Do you know the names of your neighbors?

Yes (most of them) within a radius of 50–60 yards

Yep. I’m the acting director for our building’s collective, so I know the other three families that live here. I also know several others in the neighbourhood because my kid goes to school with their kids and I’ve introduced myself to people who have walked past while I’m out in the garden. Some are decedents of the original farm owners and have the same last name as the name of the street I live on. I didn’t know many neighbours when I lived in the city. People didn’t talk to each other there, but since I moved out to this little village area, people are much nicer and more friendly.

Yes, some kind of. When I don’t see them for weeks, I forget or get them mixed up. But coming from prior military and moving all the time, I have found it to be a benefit to get to know my neighbors in case a need should ever arise.

Yes, some of them. But people in my neighborhood tend to keep a distance from each other unless they are very close. There are people who lock themselves in the houses for so long that I am surprised they ever exist when I attend any gathering.

Odd. I was about to ask the same a few weeks ago since we had been dealing with a mentally unstable guy living in his car outside our apartment for about six months. It really brought all the neighbors together since all of us have been assaulted (not physically, but screaming and saying he would murder us if we didn’t give him a cigarette) by the guy multiple times. I have called the cops over 20 times on the guy. My neighbors have done the same.

But this ordeal has brought us closer. The asshole has gotten me to be super good friends with the people across the hall. We share house keys in the event one of us get locked out (this happens a lot. we are all alcoholics). And we have each others wifi passwords in the event one of out internet breaks. And we know the downstairs people by name too. Emily is a nurse that always runs out of things when she bakes and that is good since my roommate is a avid baker so they are always borrowing stuff from each other and sharing recipes.

And the people right below us are pretty cool too. Everyone in my building is a nurse since you can see OHSU from our apartments.

I feel that in the event things went down like the major earthquake that will hit the PNW soon we are in good shape. Just in my building we are a solid unit of twelve that will look after each other and combine resources.

And there is always this:
http://www.metafilter.com/78669/What-if-things-just-keep-getting-worse#2430771

@johnpowell A bunch of alcoholic nurses? Remind me to never go to OHSU for anything important. ;)

I don’t have conventional neighbours. To my right is a psychiatric care home and to my left is youth digs for foreign students and they’re only usually there for a few weeks at a time before the next lot move in! I don’t know anyone else on my street.

Yes. Everywhere I have ever lived I have known at least a few of my neighbors. Most places we have lived we became good friends with at least one set of neighbors. We move a lot. I think where we live now will be the first time we don’t continue to be friends with a set of neighbors, but we know many of them.

I would be worried if my doctor/nurse wasn’t a alcoholic. I had no idea about this. One of the old mods here, PnL is now a doctor. There are so many people that go to the ER just to get painpills. Telling them to get lost is a major part of her job. I had no clue that was such a major problem. We are talking 50%+ of her day is dealing with junkies and fighting with them.

@johnpowell Yeah, it’s really bad/sad. I knew about that problem. It’s also why the people who go for pain pills that legitimately need them get so frustrated with doctors sometimes. Because they’re automatically assumed to be druggies if they ask for anything. Which I get, because of how many actual druggies there are, but it sucks all around.

Yeah I had this conversation a lot with her. Especially when she started and this was a new responsibility. I kinda went with death penalty vibe, is it worth the risk to punish the innocent? Who gives a shit if some people get some pills to get high?

Sure, some fucks will get some Oxy they don’t need. But some people that do need it will be denied by your iron hammer. I would err on the side of assuming all usage was legit even though I know it isn’t.

I live in a cul-de-sac, and I know all 5 of my neighbors

I moved in 2 years ago. I’m slowly getting to know my neighbors. At this point I have visited with (but can’t remember all their names) about 8 neighbors.

To my right is Joyce and Sid (completely made up names).

Behind me is Mike and his family (don’t know the wife and kids’ names).

Across the street is Chris and his family (also don’t know the wife and kids’ names).

To the left, is Crazy Lady and Her Son.

My cul-de-sac is very diverse: a Jewish family, a widowed man in his 90’s, a gay couple raising 3 adopted children, and an African-American family.

Yes, I know the names of the couple across the street and the ones that live next door to me (at least I know his name; I know her by sight only). I have met most of the others at our annual block party, but I am terrible with names!

Yes I do.

Yes, most of the them

Yes, Shutthe & Fuckup.

Some of them. The woman upstairs is on disability for something, not sure what. She’s one of those people who always lies and makes shit up, even when “there is no need to”. When she speaks to me I can never get a single word in, she’s like a verbal machine gun. This usually occurs when she wants something from me, and is giving me a reason why she doesn’t have it, what happened, blabla. She’s always bumming smokes off of me, weed from my roomie, and she doesn’t try it anymore, but she always asked for money before. It’s like, Jesus Christ. Also asking me where I can find cocaine for her. Hey if you’re the one who does drugs, y’ought to know where the hell to get some. Support your own goddamn habit!

The people next door are an older couple but all they do is fight all the time. Yelling like mad bastards…old couple that hates each other. I can hear what they say, sometimes it’s kinda funny…here’s the most memorable exchange, I am not making this up lol, except that it was in french and not english;

Woman; You never give me any sex anymore!
Man; That’s because you you smell like dirty vagina! I wash myself every day, you smell like old cunt!

Man, I laugh about it, but they seem so miserable…

The other guy upstairs is new, moved in two weeks ago, and he’s Robert’s son, Robert being the aforementioned dude next door. (who moved next door from upstairs when the people who were there left two weeks ago) He’s uber tall and bald, and always in the basement fixing shit. He’s there with his girlfriend and four year old son, but I don’t see the girlfriend or son often. His friends are always over, helping him do shit to the apartment. Don’t really know him yet, but so far he seems cool, and he keeps a machete in his section of the basement. He showed me it, it’s all dull and old, but it still looks kick ass.

Some of the former people that were there; the young couple next door, they were cool. The guy played Grand Theft Auto in the evenings, played online with his buddies, I could always hear him yell at the game lol. His girlfriend used to sneak in the basement to smoke cigarettes lol.

The former upstairs girl was my apartment sister haha. We became good friends, she lived there with her son. The son was born with just one lung, so I told her to come over to smoke her cigarettes, since obviously she didn’t smoke in her place. We also made fires at night in the backyard with her friends and mine, got drunk and shit, it was cool. I still see her, she lives like three minutes away from here.

Lol guess I went overboard answering this haha.

Yes, though it took three years.

I know the families who own the land bordering the farm. I know a lot of people down in the village and the men who dock their workboats at the dock. I’ve previously mentioned my friend, the lady who owns the fruit stand at the crossroads leading out of town, the woman with the Apache eyes. She is the central news bureau for this part of the island. The woman who owns the land just east of me is a medicine woman of sorts, is widowed, and has a young son and daughter. Her husband was a fisherman. She’s a very nice person and best friends with the fruit lady. She’s sold me my horse. Everyone seems to get along nicely here.

@Symbeline: Not at all! I enjoyed that glimpse into your life immensely. I wish there were a lot more of those kinds of answers on this site. But I guess it’s difficult to write longish answers on a smartphone keypad, which I see a lot of people use here.

I know ¾’s of the people on my road, but that’s only eitght families total. Two neighbors are new. The closest one is 1500 meters away.

@johnpowell Wow. That Sarajevo story you linked to on the MetaFilter thread was amazing.

@Espiritus_Corvus I use a tablet, but it’s still kind of a bitch for long writing. My answers used to be way longer when I had a PC. Still beats fluthering on the PlayStation 4 though lol.

@Symbeline No, not at all. I appreciated your answer. If you answer any other questions of mine, feel free to be leave long answers. I extend the same offer to everyone since it really doesn’t bother me at all. :)

Since I have lived on 5 to 10 acre properties surrounded by others living the same, 5–20 acre parcels, for years I only have known a few neighbors by name for years now.
I do know all the neigh-bors names though as they are the nearest neighbors in my realm.
Right now I can see “Kelly & Rowdy” the neighbors horses grazing across our pasture.
In the past my neighbors were 3 sheep, a draft horse named “Dusty” and ” Hilary & Dove” the mules and a Llama named “Hercules.”

I like my neighbors with hooves much better than with feet. lol

I am fairly friendly with a few neighbors (few means about 3 families). I am acquainted with a few others from the school bus stop and things like that. Where I live, there’s a beach on a lake and a pavilion close by, where they have parties and gatherings. Also, the complex next to ours has parties too, which is a really nice part of living here. I’m not shy but I’m not one to “work the room” either, so I pick and choose who I talk to.