Good neighbours? bad Neighbours? Tell your neighbours stories

hollydolly

hollydolly

SF VIP
Location
London England
It's well documented here that I have great neighbours.. One side brings me food all the time.. a young couple with children.. the other side are fairly quiet but pleasant,...I moved here when they were both at school and I've known them for the whole 46 years since I moved here. They grew up, the parents died, they stayed at their family home, they had children, their children have had children and moved away.. but these 2 siblings have stayed.. and they will take in parcels for me.. as will the other side...or tell me about any events in the neighbourhood...

I also know the wider range of neighbours in the road as well by name , and have been in their homes as they have mine when our kids were young.. 3 sets of neighbours are now well in their 8's..close to 90.. so they won't be here for much longer..

One large house is now up for sale, people in their 80's... another has just sold to 2 women who moved in and seem not to want to be friendly with all of us here.. which we're not used to.. they scowl if we glance at them.. ..and I suspect before long we''ll have many more newbies afer all these years...as the folks who've lived here even longer than me pass away


What's your neighbour story...good , bad , indifferent... ?
 
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I have lived in this house for almost three years. One neighbor is a sibling who is mean, manipulating, inconsiderate. I have cut contact with him.

The other neighbor is a large family. They are the nicest, hardest working people I have ever known. A few of the eldest boys, now in their 20's, have moved away for work but still come home for visits. The eldest is the young man who has done sooo much work on this house. The eldest girl house/dog sat for me when I took a trip to visit daughter in another state. Every one of them works at something and they all contribute to the family. They also play together, with a good work/life balance. Always smiling, always friendly. Some think they are Amish. They are not.

I have never met people this nice. Best neighbors one can hope for. If more people were like them, the world would be a much better place. I think of that line from the movie "As Good As It Gets": you make me want to be a better person. That is how they make me feel.
 
GoodEnuff said:
I have lived in this house for almost three years. One neighbor is a sibling who is mean, manipulating, inconsiderate. I have cut contact with him.

The other neighbor is a large family. They are the nicest, hardest working people I have ever known. A few of the eldest boys, now in their 20's, have moved away for work but still come home for visits. The eldest is the young man who has done sooo much work on this house. The eldest girl house/dog sat for me when I took a trip to visit daughter in another state. Every one of them works at something and they all contribute to the family. They also play together, with a good work/life balance. Always smiling, always friendly. Some think they are Amish. They are not.

I have never met people this nice. Best neighbors one can hope for. If more people were like them, the world would be a much better place. I think of that line from the movie "As Good As It Gets": you make me want to be a better person. That is how they make me feel.
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How awkward to have a toxic sibling as a neighbour...I would hate that..... thank goodness that's offset by your lovely other neighbours
 
Back when the kids and I lived at the old apartment, we had some horrid upstairs neighbors. They were loud and disruptive, and at one point they were letting their large dog relieve itself on their balcony, so of course our patio, directly underneath, ended up littered with p-ss. They would also shovel the dog crap over the side.

One day, I came home from the store, planning to bring groceries in through the patio. I couldn't because there was a heavy ring of dog sh-t all around the perimeter. I finally lost it, pulled out my phone, and called the office right then and there.

They ended up getting evicted a few months later.

I don't think we ever had a bad neighbor when we lived in any of our houses. Apartments are a whole other story!

I don't know any of my neighbors now. I'm in a different apartment, but people in this state aren't exactly social. People don't even say hello. It's vastly different from other states I've lived in.
 
NYC neighbors are used to apartment living. I have lived almost exclusively in apartments all my life. Urban living is what I’m used to.

Most NYers I find to be friendly and helpful but also know the value of minding one’s own business when required.

I lived quite a few months on a farm in rural Wisconsin. I could have lived that life too. Ive found most people anywhere i have lived to be decent.

Some dramatic moments with neighbors. My younger rambunctious days when we were all rambunctious and dramatic.

With breaks in between I have lived in this apartment almost 73 years. I know some neighbors since young childhood.
 
We have nice quiet neighbors and I am happy about them. Some wave or say hello when out walking. We have had bad neighbors here but now they have moved on. They were young and mostly noisy and some on drugs.

Now, some youngsters ride around on those electric scooters and they are reckless so have to watch for them when driving.

All in all, it is a nice place to live.
 
Bad neighbor: Many years ago, there was the definition of a busybody next door. She always came out when I was hanging laundry and thought it was a good idea to comment on the things I was hanging out to dry. I was still young enough that it was embarrassing.

Good neighbor: Navy veteran across the street when I moved here 20 years ago... and he's still there. One of the first things he did was offer the use of his truck any time it was needed... total stranger! :giggle:
 
My current neighbor seemed nice at first but now we avoid them.
It sucks I stay out of their line of sight. whenever I have a lawnmower going, leaf blower once even with a electric saw ..... they have literally come up behind me to tap my shoulder.

I wear headphones to clue most in I am not in mood to chat etc. Never stops them from interrupting to chat about NOTHING .......stuff we have talked about 3 times before.... So, I see when they leave house ..... I get out and mow as fast as possible seriously. ever see someone run while mowing.

Last year they dug up a spot in my yard leveled and reseeded .... did not say a word to me but later claimed there was a divot that he worried his wife would trip on while walking in my yard? ... WHY? Zero reason for people to be doing things in my yard close to my house. not even close to property line this seems like trespassing.

Found out NO one in neighborhood can stand them and avoid if possible.
 
Jeni said:
My current neighbor seemed nice at first but now we avoid them.
It sucks I stay out of their line of sight. whenever I have a lawnmower going, leaf blower once even with a electric saw ..... they have literally come up behind me to tap my shoulder.

I wear headphones to clue most in I am not in mood to chat etc. Never stops them from interrupting to chat about NOTHING .......stuff we have talked about 3 times before.... So, I see when they leave house ..... I get out and mow as fast as possible seriously. ever see someone run while mowing.

Last year they dug up a spot in my yard leveled and reseeded .... did not say a word to me but later claimed there was a divot that he worried his wife would trip on while walking in my yard? ... WHY? Zero reason for people to be doing things in my yard close to my house. not even close to property line this seems like trespassing.

Found out NO one in neighborhood can stand them and avoid if possible.
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what? they dug up your lawn and replaced a piece because THEY might trip over it ?... OMG !:eek:
 
It took me a while to get used to my neighbours. For a start, this is a small village where most people had been here for years and knew one another. Now after 20 years, they still assume that I know everyone and their family trees, while in fact, I've got no idea who they are talking about. There was also the general assumption that you could do whatever you liked as long as you weren't harming one. This really annoyed me at times - things like letting the kids ride small motorbikes up and down the ride or on to the road.

My daughter summed it up nicely - in return for a bit of nuisance, you know that if you were in trouble, they would be the first people to help.
It's still the same, although the kids have grown, and I still don't know the names of most people, we are there for each other. When our son died unexpectedly last year, word spread and people whom I barely knew would stop to speak and offer their help and condolences.

I'm happy to live here, even if I have to chase chickens out of my garden.
 
I had the best neighbors in the world at the last house I owned. After my husband died, they were always there for me, always ready to help if I needed it.

I had a dead tree in the backyard that needed to be taken down. I got estimates between $1000 and $3000 to get it taken down professionally. One day, I came home from one of my granddaughter's early-morning races; I had a bad headache, so I took some strong medication and went to bed.

When I woke up a couple of hours later, I heard a noise in the back yard, looked out and found that my neighbor and his teen-age son had taken the tree down and were hauling the remains out to the street.

That was just one of the many things they did for me, mostly on a regular basis. I really appreciated them.

Bad neighbors? I had a few that were "annoying" but only one that was truly a BAD neighbor. That was up in Michigan and I can only say that the man lived to be unpleasant, not only to us but to the entire neighborhood. One time while we were on vacation, someone spraypainted naughty words on the side of his house....the side facing our house....and he told the police we had done it.

The officer came to see us and told us that they knew we were gone on vacation (which they knew because the police asked people to register with them when they would be gone for a while so they could look out for anything), but he told them that we had obviously hired someone to do it while we were gone. The officer said he knew we didn't have anything to do with it but just that he had to talk to us about it for the record. I asked him if they had any suspects and he said, "Well, that would narrow it down to anyone within a 3-block radius...."

I could keep on about what he did to us and other neighbors, but you get the gist.
 
In one of the Married quarters where I lived.. all the husbands were at sea for several months at a time.. so all of the women in every house knew each other and most of us socialised together as well

However 2 doors down from me was a woman who had umpteen kids.. she was double our age ( we were all early 20's)... and her husband was shore based so he came home ever night..

She was a horrible scrounger... and every night she would send one or more of her kids.. to all the neighbours asking for items to cook for her husbands dinner.. and also for cigarettes..

So, a kid would come to my house late afternoon and ask me if mum could ''borrow a couple of eggs or a couple of sausages''... then go to the next asking for potatoes, then the next for cigarettes... of course none of us got anything returned, and all of us newly married with babies were broke, and could ill afford to lend anything out...


We soon put a stop to it....

This was the only house we lived in.. and we lived in a lot..... where my washing was stolen off the line, and I think her kids did it...
 
We moved to this house last summer. It is a lovely old bungalow in a very, very quiet village. Just what we wanted to get away from neighbours who moved into our old street which was also very quiet........ until they arrived! He was a builder and immediately set upon converting the house in a way that affected our privacy significantly. But it did not stop at this, the garden became a site and was constantly in a state of development. Decking, outbuildings, etc, etc.

However, we lived at the top of a hill and therefore the land lay on a substantial slope, so all of this stuff had to be build on raised platforms meaning that whatever they did looked directly into our house. They had 6 older kids and as many cars or vans. Generally they were not too noisy, except when the work started.

So when we moved to our new house we were excited at getting away from that and the growing boy who lived a couple of doors along from us who had full size soccer goals and wooden target players in his very small back garden. As he got older, the noise got louder.

However, behind our new home, cornering onto our rear garden we inherited another builder. This one was worse as he was extending his property and worked day and night from when we moved in until....... Well, he has not finished!

He has two small kids and a very small garden and they are extremely noisy as small kids tend to be. The rear of his house has been developed beyond what was approved in planning and he has extended beyond his boundary, built up from a burn (stream) that separates us potentially causing a flood risk to those upstream and has filled his hard landscaped back garden with lights that would exceed those in the public street.

Is he concerned that you can hear him or his kids throughout the village? It would appear not.

We were aware that the work was being done before we bought the house but I miscalculated the distance from our home. I thought he was further away from our house. :(
 
The 36 yrs I lived in the co op apt building complex,which was built in 1948,sadly the walls were not sound proof. I had 1 bad neighbor who lived right next door to me. A, young woman in her mid 20's was fine when she moved in 3 yrs ago,never heard her at all,but that changed when her boyfriend, moved in. Our bedrm walls faced each other, every time they open& closed a drawer,they'd slam it,,or if they dropped something on their hardwood floor a couple times woke me up. I wrote them notes asking to please be more considerate
Her parents bought them a big TV { 55 inch screen} was in their living room.A couple times boyfriend would be watching a Buffalo Bills foot ball game, all I heard was the 'F bomb' every couple of min,I was po'd
After not apologizing for anything, I had enough and wrote to our board explaining what had been happening,don;t know if a board member said something to them
A yr later I was happy because I moved out
 
moviequeen1 said:
The 36 yrs I lived in the co op apt building complex,which was built in 1948,sadly the walls were not sound proof. I had 1 bad neighbor who lived right next door to me. A, young woman in her mid 20's was fine when she moved in 3 yrs ago,never heard her at all,but that changed when her boyfriend, moved in. Our bedrm walls faced each other, every time they open& closed a drawer,they'd slam it,,or if they dropped something on their hardwood floor a couple times woke me up. I wrote them notes asking to please be more considerate
Her parents bought them a big TV { 55 inch screen} was in their living room.A couple times boyfriend would be watching a Buffalo Bills foot ball game, all I heard was the 'F bomb' every couple of min,I was po'd
After not apologizing for anything, I had enough and wrote to our board explaining what had been happening,don;t know if a board member said something to them
A yr later I was happy because I moved out
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this is the problem often with apartment living when there's no soundproofing and the neighours are inconsiderate ...but as it turned out, those 2 were the best thing to happen to you..because without them you wouldn't have found your forever home
 
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When we moved to Nashville 15 years ago, our block was mostly older homes.
About half of the homes had renters, with a high turnover.

Now, all but two homes have been torn-down and replaced with new narrow houses.
The people who can afford these are young couples who have moved here from either
California or Colorado.
The neighbourhood has changed for the better, as far as I'm concerned.
(Being 'Old School', having watched how quickly these homes went up, I just shake my head.
Not my business about how little went into these homes or how much the asking price is...)

They pass by my house walking their dogs or taking their kids to the park around the corner.
They wave if I'm out and when we had the big Ice Storm, a young couple knocked on the door to make
sure we were ok and if we needed anything.
 
Lived in the same condo for 30 years. 99% in that time, no problems. We did have some yahoos, probably drug dealers at one point, but they moved out. And they weren't bothering us as they were on the other side of our building. Also one time, there was this horrendous mother who used to yell at her little boy, for example, she'd say, " Shut the f... up", etc. It bothered me as I thought she might be abusing the child, so I called Social Services, and they said they already had a file on her. I was so very glad when she and the child moved out, although I still worried about the child.

Never had any neighbors who were friends. Basically we say Hi in passing or just chat about the weather if we end up, let's say, in the elevator together.

Now it's even less probable that I would make friends in the building as it is mostly young people moving in, and most of them don't even say hello when I say hello (screw them, I say).....I think, they think, that getting older is contagious or something. :ROFLMAO:
 
Capt Lightning said:
It took me a while to get used to my neighbours. For a start, this is a small village where most people had been here for years and knew one another. Now after 20 years, they still assume that I know everyone and their family trees, while in fact, I've got no idea who they are talking about. There was also the general assumption that you could do whatever you liked as long as you weren't harming one. This really annoyed me at times - things like letting the kids ride small motorbikes up and down the ride or on to the road.

My daughter summed it up nicely - in return for a bit of nuisance, you know that if you were in trouble, they would be the first people to help.
It's still the same, although the kids have grown, and I still don't know the names of most people, we are there for each other. When our son died unexpectedly last year, word spread and people whom I barely knew would stop to speak and offer their help and condolences.

I'm happy to live here, even if I have to chase chickens out of my garden.
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I'm sorry about your son. It's good your neighbors consoled you so I agree with your daughter.
 
jujube said:
I had the best neighbors in the world at the last house I owned. After my husband died, they were always there for me, always ready to help if I needed it.

I had a dead tree in the backyard that needed to be taken down. I got estimates between $1000 and $3000 to get it taken down professionally. One day, I came home from one of my granddaughter's early-morning races; I had a bad headache, so I took some strong medication and went to bed.

When I woke up a couple of hours later, I heard a noise in the back yard, looked out and found that my neighbor and his teen-age son had taken the tree down and were hauling the remains out to the street.

That was just one of the many things they did for me, mostly on a regular basis. I really appreciated them.

Bad neighbors? I had a few that were "annoying" but only one that was truly a BAD neighbor. That was up in Michigan and I can only say that the man lived to be unpleasant, not only to us but to the entire neighborhood. One time while we were on vacation, someone spraypainted naughty words on the side of his house....the side facing our house....and he told the police we had done it.

The officer came to see us and told us that they knew we were gone on vacation (which they knew because the police asked people to register with them when they would be gone for a while so they could look out for anything), but he told them that we had obviously hired someone to do it while we were gone. The officer said he knew we didn't have anything to do with it but just that he had to talk to us about it for the record. I asked him if they had any suspects and he said, "Well, that would narrow it down to anyone within a 3-block radius...."

I could keep on about what he did to us and other neighbors, but you get the gist.
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I'm sorry about your husband. It's good you had such thoughtful neighbors at the time. That other neighbor sounds like a piece of work.
 
I'm very blessed to have super fantastic neighbors, to say the least. We all get along, I party with many of them and the ones next door are nudists, which fit in with my life style - life is good in this regard. A little wine, whiskey, pot or a combo seems to work out just fine. We all love good music and smiles. Sun day - fun day. It's not to say that all of us haven't faced problems in life, God sometimes too many - But we are there for each other. It is truly a beautiful place to be.
 
Having lived in many different homes due to being in military housing... I have several stories...

One is where we lived in an apartment for the first and only time of our marriage.. It was just 2 floors high, and we were on the top.

The woman below was nuts...she kept coming up to our door and banging and screeching that our 2 year old was making too much noise walking across the floor... :rolleyes:..

We had concrete floors covered with tile and carpet.... but she insisted our 24 pound baby was causing her migraines because she walked across the floor , and she would scream and rant about it on our doorstep......

We managed to get another Married quarter 20 miles away..after 9 months of this craziness...
 
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The neighbors to my left are hoarders and as they get older there's less chance things will get better. They've given up mowing altogether. They have to park their car at an more of an angle as the pile on the carport grows.
To the right is a police officer and a teacher couple who's children have grown and gone. They too appear to have given up mowing. I have a feeling they are moving slowly and making trips every weekend. In the process they're not concerned with the upkeep of this house.

The house across the street is the one I see out my window and their house is nice and neat. Lawn mowed! 🙂
None of my neighbors are bad people. They are overwhelmed and/or just don't care. More and more common these days.
 
My first house was a city home and my neighbor was the neighborhood nut job. He and his elderly dad lived together and both were alcoholics who would fight with each other and anyone who looked their way. When I heard yelling from his place I would go sit on my front porch and enjoy the entertainment.

Oddly enough he seemed to like me so we never had any issues, though my tolerence for him was very short because he was always drunk.
 
I'm glad I live where I do.
My nearest neighbor is 2.5 miles away, then one 3 miles the other direction, and one 5 miles to the south.
My neighbors are all nice people, and I rent farmland and pasture to 2 of them.
When I get to thinking about it, my "neighborhood" is fairly large and mostly unpopulated.
I have had neighbors in the past, and didn't really care for it.
I guess the house in town has neighbors, but I really don't have any opinions on them.
 
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