How close are you with your neighbors?

I’m social with a few of them on a fairly superficial level, but I hope to get better aquainted with them. It helped that the family that moved into the apartment below mine happens to include someone I went to high school with. My garden has proven to be a good talking point for people in my building.

Well, across the street there is only one couple that I’d care to be friends with, but we don’t have a lot in common so we don’t talk to them much. But the husband DID climb up on our roof when the chimney caught on fire, before we even knew it was on fire! I caught him out the the corner of my eye jumping up on the deck railing and disappearing. He’s a GINORMOUS black guy too. He was really moving, man. ALL the neighbors gathered around to help. That was cool.

The other neighbors have the dogs that attacked us twice, and next to them are some white trash rednecks who are related to them. The good neighbors live next door to them

To the west we have good people. Charlie, who’s from Vietnam, and Coon (sp) who’s from Cambodia, I think. Good people. Good egg rolls! We go parties with them!

I know a few of them. But most of us just wave as we drive by.

We just moved to the house we live in about a year ago, it’s on a farm. There are only 4 other houses near us about ¼ mile down the road. Everyone else is about 1 or 2 miles away. We did meet one neighbor when we first moved in. She gave us her number in case we ever needed anything. My husband borrowed her mower not too long ago and sat and discussed politics and had a few beers with her. She said everyone pretty much keeps to themselves around here.

My husband called her again for a favor. She said he had called her a liberal douchebag (he didn’t) and she wouldn’t help us, she then hung up the phone. I guess it’s a good thing everyone here keeps to themselves and we don’t ever run into anyone. lol

The locals up town are really nice though.

I live in a condo so my neighbors live in immediate proximity to me.

It’s been years since any of my neighbors were decent people. Most of them are really creepy rednecks who grunt when you try and talk to them and leave deer parts laying around in the parking lot. Most of the men creep on my mom relentlessly. (“I saw you through the winder yestidey, purty thang.” and shit like that). The kids never go to school and I’ve seen people get dragged into police cars more than once. There was one time when a few cops armed with submachineguns knocked on my door and asked me if I knew a certain person who lived next door. I told them no and they told me to shut and lock my door and turn the porch light off…

I’m a very sociable person, but it’s damn hard to be social with creepy redneck pervert criminals.

I hang out with one of the kids in my neughbourhood a lot, and I know a few of the others, but don’t talk to them regularly.

I only have 3 neighbors, and we all live on 5–10 acre parcels.
My ‘up the hill’ neighbors are very nice, I can see the back of their barn way up through the trees from my deck.
They are a couple about my age, kids grown, we exchange horse and pet and house sitting when we travel. They invite me to their Xmas parties and I am strongly encouraged to run up to their barn/workshop for an emergency beer or bottle of wine. lol

My ” down the hill neighbors” are a retired couple at the end of my dead end road below me. We don’t see each other much, but, they come up and bring their little 3 year old grand daughter to feed the geese in my yard. They are nice, but a bit nosey and get really excited if they see any wildlife. haha

They recently told me they saw a rattlesnake across the road form my driveway and tried to run over it, but missed. Whatever…relax! LOL

My ” up the hill, corner neighbors” are another couple with grown kids and one pre-teen son at home. They have a huge property with a giant pond and a fountain that looks really pretty at night when you drive by, all lit up. They are very nice but the only time we talk is when there two dingey Labs escape and come down to my house to get cat food.

We are friendly, wave, but other than the dogs, we have no contact.

My BEST neighbors are the REAL ” NEIGH-BORS”....3 Donkeys, 2 Mules and draft horse, 4 Sheep and a Llama.
” Luke, Liberty, and Moses, the donks, “Hilary & Dove” the Muley girls, “Dusty” the draft horse, “Hercules” the Llama, and ” Clover, Daisy, Violet and Buttercup” the Ewes.

It’s quite a parade every evening as they all head up the creekbed below my deck to go back to their barn for the night. :-)

“Neigh-bors”! Hahahaha! @Coloma gets lurve for that.

I’m not close at all with most of my neighbors, partially because I’ve never had anyone my age in the neighborhood except one friend who ended up moving away when I was just going into elementary school.
Our elderly neighbor who I’d visit sometimes died recently. My aunt lives across the street and I speak to her pretty often. I’m familiar with the other neighbors across the street as they’ve lived there since I was a child, but I don’t talk to them much. Our nextdoor neighbors to the right seem nice and I wave when I see them, and our nextdoor neighbors to the left I dislike. Their parents were nice, but now the kids and their kids live there and I don’t take to them at all.

We’ve met our neighbors once long enough to exchange names and to be able to recognize, nod and sometimes wave to each other now and then but we don’t know our neighbors.

We work over 65 hrs a week each and combined with commute times, we aren’t interested in socializing with our neighbors since we feel we don’t see each other enough as it is.

@Coloma is bragging again!!!!!

I think the advent of TV trashed the neighborhood. Trashed a lot of stuff, actually.

I just moved in Feb and still getting to know my new neighbors….at my last house I was real close with the neighbors and one next to us had us over for pool parties, helped me with house projects until we found out the hard way they were anti-Semites and anal retentive to the point I bet he can’t pass anything bigger than a tooth pick! I don’t miss those assholes one bit!

Sadly, not close at all. The only ones I know by name are the next door neighbors, and they lead a life of a three-ring circus, which once included a goat named Treasure. The house across the street has an invisible revolving door for couples and families that move in and then mysteriously move out overnight months later. The lady across the other street and I exchange waves as she sits under the large umbrella permanently installed in her driveway during the summer months.

I haven’t met the people who ride motorcycles and have regular gatherings in their front yard yet, but I salute them from inside my house every time I hear them coming and going. Nor have I made the effort to meet the guy who has a Confederate flag hanging in his garage that is left open all day.

And to them, I am probably the eccentric old lady who lives on the corner, but allows people to camp out in my front yard on July 4th for the fireworks display. Welcome to the US South.

Housemates (it’s a big old home converted into a few apartments): I know one of them, and have had a beer or two with her. We say hi in the morning, perhaps chat for a couple minutes about how each of our gardens are going. The rest, I know their names from the mailbox, and where to knock if someone’s being too loud. We might smile or wave at each other when we pass each other. I’d prefer it if I knew them a little bit less, so I’m just kinda hoping the one I do know moves soon.

Other neighbors: No. Not even a little bit. It’s wonderful!!! Seriously, a big draw of living in the city for me is that there isn’t pressure to know your neighbors’ names, or say hi, or pet sit, or invite them over for lasagna once a year, and pretend to be in any way tolerant of the political invective they can’t stop spewing.

People here used to be really close, but as the residents have aged, gotten ill and passed on, their younger relatives have moved in and not become a part of the building’s “family”, even though the still-active older residents reach out to them.

Almost all of my immediate neighbours are now too old and ill to leave their apartments.

Neighbors here tend to rely on each other for news, help when things are going badly, and the occasional hot apple pie! I wouldn’t say we’re really close, but we’re there for each other when it’s needed.

Funny you should ask…

I’ve lived in this house for just over 9 years now (9 years and a month, in fact), and had hardly spoken to any of the neighbors. Oh, we’d wave to each other and smile when we caught each other coming and going. And I had said hello when I first moved in, but no one seemed especially ‘welcoming’, so… that’s the way it had been. We all kept to ourselves.

This past winter, when we had heavy snowfalls one on top of another, my snowblower quit on me. So I had been out in some thigh-high snow in my driveway shoveling by hand… and my neighbor from across the street, on his own hook and with no prompting from me, just pushed his own machine across the road and cleared the bottom half of my driveway. Then he suggested that I take my machine over to his place for his father-in-law to repair, since that’s a sideline business of his. I did that, and now I have (again) about the best snowblower around. He also serviced my lawn tractor last month, all at reasonable rates.

Then a couple of weeks ago when I was planning to go to India for more than a week, my plans to board Willow with a friend in another town fell through at the last minute, and I needed a way to care for her (and there wasn’t time – nor did I have inclination – to make a kennel reservation for her). So I asked my next door neighbor (who I had coincidentally just started talking with over the fence earlier in the month, with none of this in mind) if he would mind coming over to my back porch every evening to feed her and make sure there was water in her bowl. All I had to do was leave the back porch door tied open so that she’d be able to come and go as she needed.

It was about this time that he told me of an incident that had happened over the winter (remember, when the snow was so deep) that Willow had climbed the snow where it rose up near the top of the fence, then crossed into his yard and from there to the street (since his yard isn’t enclosed as mine is). Apparently, the Dog Warden came by, saw the loose dorg, and attempted to pick her up. Jim was tickled as he watched them try to lure her to the paddy wagon by laying treats up to the door. She’d take a few, but then never get within range of their capture devices.

So he was happy to take care of such a smart dorg (and friendly – after the Dog Warden gave up the chase, Willow joined him on his back steps and they just visited a bit – she’s way more social than I am). And now I have new friends in development.

I’m pretty social with my neighbours. My hubby mows our elderly neighbour’s lawn once a week. We also shovel their walks in the winter and clear their gutters in the fall. I think I was the primary source of unofficial counselling when their daughter passed away after a lifelong struggle with anorexia.

On the other side of us are a nice couple newly arrived from Israel. He’s pretty hyper and very opinionated about everything. My daughter babysits for them several times a week.

We know the guy two doors down too. He’s a divorced man in his early 60s. Nice guy to chat to every once and while.

The house across the street is owned by a drug gang. After the grow op was busted a couple of years ago they moved a young family in. Grandpa lives with them. When I jog in our local park the grandpa is usually out walking, very slowly. I don’t know how much English he has but I ventured a, “hello” every time I passed him. After 4 months of him giving me wary glances he’s finally started slightly inclining his head. Progress.

Not very, only three houses on our block still have the same people who were here when we moved in. The others have been sold to new owners, twice, and several have been rentals for the past 20 years. I know the ones on either side of us, and one across the street, but only as passing acquaintances.

I don’t get along with most of mine, but that’s mostly through fault of my own, rather than them. They’re all really nice and friendly, except the new guy who moved in to our building about a month ago. Everytime he looks at me, it looks like he wants to shoot my head off lol.
But other than him, I’m the one who doesn’t do much of an effort to be social.
But the family in the building next door are really cool. They’re Muslims and I never understand anything they say, but they invite me for beer and BBQ’s all the time. Still, it took more than a year for me to say anything to them. Don’t know what my problem is lol. The chick upstrairs is cool too, she drinks a lot, like me, so we often get together for bonfires and drunkening. She has a new boyfriend who’s all into videogames and shit, and he keeps lending me all these games.
But again, she moved in about three years ago. Been speaking to her for just a bit more than a year. (been here almost six years)

There’s also this really cool old dude who lives three houses away. He’s always in his yard tending to his lawn and flowers. He has long ass hair and a big gut, but he’s really cool. I kinda wish I could get to know him more, but he seems to have accepted my scowl and won’t speak to me. Not because he doesn’t want to, I don’t think, he seems really friendly, but he got the idea that I didn’t want to speak to him. I’m retarded. :)

I ain’t close with that many of mine…but I ain’t blaming that on them. ^^

I am really close to my neighbours. We help each other whenever we need help even if we are different. We were borned with the idea that neighbours are closer to family because if something bad happens firs tone around are them before family.

Our neighbor across the side street seems to be a single mom…but there are lots of family over there sometimes. She’s native Laotian, I think. Well, one year, week after week, she was mowing her lawn and the mower was surging badly. Well, my husband at one time was an ASE certified mechanic AND we owned a mower shop for several year. After watching my husband jumping out of his skin listening to that surging, choking mower for three weeks I kind of kicked him and said, “GO!!!!!” He went over and said she just had to give him the mower for a minute….15 minutes later it was running like a top! : ) Egg rolls!

Fast forward to two years later. My husband was at the wheel of a dead Jeep Grand Cherokee and we were trying to shove it up into the driveway. He’d start out on the side, by the open passenger door, shoving for all he was worth while I was at the back doing the same…and our neighbor lady (who was mowing) saw this and dropped everything and came running to my side…..we’re gaining some serious momentum, Rick jumps behind the wheel…a hump in the drive way is looming…and we hit it and on the first sign of an upswing my neighbor jumps back and says, “We let go now, right???!!!!”
I screamed, ”NOOOOOO!!!” And she jumped right back in and we got it over. You know…I think she was scared to death—but she came back. That’s bravery.
Hell woman. Ain’t you ever been run over by a damn dead Jeep Grand Cherokee goin’ backwards out of control where you comes from??? Shee-it. Much fun as cow-tippin’.