How well do you know your neighbours?

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I was just pondering about this. How well do I know my neighbours? Well the truth be told, not well at all. Most of them probably dont know I even exist, and visa versa. So how well do you know your neighbours?

Quite well in fact.
I've got a bachelor living on side who collects guitars, a single mum on the other who transcribes legal depositions, a family of crazy people behind, and an ex-farm girl in front.
Don't get me started .....

I know all about them, but I don't actually know them (whilst I might not interact, I can observe, plus my mother can be quite socially godlike, so she fills in the pieces that I don't see).

I know I've answered this same subject on this forum before, but I wil do it again. Admittedly, not well. In fact they avoid me because they think I'm a jerk. I've never done anything to them except to tell their kids to get out of my yard and STOP ringing my doorbell (doorbells scare the daylights out of me) every time they kick a soccer ball over my fence.

But besides that, only the neighbors on one side of me have I ever spoken to, they seem nice but I still know they are unsure about me. I'm a nice guy, but I don't want to hang out with them. I have nothing in common with them. As long as they don't bother me, I don't bother them ... same goes for all my neighbors. You treat me nicely, I still may not speak to you but I certainly will not be the ass that I know I really can be.

Well, and not well at all.

I've "met" the guy across the street. My mail man has a habit of not caring whose mail box she puts mail into so I keep getting his bills.

On the left, too well and not at all. Somehow, after purchasing this house my soon to be ex's brother came over and did a "hey, my uncle lives there." SOOOOO, I have my soon to be ex's uncle living next door and his sons living across diagonally. I know that he is diabetic and on an attempt to be neighborly I made him some almost sugar free wheat bread and delivered it. Never did get my basket back. The 2 sons that live across the street one makes me uneasy and if I'm outside he will "leer" at me. Since my husband is now a soon to be ex and all they have been avoiding me except the leerer, and it's turned into a leer/glare.

On the right is a nice lady who has a little boy. I've invited her little boy to birthday parties but he hasn't showed up yet. I guess out children speak at school on occasion, but both our kids are kind of stay indoor kind of guys.


to sbcmetroguy: Disable your doorbell

Do you socialize? Do you have an objection to socializing?

You don't have to be your neighbor's best friend. Saying hello to them would be a good start.

ruveyn

I wish I could, but I don't know how to do that.

Wouldn't matter though, I know the little bastards would just keep knocking on my door if there were no doorbell. And when someone is knocking at the door repeatedly and hard, it bothers me just as much as the doorbell. I have a long, narrow entry way that's more like a hallway and it echoes sound through it. I'm not answering the door for anyone anyway, whether they knock or ring the bell, so if I cover my ears and ignore the noise long enough, eventually they go away and it stops.

It can be really hard for some people, though. For instance I have said hello to my next-door neighbor on one side, and I got to know my old neighbor on the other side quite well. But my new next-door neighbor and all the neighbors across the street, I can't even bring myself to wave at them. They all look so rude and judgemental, and I truly believe they are. To them, if you don't have kids you're unworthy of their time. And to hell with them for having that attitude, because when I moved in there, no one around me had children. Then all of a sudden, we and the people directly across from us are the only ones over there without kids.

I don't know them at all. I do know there is a guy on the first floor who has two little kids and they live with him on the weekends. There is guy who lives across from me and he is real nice, two elderlies live diagonal from me, a guy below me likes to play his music loud sometimes, and next door to me lives a woman and her bf. I dunno if she is still going to school. I know they used to live on the laundry room level which is the basement I call it. Of course there is a door to get in from the outside which is on the side of the complex.


Next door to my apartment lives these young couple and they have chickens in their backyard and three little kids.


So that's how shy and antisocial I am.

My neighbor on one side is a single mother with a grown daughter and a grade school daughter. The younger daughter's father just died this summer in a stupid boating accident. They have two min-pin dogs that my dogs find fascinating when they go out. The girl loves my grandchildren and comes over to visit when them when we're in the back yard. She'd like to babysit but she's too young for them.

My neighbor on the other side is a really good friend. I go visit her in the evenings when I want some grownup time. Usually I have a glass of wine with her. She's a functional alcoholic who works from home. Very sweet person. We're actually considering buying this wreck of a house just to keep her as a neighbor.

Behind us is a couple with two boys, kindergarden and almost kindergarden age. They adopted the one and then found out they were pregnant with the other. We visit across the fence when we're out back with our boys and have taken our boys over a few times to jump on their trampoline. We have a casual acquantance with each other, mainly because the boys are all close in age.

Across the street I don't really know. I hardly ever see anyone over there. But the street in front of our house is a main arterial and very busy, so we don't visit back and forth very often. I know the neighbors next to my immediate neighbors somewhat too. I'm not terribly social, but I've almost always known my neighbors somewhat in every house I've lived in. I'm not generally good friends with them, but I'll do the odd kindness and they recipocrate. (For instance, I shovel both walks on either side of me in the wintertime. The single mother is often gone and I figure she's busy. The other neighbor is older and I don't want her hurting herself. And kids use our sidewalk to walk to and from the school two blocks from our house so I'm paranoid about the walks being clear.)

I know some about my neighbors expect the drug dealer lol.

No dont really socialize. Dont have anything against it, but I guess I really havent grown out of my shyness.

I responded in a previous similar thread like this:

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postx87589-15-0.html

Neighbors can go either way. So I have good and bad experiences. I'll compare two of each.

When I lived with my mom and dad, I knew my neighbors well because it got ugly. I had cats, and after a couple years there, all the sudden, after my dad died and my sister gave birth to a, omg, baby with a black father, the neighbors were really rude, especially about the cats. I saw one stay up all night looking out his window, and my sister saw it too, and we both just thought he was a pervert until the next day, I couldn't find my cat. I eventually found her at the humane society and they told me that neighbor was the one that called and they got her from his property at 10AM, meaning, he stayed up all night watching out his window waiting for her to enter his property to call. Then, I was told by a cop friend that my neighbor cop had all the cops keeping an eye out for my cats. Like they were hardened criminals running at large. See, we lived her for a few years with zero complaints on the cats until my sister had her baby.

We moved because of the neighbors. This new house was right next to one of the most awesome neighbors you could have. She knows everything about everyone, and she likes her occasional gossip, but she will keep an eye on the house while you are gone, and she doesn't start drama. She's just a drama spectator, not starter. I did have problems with other neighbors calling animal control on my cats there. But, one day, animal control set up traps in the house across the street from mine, and I know that guy complained about my cats because they were drawing in male local cats to come and pee on his porch frequently. Either way, animal control set the traps without his permission, and he freaked when he got home. He threw the traps away and complained to the mayor. Now that the cats aren't there, all the neighbors, especially the ones that complained about the cats being there before, now they complain that they miss them because now they are getting mice. Hahahahaha.

I don't live with my mom anymore. In the military, I had lots of different neighbors. When I lived in apartments, I got to know them, but they did some illegal drugs and I wasn't cool with that being military. On base housing, we talked a little, but I couldn't tell you their names. They were nice people though.

So when we got out the military, we moved to these apartments that are more like two houses stuck together. Our neighbor there, we got to know her, and too well. She came over like 5-10 times a day, or sent her 4 year old son in his underwear, to ask to borrow the phone, internet, food, money, the car, to babysit her kid, etc. I was told by a friend of mine who lived down the street, he would see her sit on her porch staring at my door all psychotic like waiting for me to come out. I don't know if she was just lonely or completely missing some sandwiches from her picnic, but it did make me nervous. I was always kinda afraid she might set her house on fire one day (thereby setting mine) intentionally. I swear, I own like four fire extinguishers. I only worried about that when I smelled gas, and there was a gas leak, and she tried to light a cigarette in my house during it, and then when I warned her of the dangers of explosion, she went to my front porch and lit her cigarette there. Fortunately, it wasn't a strong gas leak. Then, we also had some boys that lived down the street. Okay they were like in their early 20's. They lived with their dad, and he and I used to chat a lot. They were also friends with my friend down the street. And, like my husband, they loved the xbox 360, so we used to loan each other games. It was a fair trade for a while until they took two of our games and wouldn't return them. Then we found out they sold them. For those who don't have an XBOX 360, that's 60 bucks each game. It was Halo 3 and Gears of War. I know since they do illegal drugs, I told my friend (who is clean) that he could pick any of their suppliers and the debt was theirs to do whatever they wish to collect on, but if they did collect, I wished they not spend the money on drug related activities. I'd rather them eat out and buy their kid something with it.

So we moved again for many reasons. And this is like those houses, but four in one building. They also have townhouses here. So, it's like an apartment community, but not an apartment complex. My neighbors here are pretty awesome. One managed the local pool last summer, and she got my family in for free on occassion. This other one comes down frequently, and we kinda food swap. Like she'll bake and bring me some, and then I bake and bring her some. At Christmas, she brought me candy flavoring to make my own candy, and gave me a recipe for it, and gave me candy she made, so I made some and took her some candy. One day, we actually had morning tea together before the kids woke up, and we just chatted complaining about the landlady. It was nice. Her son is 14 and he's a huge WWII fan, Xbox gaming fan, and a boy scout. So he comes over frequently and plays Xbox with my husband or when I babysit my friend's kids. Usually, his mom comes over too and helps me cook or something. I think she may be a little Aspie herself though. Her son, it's almost totally obvious. Now, she's got some beef with a neighbor that used to live above me. And I'm starting to think their beef between each other is coming from the landlady, but they are both cool with me not taking any sides. I also have a lesbian couple with two of the most awesome little girls. I love watching their kids because the older one cleans my house and the younger one plays with my kids. And, since the moms are gay and proud, I feel like I can tell them almost anything about myself and they are cool with it. Like my aspie TMI's, they think it's funny. It's really hard to get them to sit down and have a beer with you because they are always on the go, but once you do get them too, it's well worth it because they are fun. And, I don't have to worry about either one of them hitting on my husband The best thing... none of them are neurotypical. Either thereis somethign there undiagnosed, possibly Aspergers, or they will tell you they are bi-polar, manic deppressant, or something. What I love about it, we all understand the idea of one of us hermitting in our house for a while not wanting to be bothered. We all like our time to ourselves, and it's well respected here. I think the pool manager might be NT, but being surrounded by us psychos sure makes her enjoy her alone time too

I don't know most of them, I rarely see most of them myself and probably wouldn't be able to recognise them if I saw them in town or something.

I don't know mine so well but am friendly with most of them. Taking into account I live in a block of 6 flats, with 2 on each level (3 floors) - the guy across the landing from me, I get on really well with. There's a couple of ladies in the block I get on quite well with. That doesn't mean I know them well, but relations are friendly or at least passable. There are two flats whose occupants I've hardly ever even seen or met. In a block like this, actually, you hardly see your neighbours very often.

That said - one of the aforementioned ladies has three kids, and these kids and their friends often loitered and congregated in the stair. These gatherings of youths attracted drinking, drug taking and vandalism in the stair. It was intimidating and distressing to live like that. Now I seem to have got this problem sorted out. I'm still recovering from these difficult times (i.e. I'm not totally recovered).

As I say I'm in a block of flats. This is typical of living alone in a British city such as Edinburgh. If you're alone then you're pretty much going to be living in a flat, and (taking Edinburgh, at least) it'll be in a block of anything from 6 to 12, or more, flats. The independent Aspie can have a heck of a time in such an arrangement e.g. the congregations of youths I mentioned, probably always at least one nuisance neighbour with whom you have to share a stair, I've had to go through far more than the average of distressing situations in my life living independently and it's mostly come from neighbours. Housing arrangements are different to the typical American arrangement, where towns are more dispersed and housing more stand-alone i.e. more detached houses as opposed to apartments. This makes me wonder if Americans have it easier when it comes to neighbours and unwanted interference - typically less neighbours (and therefore trouble) per acre. But here if you're on your own you're typically going to be in a stair or block of flats in close proximity with a number of neighbours and I think that takes a degree of social skill to cope.