If you live in the suburbs, do you know your neighbor's names, do you talk to them?

His name is Anthony. Can’t remember his girlfriend’s name to save my life. Their dogs are Diesel and Tonka. And we helped them move from the house on one side of us to the house on the other side of us (Sounds crazy, but the other place has a fenced-in yard.)

That’s about as close as we get.

I only knew their names and that’s it. I’d wave hi to them. But I only knew them for a short time.

“Remember, neighbors are not just the people who live next door – they live in your suburban development”

I’ve gotten pretty friendly with my next door neighbors since my husband split. We have always gotten along but we look after each other more. After this week’s snowstorm, I called them in Florida and asked if they wanted the guy who was cleaning my sidewalk to do theirs. l paid him and they’ll pay me back when they get back.

We know their names , and will sorta look out for their homes while they are away but that’s about it.

neighbor #1
Chris, his wife, three kids, and Harley and Diesel (his dogs).
I do chat with Chris over the fence a few times a year. I say ‘Hi’ to them whenever we see them.

neighbor #2
Mike, his wife, and I don’t know how many kids.
He came by once and asked if he could trim one of my trees that hung into his driveway. I said, “Sure, whatever you like” and proceeded to ask if they just moved in. “No”, he said dryly, “We’ve been here ten years”.

neighbor #3
I don’t actually know their names but we call them: Nosy Bob, Joyce his wife, and Sid his brother-in-law.

neighbor #4
Again, don’t know their names but we call them Crazy-Lady and her son.
She’s an elderly woman who often screams at her adult son.

In general, they’re all very nice and have had no issues with anyone.

No… but my grandpa knew his neighbours.

There are about 20 homes spread out on a one mile stretch of dead end road surrounded by a lot of “forever wild” open space. Years ago someone made a list of all the residents and their phone numbers and put copies in our mailboxes. That list has been improved over the years to include email address, ecell phone numbers and even and kids names. It’s great.

We watch each others houses when they are out of town. If the power goes out I will go into my neighbor’s house unannounced to start his generator and he will go into mine.
If he is up before me and is snow blowing his driveway he will do mine. I will do his and the elderly couple’s if I am up first.
I love this area!

@cookieman That is so funny. We have no idea who our neighbors are. But we have names for a few. There is “Crazy Christian Lady,” she’s over the top and gets physical and prays on you.
Then we have “Sweet Christian Nut”: She is very nice, but doesn’t stop by because we’re not Christians, but she talks a lot about the serious problem of people having sex with their dogs and cats. Then the woman who moved in next door is very aggressive. She lets her dog bark all night. I have no idea what her name is. The couple next door were bizarre – I don’t know his name but he demanded we let him use our front lawn to extend his property for baseball games. We said no and put up a hedge – they got divorced and now they rent and people come and go, come and go. If I was on fire, nobody would put it out – basically because nobody is ever out there

I’ve lived in the burbs my whole life. As an adult some suburbs were more densely populated than others. I have always had at least one set of neighbors I knew very well, and who we spent time with. We spent time over each others house, went out together. One neighbor, when they had a baby, their parents stayed with me for two months. Another place we lived our neighbors took us to the Indy 500 a couple of times. All the places I have lived, we not only knew one set of neighbors very well, but we also knew a few other families nearby or on the block. I give my close neighbors my keys and my codes and we rely on each other to watch over our houses. We make an effort to know our neighbors.

@JLeslie Wow. I haven’t seen that since maybe the 80’s.

”the serious problem of people having sex with their dogs and cats.”

@MadMadMax: Ha! That’s amazing!!

My neighbors are 1500 feet away. I knew them well for a while, but they have moved since then. I don’t know the new ones. We watch out for anything unusual but we’re not close.

Living in a rurual and sparsely populated area, we make a point of paying attention. I have five neighbors separated by five or so wooded acres but we all share the same road. I tend the cat belonging to one couple when they go on vacation; they help me with heavy loads that need hauling to the transfer station. We hang out.

I have a very close relationship with another couple and we talk on the phone almost daily, particularly in this terrible weather. We hang out all the time.

No one locks his door so there’s no exchange of keys. We do often pick up each other’s mail at the little local post office. We also help out with driving to and from the mechanic’s for car drop-offs.

Last August a neighbor had a road party…everyone (maybe 20 families) who lived on the five mile road was invited and we all swore eternal allegiance and the willingness to help out if someone broke a leg. We also got the list of everyone’s contact info.

I have no “next-door”. I love this area also. And I will have to see whether there are any dogs named Diesel.

During the past few months when I was physically limited, I got a lot of help from my buddies. I have and will reciprocate.

@MadMadMax Sounds like @LuckyGuy has a similar situation. I think it is like that in many places. My mom and dad still live where I grew up. My mom walks with a few of the women in the neighborhood, recently one of them had cancer and my mom drive her to some doctor’s appointments. The neighbors nextdoor, who are much younger, have my parents house keys and watch over everything. Their son mows the lawn for my parents. It used to be the man three doors down mowed my mom’s lawn, but eventually he became very elderly and stopped even mowing his own lawn. They have very small lawns, they live in townhouses.

I live an apartment now, and I have met a few people, one woman in particular who lives in the next building over. I’ve wanted to ask her to dinner with her boyfriend and my husband, but haven’t yet. She and I go to the pool together, and I know I could ask her for a favor if I needed it. I would happily help her if she needed something. Most everyone here says “hi” to each other when we walk by. People move in and out a lot, it is a big apartment complex in FL, but it has a good neighborly feeling.

Sounds like you have some weird ones around you, but there must be some normal people. Do you live in a large neighborhood?

If we’re gonna talk odd neighbors then I have a few from when I lived in an apartment.
There were these two ladies who lived across from us a bit down who were hermits. You only saw one of them if you got up early enough to see her take a walk. I guess she must have gotten provisions at that time, too, because I never remember seeing them outside.
Actually that’s really all I remember, other than the obnoxious people who lived next to us who always complained, but that’s typical.

^^I have a hermit across the street. He hasn’t said a word in ten years. His garage door opens so you know he on his way home. He drive in and never turns on any light you can see from the front of his house. Then in the morning, the garage door opens and he leaves.

He never talks to anybody and bows his head and turns away if you wave. Very strange dude.

@JLeslie Do I live in a large neighborhood? It’s one development after another and people identify where they live by the names of the developments. Some are very large and more expensive and some are moderately sized like mine and some are small but in reality it’s just house after house after house.

I had like five kids for Halloween this year and we thought it was a lot. My son in California had literally hundreds. My younger son went to his house to give them a break handing out candy. Then they all took a midnight walk and visited the houses decorated for Halloween. The whole front of one house was made to look like a pickup truck had toxic waste barrels flying all over the road. It was an award winner.

I can’t imagine it. I can’t imagine kids in “scary” costumes. I can’t imagine taking a midnight walk and visiting neighbors all out and enjoying the holiday and talking. It’s beyond me.

When I was a kid, my mother used to have neighbors sitting round her table drinking coffee and gossiping. I miss that culture.

Maybe you should move. Although, I can’t believe there aren’t people like you who want the same thing and are normal in your development. You can be the one to reach out and start a more community feeling in your neighborhood.

I live in a large city and basically never do that stuff. I never lived in the suburbs, but I have lived in rural areas and the people seemed a lot nosier. It did seem harder to “pick and choose” your social engagements there, but there was also just less to choose from.

I don’t know if you’d call this the burbs, it probably was 50 years ago. I know about half the people on my street. Mostly just names and faces.

The people right next to us on one side, I took their son to school a couple days a week for a year when they both had to be at work before he could come in. We watch each other’s houses and talk quite a bit, I appreciate having them there and love the son. We don’t have a ton in common so we don’t really hang out, but they’re welcome anytime.

On the other side, there’s a youngish couple that hasn’t acknowledged anything since they moved in over a year ago. They were kind enough to have someone out to trim just “their half” of one of the large trees on the fence line. Now it leans and will probably need to be chopped down. I didn’t think a lot of it until I noticed they were kind enough to return any and all branches that fall from trees they feel are “mine” by throwing them over our shared fence.

The guy was in the back yard throwing sticks over and I just went out and popped my head up, said hello. Figured that was a good chance to clear up whatever was wrong. He stopped, turned around, and walked in his house without saying anything.

I don’t know if there was some perceived slight, they just don’t like talking, or they’re just that cool. But it’s become a game to acknowledge them as obviously as possible when I see them. I’ll be sitting on the porch with the kid and both waving crazy, say hello when I see them walking their dog, wave when she sits in her car and waits for me to drive off.

You can be antisocial and I’ll leave you alone, but being antisocial and throwing crap over my fence gets you the full friendly press.

No, I live for the first time in my life, a rather odd neighborhood. That is my opinion anyway. All my life I have gotten to know my neighbors sometimes very well (which can also be a pain) and sometimes just casually. No matter how long I have lived in a place when I left people expected me to say goodbye. That is how we sort of impacted on each other.

Here, I have no idea who lives in which house. All the lights go off around 7pm. Or if there are any, there will be one tiny one and a TV flickering that is all. (I got for walks at night).

No one says good day, or even looks at you. It is so silent I actually feel bad about going to the toilet right now as I know my floor creaks when I walk on it. (It is 5am and I can’t sleep).

The only contact I have had is with a neighbor who crapped on me for making a noise in the middle of the day, yelling at me that I do not ‘come from here’. Oddly I do, I left 35 years ago that is all. Yep, I am in the twilight zone.

I have 2 homes.

The one in the medium sized city I have lived in for 26 years. I know one neighbors name, and we never really talk.

The one in the very isolated mountain town I have owned for 4 years, and I know several neighbors, and I chat with one every time I go there.

Some & some.

@LornaLove It really sounds like you need to move to a small city or something.

@LornaLove Have you tried saying hello or good day to them? I have a saying that I don’t get bothered if someone doesn’t say hello, but i find it unfriendly if they don’t say hello back. My MIL says her community is very unfriendly and it isn’t true. I walk through the neighborhood and people smile and say hello and hello back. They strike up conversations at the pool, etc I’m not assuming you are unfriendly, but maybe the people in your neighborhood have somensort of rule in their head that the new person should make the initial effort to meet everyone. You may havebtried, I am not assuming anything. Generally, I think it is nice when the people already living there welcome a new neighbor to the neighborhood, but it doesn’t always work that way.

I live in a community of about 150 houses over a mile long stretch. It used to be a summer community, since the early 1900’s. Many of the families have been here that long, and will reminisce about knowing each other’s grandparents, and how things used to be when the community first started (no phone, people coming up all summer and the husbands going to the regular house during the work week and coming up on weekends, while the wives and kids remained all summer, bonfires, parties). People know me for my grandparents.

Now there are a few summer events on the lake beach and other parties indoors throughout the year (Christmas party which is called a Christmas party, not a “holiday party,” St. Patrick’s Day breakfast, etc.). I know some of the parents from the bus stop, and keep in touch with a few as friends on Facebook. Other than that, I’m not around due to being at work most of the week. Moms who don’t work here know each other better than I do, because they pick up each others kids and stuff like that.

I like living here for the community feeling, even if I don’t know most people personally.

Haven’t yet read any of the other answers, will do so after posting.

Yes, we are pretty friendly with the folks in the 8 houses closest to us. My Dad is the fix-it guy, loaner of tools. So all the men-folk are always over in our garage talking to my Dad and getting advice or borrowing tools.

The fellow directly across the street is in the same industry from which Dad retired, so they like to talk shop. His wife loves to cook and so she and I trade recipes and often make food to bring over to each other. They also have a brand new baby that my parents love to visit with.

Most of my neighbors have pets, so I love to visit with all of them, and several of them we either walk or babysit.

We have 3 elderly neighbors for whom we either pick up their mail, take out the trash, occasionally drive them to errands and for whom we sometimes house sit.

My next door neighbor was in an industry for which he saved a lot of raw material from the manufacturing business that he had. My Dad loves to use this material to make repairs or to invent new tools.

3 of our neighbors have had water leakage problems, for which my Dad came to the rescue to turn off their water at the source and then alert them to the situation.

Our next door neighbor on the other side, an elderly lady who uses a walker, spent Thanksgiving with us. She regularly shops at the PX and picks up treats for us.

One of the neighbors across the street is really good with computers, so he’s helped us a few times with computer problems. He and my Dad also like to talk about mechanical stuff, house problems and HOA situations.

I’m the person who helps everybody get to know the newcomers. We had new neighbors move in over Thanksgiving, so I gave them a map of his immediate neighbors with their names and what kind of pets they had, so they could remember everybody more easily. Then I introduced them to the other immediate neighbors. I also gave them helpful hints about how to avoid problems with our HOA.

I made cookies and candy for most of these folks over Christmas.

2 of our neighbors we occasionally go out to lunch with.

Up and around the other end of our street are some other neighbors, about 5 families, who have pets that regularly walk them around the block, so we know them pretty well too.

And we have keys to 2 neighbor’s houses.

Yes, except two who are unsocial and those two we’ve just said hello to and/ or jumped a car with our battery cables. Two I’m fairly good friends with and took Christmas things to.

In my area it’s kind of expected that everyone is neighborly.

Would anyone invite someone in their 60’s for coffee or a beer?

I’m finding that the older I get, the less anyone even talks to me at an event or anywhere. I understand now whey people but into retirement communities when they can. But retirement communities in my are are “Christian.” It’s a lose lose situation

@MadMadMax I don’t know the religion of my neighbors nor would I ever ask, and we hang out. My neighbor lady that we help as often as possible is a retired lonely widow so I guess my answer to you is yes, I’d invite you over for coffee, pie or maybe a glass of wine.

I’ve told people here before that if we met in RL, you’d never know I was a Christian and it wouldn’t be brought up unless in normal conversation- I certainly don’t pick my friends by asking their view on abortion or God or anything like that. :)

@MadMadMax I would definitely be neighborly with you even if you were 20 years older than me. We have a lot of older friends.

I don’t remember where you live, but why not move to Delray Beach, Boynton Beach or Boca Raton? Jews everywhere in the adult communities. It’s a Seinfeld episode every day. LOL. The communities are so nice too. Where my inlaws live it is like a resort. There is a social director who organizes events, card games, clubs. it’s so nice and there are constantly people of all ages, because adult children and young grandchildren visit all the time.

@MadMadMax If you lived near me, I’d be all over you like a wet sticky rag. I love to meet the neighbors and make new friends. I’m the person standing behind you in the grocery store line asking you about what you’re going to make with your ingredients and telling you what I made with those same ingredients.

You sound like me! I’m very outgoing and I have gotten a great recipe by stand online in a supermarket in NY and chatting it up with an Italian woman :) If I lived there I would have asked her over but alas I had to go home.

JLesle: I could not take the heat honestly. Its too hot in the summer for me here. If I had the money to move, I’d move near my kids in LA county where being Jewish or a non-believer doesn’t seem to make any difference. Plus people are sociable since religion doesn’t come u at all.

You are both very sweet. I wish I lived near you.

Me too. Diesel and Tonka are apparently a little too excited at having a yard to play in, and have decided to take up track and field sports. First up – the 100 yard dash with hurdles. The hurdles being the chain-link fence between our yards.

Is one set of responsible dog owners too much to ask?

@KNOWITALL I don’t want to be rude, you seem very sweet and not over the top but I keep wondering why every single post includes the word “Christian.” You see I couldn’t take that – to think that every few sentences you’d throw in the word again. Everybody knows already.

Its interesting because I know zillions of Catholics in my life time and not one of them referred to themselves as Christians all the time. They were rather easy to get along with. You are a very different variety of Catholic.