You & Your Neighbors

[Pearl Harbor]

How do you get along with your neighbors?

Do you want to get along with them? Or, would you like to remain at a distance?

If you live in the city do you even know who they are?

Is it a good thing to get to know your neighbor?

Was there ever a time you felt like hanging your neighbors from their toes?

Do you need to vent about your neighbors?

Please share your stories. What things have you learned and what advice can you share?

Any and all interesting neighbor stories are welcome!

[Paula]

We are respectful to our neighbors? If they need anything we help out also. I think it's about reputation, we strive to keep it good. Have no problems with neighbors...

Lets see, we live in an Apartment so i have tons of neighbors. I will talk about the ones upstairs and the ones on the right side & left side. The guy on the right we talk to but he is really annoying and horribly mean to his dog he yells all the time!, The woman on the left is very sweet around 30 or so, she is Military so she is always at work. When she is not she is outside ( she loves our dog!), the family upstairs hate us BC we are white. ( they are black) And the PPl the live upstairs next to them we hardly know BC they just moved in. They are 2 college men. They are going to be Mechanics.

Before we moved to this APT. we got along with all four of our neighbors. We had parties all the time! 2 of them move, we still keep in touch, one of them is here all the time. He is cool!

[Popper]

Having recently moved into an apartment block, I can say that I now have more neighbours than I need. Not that I'm not friendly, in fact I've made friends with the people who live right next door to me, but I also find that there are too many people to deal with. This is apartment living I guess or maybe I'm just in a block with a lot of weirdos. For example, a few times when I'm driving into the driveway to park my car in the garage, there are a people playing cricket in the driveway and won't move. Even though they can see my car approaching. If I lived in a house and we had our own driveways, I won't have to deal with this sort of stuff.

So yes, I think it would be nice to know your neighbours, but only if we had our own piece of property!!

[minks]

Good topic and it has been touched upon in another thread in a bit more detail...
But anyroad...
I moved from a very lovely neighborhood, where we were roughly all about the same age and all the children played together so you had to know your neighbor and respect them as you never knew which mom was out on the front step watching the mass of kids, so it became very pleasing and trusting. 2 in particular I loved and we had a great rapport with.
I had to move into a smaller less influential neighborhood. Kids are all differnt ages, and that sure influences who you will chat with or not. The kid ages are from infant to 20+ and some with no kids. Sooo Lady across street, a gem and new to my area like me, would like to know her better.
Neighbors to the east, wish they would be struck by lightning, he is an abusive drunk and I noticed they children have been removed from the home for about a month now. He has been seen out at nites in a total drunk rage abusing public property. I have phoned the police on them once already due to excessive noice at 2:00am. Neighbor to the West, single, old and a bit crusty. Not to social but I did have to ask for help with a flat tire one day and he obliged. So it is a matter of how close you want to get to them and why, and what you may or may not have in common.
I think we should know at least one neighbor and develop a good trust because you never know when you may be in a time of immediate need.

[Jack Sprat]

How close does someone have to live to be considered a neighbor? Within a half of a mile there are 8 houses: mine, my son, and six others. Oh, there is another road over the hill, but it's in another county and since it's a dead end road (so is ours) we have not been on it in around 10 years... only curiousity brought us there back then.

Anyhow, we get along quite well, sharing summer plants and vegetables, waving as we drive passed. In fact, at the end of the street are a couple with triplets: we spoke to the wife today for the first time in almost five months. She was waiting for the school bus as we were coming home from shopping. Around once a week I see the husband walking is dog. We share a rotten tree and a few animal holes at the edge of our properties and that gives us something to talk about.

[Florrie]

I have lived at different addresses all over the place, inc USA, Spain, Ireland, UK, and never had any bother UNTIL the last one, where my next door neighbour was the most unbearable unreasonable stuck up cow I ever encountered.
Even thinking about her makes my blood boil .

[A Karenina]

I live in an old house that has been converted into 4 apartments. I don't like the girl across the hall from me because she likes to slam the door repeatedly at 2am and she lets her kitten cry for days on end before she comes back home to care for it.

The couple who live above me are sweet, very young, and mellow, kind people.

The single guy who lives above and across from me is a very nice person, too. I often catch him eating dinner in his car because he has 5 cats and they give him no peace when he tries to eat at home.

We take packages for each other, lend things when needed, visit with one another's cats, and have mild neighbor-type conversation. Very nice.

[BabyRider]

Our neightbors are afraid of us...must be all the motorcycles, leather and tattooes.

[koan]

I have the "perfect" neighbour (canadian yet again) across the street. He helps everyone, puts up great decorations and brings homemade perogies. He does keep trying to give me a massage though...maybe he is not so perfect. In fact he was trying to sell these windmill things one year and made one with little clacky marbles in the spokes that made this horrible racket. I didn't know what to do until finally I offered to buy it if he promised never to make another one. He took it rather well and removed the hideous offence, without making me pay for it.

The neighbours on my right are good people. The talk, wave and lend me ladders etc.

The neighbour on my right is a nosy peeping "Tom". I decided if she's going to watch me I'd give her a show. I'll leave it at that. Surprisingly, she still waves at me.