Do You Know Your Neighbours?

[icklemiss21]

I stay away from one of them because I turned her down for a pet at the shelter since she can't look after the one she has, I know the two neighbours to the left of me, we don't do things together but we often stop to chat and one of them feeds the cats if I am away.

 

[momofmany]

I like to know my neighbors enough to be able to knock on their door for small favors. Once when I lived in an apartment building, my neighbors knocked on my door at 6:30 in the morning. It was a week day and they didn't hear my alarm go off so assumed that I had forgot to turn my alarm on the night before. Saved me from being late to work that day! If I didn't know them, they would not have done that.

When I lived in the deep country, you knew the neighbors car and faces as they drove by. I'd wave at them and they'd wave back. Over time you'd chat a little just to be neighborly. It worked to everyone's advantage because when one of you left for vacation, you could depend on each other to watch each other's home, take in the mail, feed/water the outdoor critters, etc.

 

[persi & alley]

Originally Posted by Natalie_ca

I think the new people across the hall from me are moving in. I have no idea who they are.

It got me thinking that I've lived in this building for 12 years and the only person I know by name is the caretaker. I know a few people by sight, but have no dealings with them beyond seeing them coming and going in the building.

When I moved in I did get to know the woman who lived next door to me largely because she worked at a place I used to work at and knew the same people I did. But we never got together as friends or spend time at each others apartment.

In the past I would sometimes become friends with people in buildings that I lived in, but with the exception of one instance, it was always disasterous. They would stop over on a whim "for coffee", and one woman actually came by my apartment asking if she could borrow a couple things. When I inquired what she needed, she produced an entire grocery list (milk, bread, butter, lunch meat, flour, coffee, eggs, cheese etc. etc.) and told me that I didn't need to give her everything on it!

And when I was moving from there she popped by on the pretense of saying "bye" but in fact she was doing her best to get invited in for a few beer that she saw sitting on the coffee table for the guys doing my move.

And then there was the girl who lived in the basement of that building who came over one day and actually had the nerve to steal my very expensive cosmetics from my bathroom. As if I wouldn't notice

given the fact that one eye shadow was almost $30.00 and was only available by mail from England by the time she stole it from me and claimed to have bought it at The Bay where I had bought it originally a year before.

So after that I made it a point to not get involved with my neighbours.

Back when I lived in the upstairs of a house, I became friends with the girl renting the apartment to me. She lived downstairs and we went out clubbing all of the time. And I got to know the people around us too. But for some reason it was different than getting to know people in an apartment building.

Anyway, I find that I tend to keep to myself in order to avoid problems with nosey neighbours.

How about you? Do you like to get to know your neighours on a friendly basis or do you prefer to just know them to see them and keep to yourself?

Perhaps I should consider myself lucky, but so far, we have no neighbors at all. We were the first to buy a townhome in this complex and then the mortgage crises hit and no home has sold around us so we are an island to ourself. However it is our normal thing to invite any new neighbors over for dinner so all we have to do now is get a neighbor!

 

[MoochNNoodles]

We know the guy across the street. He's the kind of guy that talks to everyone and he and his grandson took care of our yard work when DH was in the military and would deploy. Other than that we don't. I know people by sight but that's it. I have waved on occasion to our neighbor on one side, but that's about it. DH and I are pretty private people so we just don't socialize much.

 

[krazy kat2]

I know one of my neighbors to speak to when I see him. He is our neighborhood watch, so I kinda of like knowing he keeps an eye on things.

 

[*pepper*]

Well we just moved 3 weeks ago. Our old neighborhood, we kinda new the neighbors, said hi once in a while but thats about it. At our new place the next door neighbors are really nice. Have already invited us for a drink and love my kids (the are empty nesters) Seem like the neighbors that will watch out for our house if we ever go out of town. It's actually a nice feeling.

 

[cheshirecat]

I live in an apartment building that has 57 units. I can't say that I really know the neighbors. I don't really see them that often.

Some I know by sight but do not know their names. The couple next door did introduce themselves when they first moved in. As did the lady across the hall that moved in last month.

I do know the names of all the dogs on my floor because I see them and their people on the elevator. In some cases I know the dog's name but not the name of the person on the other end of the leash.

 

[j_f_a]

As one of the desperate housewives says, I don't have to be friends with my neighbours, just close enough not toworry about the house burning down and no one caring

I know Faye and her bloke who live upstairs to me and I know the lady in number 44 (but in my head shes Princess' meowmy so I don't know her name). I have met them all, and spoken to most of them, they're very nice, but I work nights and have only lived there 6 months so I don't really get much chance to interact with them.

 

[lsanders]

We live in an condo complex. There's 8 units in our building. There's a substantial amount of eastern Europeans, mostly Polish, here and our building is exactly half American, half Polish. For the most part we're all friendly- we at least say hi to each other, hold the door; one of the Polish guys downstairs helped my boyfriend (who has mild cerebral palsy in one of his legs) carry a big bag of potting soil upstairs for him.

One of the American women downstairs has a couple of cats and a couple of friendly chihuahuas (!- usually they're such nippy little things, but she must be doing something right!) and I've talked with her a few times- I was outside trying to lure a stray cat over to me one night, to see what kind of shape he was in and she came home from work, said she'd been putting food out for him for a couple of months, but he seemed to have no interest in coming inside, otherwise she'd take him in. Turns out she's taken a few strays over to the shelter I volunteer at.

We had an unfortunate incident with the neighbors directly below us last month- we had a pipe burst and there was water all over their bathroom. I shouldn't say it was unfortunate- they reacted about as nicely as one could hope and insurance covered all the damage. It just wasn't the ideal way to really meet the neighbors

Sometimes I wish we were more friendly with our neighbors- some of them seem interesting, and it might be nice to get to know them better. I wish some of my Polish neighbors would throw a couple of their homemade perogi's our way

Then I read some of the stories posted about about neighbors dropping in with a shopping list of stuff they want to "borrow" and stealing stuff....and I'm a little grateful we keep to ourselves.