've never had really bad neighbors but I find it fascinating when others tell their bad neighbor stories!

[DawnMarch]

They've been sneaking out and just going to our neighbors' houses but that's stopped since I put in some locks on the back gate.

As a mom, I'd put and end to that too but that's pretty adorable.

[rach3975]

We've been here for 12 years, but we only know the neighbors a little. No horror stories and they're fine as neighbors, but we just wave to each other if we see them. The families with kids who we got to know a little better have all moved. New people have moved into all of those houses, some of whom have kids, but we haven't really gotten to know them.

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[joelsgirl]

We live in a duplex that our company owns, and our neighbors work for the same company. We are friends, and we like them. There are good points & bad points to living in a duplex, though. I like that I can always borrow things I run out of & having someone to keep an ear out for my kids if I need to run out. I'm sure they hate living next to us, though, because we have three loud kids & we all yell a lot, while the only time we hear them is when they are singing as a family around the piano.

[cherrygutz]

Wow... That is just... anonymous!

Well at least now we know that your other neighbor has similar problem with them.

When we moved to our house we also had this neighbor who would constantly give unsolicited advice about what I can do with the tree that's growing in front of our house. Sometimes I would see her cleaning her front yard and then I would also go out to clean my front yard. The only thing is, she wants me to cut the tree in front of our house "because it hurts her eyes."

Bwahahaha! It hurts her eyes of the sight of the tree in our front yard. I'm very respectful to elders and/or people older than me so I just smiled at her like I took her "advice" as a joke. But at the end of the month I learned from one of our neighbors who finds her to have a lot of issue too, that she would bring it up to the community meeting.

Well at the end of it all, people just laughed at her when she told everyone her reason - "it hurts her eyes." I felt bad for her at that time because everyone laughed at her and the president asked "are you serious?" So what I did was I just trim our tree 4x a year. Just to make sure she would feel "heard." She's old. She might be lonely and sad.

[GraceLee]

Originally Posted by DawnMarch

As a mom, I'd put and end to that too but that's pretty adorable.

LOL yeah I got my neighbors numbers real quick and they would text me and ask if my kids had permission to be there. It's a small and tight-knit community so I'm not too worried for them to be outside, but I don't like it when they don't ask me before going.

[nietis]

We live in apartment, so we don't get to see other people much here. The neighbour opposite our door is an elderly couple, who take care of their granddaughter every now and then. We smile and nod, if we see each other on the door. Other than that, we don't know them much.

[Julie Billingsley]

wow Dawn those notes are crazy and passive-aggressive!

I have 3 neighbors. My neighbor on the right is a 60 year old guy that bought the house just last year. He is a retired aeronautical engineer and is super smart and friendly. He only lives there part of the year because he also has a house in California. He is the kind of guy that will see you doing yard work and will come over to help. We love him. LOL

The neighbors across the street is a family of a mom and dad around 50 years old and their 4 adult sons that still live with them. They are friendly and we've taken care of their house several times when they have gone camping. Their downside is that they have 6 cars (one for each of them) and they pretty much take over the whole street with their cars.

Our neighbor on the left was an older lady with dementia. She was very obsessed with her lawn and was always out doing yardwork. She would complain about our yard all the time. And she would try to start crazy arguments like she kept coming over to our house to tell us that our male cat was a female. Uh, no he isn't. Or complain that we hired someone to tear up her driveway... no, that was the cable company laying down new cable. Anyway, it was sad. She passed away last summer and now her adult daughter lives there. I don't know her at all because she keeps to herself.

We have lived here 14 years and bought the house because it's near an elementary school and hoped that meant it would be close to lots of kids close to my son's age. But sadly, no, it's all adults with older or no kids. I would love to move to a close-knit neighborhood.

[nesser1981]

We have pretty good neighbors, of the 6 houses at our end of the street, we're the only ones with young kids, everyone else are empty nesters, except one lady that is younger than us & lives alone. It's pretty quiet and the are kids at the other end of the street. One of our neighbors is nice, but super nosey! Lol!


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[JennNtheBoys]

We live in a small town, so essentially everyone knows everyone, BUT we do not make it a point to "get to know" the neighbours.... everyone just does their own thing and keeps to themselves. I love right in town, and the homes are not super close by any means so that's probably the only thing that makes it work for me. Personally I'd rather live where there's not another house visible for a while, but I am not a people person. LOL

[biancka]

We love our neighbours on both sides. If we have issues.....we just talk to eachother but to be honoust, there are hardly any issues. We've been here since 2006 and had an immediate click with one of the neighbours. Probably because they have a girl same as our son and they are still friends.

I go for a coffee from time to time to my other neighbour plus we talk when we are in the garden. Really nice and I know that if something was wrong.....I could ask help from both for sure

[jaye]

I live in a townhouse and know most of the people to say hello and some I chat with when out walking my dog but I don't socialize with any of them.

I just got new neighbours to the right of me, haven't even seen them. On the other side of me is a single lady who has two of children and grandson that live with her. Have had a few new people move in (these places are selling fast when they go up) with little kids so it's cute to see them up and down the sidewalk on their bikes and scooters.

[Fioontje]

We have nice neighbours. It's a quiet street, everybody's being nice to each other. Some chit chat here and there when we see each other.
When there is European or World Soccer championships, we decorate the street together with lots of banners and sometimes watch the game together on a beamer.
When my daughter was born, I got maternity care, and the lady happened to be my neighbour. She was also pregnant at that time, our kids have an age difference of nearly 3 months. So when the kids have their birthdays, we visit each other and bring presents.

[lovely1m]

We like most of our neighbors except one. Those ones keep to themselves, no matter how much I tried reaching out at first. Now I've had to call the city on them twice because they do not clean up their dog poo making our yard unusable. It's ridiculous. The husband has said some really rude things to the other neighbors about parenting, etc. The rest are great though, we spend lots of time with them. Except two of them just sold their houses and are moving. That's going to hurt the whole great neighborhood feel a lot.

[MamaBee]

Nope - We have lived in this house for 13 years... and for me, this neighborhood for 16 years. We really don't know anyone anymore. We used to know our east neighbor - he was a bit of a "blow hard," their house was foreclosed and were forced to move... the house across from us was a nice family - we felt safe that if we needed anything or like we had to have someone watch Jake, we trusted them to do it - but then they got divorced and moved... and the house to the west owns an Indian restaurant and were never home, we knew their sons (high school age) more than them. Then five years they all moved, at about the same time. Then we had an older couple move in to the house on the East, they owned a few hotels in town... they would always call my husband Bob. A young doctor moved in across the street... and a missionary family now turned youth pastor on the west side, who's wife is a bit nosy and doesn't really care for that we homeschool (she worked in the public schools). Last year the west side and across the street moved... and we have a young family to the west, who we really don't know... and a widow across the street.

There are like no kids in our neighborhood... I know there are some that are Jake's age, but they are NEVER outside. We live on a busy corner, so I don't spend much time outside... we tend to just keep to ourselves. Jake will go chit chat with an older gentleman that is down the road a bit... it's cute. He is so gruff, but Jake doesn't mind.

[tjscraps]

We live in a crazy busy neighbourhood - there's 32 kids (oldest being 12) in 14 houses and all the parents are right in our age group (in their 30's). There are also 4 older couples on our block with grandchildren.

For the most part we love our neighbourhood, even if some of what the neighbours do drive us nuts lol. The kids are always out front playing and having fun, and as our oldest was only 3 when we moved here we spent a lot of time out front chatting, etc. Now she's older so we don't chat as much with the neighbours but are still friendly. We are really good friends with the ones directly across the street, we trade dinners once a week and hang out (I rescued her out of her bathtub once too when she pulled her back and couldn't get out and her hubby was out of town).

The things we don't like - ours and our friends across are the only houses without driveways so parking becomes an issue. There's 3 spots on each side of the street (we live in a cul de sac) and we use 2 of them, not having a garage/driveway. Both of our next door neighbours have a LOT of company and don't let people park in their driveway so "our" spots in front of our house are taken a lot, which really sucks having to park a block away when you have a baby & groceries to lug inside. Or their guests will park right in the middle of 2 spots, not leaving enough room on either side for a car (and I don't get why they don't let people park on their driveway!!). The one side of us drives us crazy too because they have 5 kids, 4 of them boys, and they slam their door so hard things fall off our shelves (not kidding!).

Dawn - your neighbours sound crazy!!! The passive aggressive notes would drive me nuts (my hubby is not one to keep his tongue in check so we likely wouldn't be friendly with them anymore lol).


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[kendallt]

Our neighborhood has changed SO much since we moved in 11 years ago. At that time, I knew most of my neighbors. There were kids for my daughter to play with; it was nice. Since that time, I feel like things have really gone downhill, and as a result, the boyfriend and I hope to move as soon as possible. There's a group of college boys to my left that love to throw parties with loud music and crowds. There's the crazy dog lady directly in front of me that literally only comes out of her house to walk her dogs. And, best of all, there's the sketchy neighbors across the street and to the right that may or may not be dealing drugs. (In all seriousness, I have zero proof of this and probably shouldn't speculate, but...they don't appear to have jobs, as they're home all day every day, and there are tons of random people constantly coming and going, so whatever their deal is, it's odd). I seriously cannot wait to get out of there. It makes me so sad thinking about how nice it used to be vs. what it's turned into in the last few years.

[KristinCB]

all you guys talking about your neighbours that don't go out much makes me realize my neighbours probably think the same of me lol. I don't go out in my yard much at all because I hate the atmosphere so people probably think i'm the weirdo.

[Sherri Tierney]

Right now we have one neighbor who is about 1/4 mile away. We can see their barn from our house, but not their house. We've only talked to them a few times in the year we've been here, but it isn't like they are close enough to wave to over the fence. The kids go over and play with their grandkids when they hear them over there. Beyond seeing their barn (which is across a pasture from us) we have no other neighbors in our sight line. It is awesome!

We have had some real doozies on the past. One neighbor called the cops because a bag of trash shifted and went over the line in the sidewalk making it technically on his property (the morning of trash pick up, not like it had been sitting there for days). The cops came down to check things out because he said we had thrown trash on his property. They laughed. He also called the cops because our dog barked at 3 in the afternoon (and he didn't sleep during the day or anything, in fact, at 3, he was working. Then when the landlord installed a security light outside of the house he called the cops because he said it was invading his space. The city came and put a metal shield around half of it so that light wouldn't get into his yard. Basically, he was pissed that the landlord didn't sell to him and instead rented the place out. We were a very young couple at the time (19 and 20) and eventually got 1 puppy while we lived there. We only lasted a year before he drove us out.

In one neighborhood we lived in, we had amazing neighbors. It was such a blessing. My grandma was dying and I was taking care of her. I had a newborn and a preschooler. The neighbors stepped in and helped with the kids, checked in on us, etc. Evenings everyone could be found outside sitting on porches with the kids playing together. It was so nice. I would have loved to live there longer, but we outgrew the house and we wanted to buy instead of rent.

[DawnMarch]

We have had some real doozies on the past. One neighbor called the cops because a bag of trash shifted and went over the line in the sidewalk making it technically on his property (the morning of trash pick up, not like it had been sitting there for days). The cops came down to check things out because he said we had thrown trash on his property. They laughed. He also called the cops because our dog barked at 3 in the afternoon (and he didn't sleep during the day or anything, in fact, at 3, he was working. Then when the landlord installed a security light outside of the house he called the cops because he said it was invading his space. The city came and put a metal shield around half of it so that light wouldn't get into his yard. Basically, he was pissed that the landlord didn't sell to him and instead rented the place out. We were a very young couple at the time (19 and 20) and eventually got 1 puppy while we lived there. We only lasted a year before he drove us out.

This makes me feel a little better about our neighbor but it is sad that people are so nasty to each other when having neighbors should be a GOOD thing! People need to be respectful of each other but they also need to cut each other a little slack!

[bcgal00]

This is on our minds b/c we've had the same neighbors for almost 20 yrs and now one of them is selling and we've got our fingers crossed that we get a kind, responsible family come in that is considerate with noise. I hear horror stories from other people about new neighbors and I am trying to be positive.

[Kiana]

Originally Posted by jak

Our neighbours are all friendly but we aren't 'friends'... just neighbours. Everyone is pleasant to each other - we all wave, say hello, chat briefly if we're out the front at the same time, etc.

This is us with our neighbors. I know many of the families out here are friends and such, but we're just not those type of people. A "hey neighbor" is good enough for me. LOL

[jessica31876]

26 years in this place...I dont really talk them much unless we happen to see each other outside. With big yards that rarely happens. Which I like. The main thing I dont like is we have an easement in our yard to allow access to the ditch to the county. Cannot fence it off. Kids and adults alike think us having this easement and it being open down that one side means they can trespass and use our yard as a short cut. Its not any shorter than the two public roads. But they also bring bikes (both motorized dirt bikes and bicycles), four wheelers, go-karts, golf carts onto the property. It used to be straight through the easement area but now its fenced so now they come into our main drive through. We need to finish fencing the front off completely. So they also bring their dogs and let them crap in the yard. I had one lady call 911 and tell them I was threatening her because she would not leave my yard. This was true. I did threaten her. She had me super heated sitting there on the phone telling them well Im walking through the yard and she tells me Im trespassing all Im doing is walking through. I said it while she was on the phone. The 911 operator told her you ARE trespassing. You need to leave now and not go back. And she wasnt even a close neighbor. She lived a block away. It was not the first time she had done it though which is why I was so angry. Id already asked her to not do it earlier that day. Anyhow that is the main gripe I have about this place. If you tell someone theyre trespassing most people would be like oh I am Im sorry I wont do it again and leave.

[DawnMarch]

she tells me Im trespassing all Im doing is walking through

I would be absolutely infuriated! But, her statement made me laugh -- "walking through" someone's property is pretty much the literal definition of trespassing.

[navaja77]

Our neighbors are good. We aren't friends with them but we'll wave if we see them. The neighbors on our left are retired and I rarely see them. The neighbors on our right is the 2nd set. The first set ran into health issues and the house went to foreclosure We didn't know it was foreclosure. They just told us they needed to move to an apt with easier access since the wife was now on a walker. The 2nd set is good.

Across the street is a rental. Most of the time, it was good neighbors except for one tenant that never took care of their yard (way overgrown weeds) and I swear it smelled faintly like marijuana from there. Right now, the house was renovated and we have good tenants again. The one diagnally across from us are retired. The other way diagnally is nothing but state land so we have a view of the mountains (and no more nearby neighbors).

We pretty much keep to ourselves.

[jessica31876]

I know!!! I try to tell them nicely they are trespassing and ask that they leave but when it happens so frequently and they are always so indignant it gets frustrating. She was the only one who called 911 to report me for threatening her though (as far as I know) which was quite funny. Because what do you expect when someone says you are trespassing and you basically say oh well deal with it? Thankfully its mostly stopped now. Last month was the first time in a really long time and my husband dealt with it.

Originally Posted by DawnMarch

I would be absolutely infuriated! But, her statement made me laugh -- "walking through" someone's property is pretty much the literal definition of trespassing.

[tammybean04]

Our neighbors switch out so much and are not always of the best kind to have, so we never bother to get to know them. We just sit and wish for them to hurry up and move.

[marlathrall]

I don't really have neighbors! There are some positives to living in the middle of nowhere! Haha.

[oscaralley]

We live in a small town and have lived in our (SMALL) house for 18 yrs. It was only suppose to be until our oldest son turned 15...yea right, he's now 25 and we are still here. Most of our neighbors were elderly when we bought our house and now most of the homes are rentals now. I don't like it at all. Just now the neighbors were popping fire crackers in front of my house, right in front of my car. What is wrong with their house? Oh and their door isn't fixed right and every time they close (SLAM) the door it bangs so loud. I had to go out at 2am one morning and ask them to stop. Oh and before it was rented out, the people who own it had not 1, not 2, but 3 mountain lions. That was another nightmare!!!