Ask Lemmy

I’m “that guy” in my neighborhood. Burgers ,beer and football are generally at my house. I invite neighbors to dinner all the time. Just this evening one of them texted a half dozen of us because their shredded cheese was moldy and they had a different set of friends coming for dinner. A neighbor i introduced to this newish neighbor walked a bag of cheese over to them.

Best part is that when everyone gets drunk, nobody has to drive. Or if I’m at a party at their house and need to poop, I can walk an extra 200 feet and use my own bathroom. I have keys to at least 4 of their houses.

Neighbor friends are the best.

I was coming upstairs, as they were struggling to carry a fake dead body downstairs. His back was to me, with his arms hooked under the dummy’s armpits. His buddy was carrying the legs and saw me first. He jokingly went “oh we’re filming a-… Uhh… Porno?”

I responded with something along the lines of “I’m not even gonna worry about it until I start hearing farm animals.”

They laughed. I laughed. We haven’t spoken since (because I haven’t heard any farm animals yet.)

My wife is quite sensitive to noises and my neighbor was often playing bass-heavy music in the evening but rarely late, until one night he played until 3 AM (stopped quickly after we ourselves got to bed so I didn't go and complain that night.) Next day, I knock on his door asking if he's the one playing music at 3 AM.

To my surprise, the man apologizes, says he was baked and didn't realize how loud he was. Adds that if he ever is disturbing us in the future, to come and tell him right away.

Now, we're surprisingly more tolerant of his musical habits just knowing how polite and apologetic he was about it. So what could have been a rocky start ended up with us being cool.

Barely spoke a word with any of them for several years. Got a kid. Now i know almost all of them.

EXTREMELY effective method, but has a few caveats.

I have neighbors on 3 sides of me. Neighbor to my left isn't talkative. We wave when we see each other. Neighbor behind me is a nice older lady. She felt bad for me push mowing my lawn so she let's me use her riding mower for free. I maintain it and do some odd jobs for her. We talk when we see each other. Neighbor on my right is a nice guy. He isn't home a lot since he drive a semi. We stop and talk every few weeks or so. He has a German Shepard that is a good dog.

I saw them outside, invited them over for a BBQ a few weeks away. We also dropped off a Diwali present, and they dropped off an Xmas one. 3 interactions a year other than saying "hi" when we see each other out front is the exact level want.

One of my neighbors was super cool, from the moment I met him. He told me he was throwing a party in a week and I should come. So I did, and then from that point forward we were always inviting each other to things, and planning collaborative BBQs in the front yard.

The neighbors on the other side of my house were friendly, but never beyond a "hello" point for 3 years! Lol. Then their neighborhood buddies moved away and they started talking to us more. Eventually we invited them over for the 4th of July. Then they invited us over to a party, then a dinner, and it's gone from there. It turns out we have a ton in common, but never knew it because we hadn't talked much.

That's often all it takes, inviting each other over for dinner, or a game night, or a party, or whatever. So pick a neighbor and invite them over. Heck, invite all your neighbors and have a big BBQ. Call it a block party.

Don't know much about my current neighbors and don't want.

The people we used to live next door to were great. L came over as me and my BIL were handing out candy, and any adults got a shot if they wanted.

After the kids went to bed L came over to our place and we got ridiculously drunk. L passed out in the kitchen and we let him sleep some of it off before helping him back next-door when we met M, his wife.

Probably my favorite story is when M texted L and said she thought there was a snake in the backyard, and being drunk we went to investigate immediately. Not the expected reaction, so when I knocked on the back door (it was late-ish) I'm greeted with a double barrel shotgun. M apologizes and says its not loaded, at which point I drunkenly admonished her that if she's gonna point a gun at someone unknown, it should be loaded in case she really needed it.

We got to be really great friends with that family, and then they moved for work. Still miss them years later.

I moved in like three months before we went into lockdown for the pandemic, so it took me a while lol. Mostly I just started saying hello while we were all out doing yardwork. It's nice to feel like I belong here and I'm part of the community. But I absolutely would not rely on these muppets in an apocalypse, god bless them lol

One of my neighbors threw a neighborhood BBQ. Free invite with burgers and dogs, BYOD. Seemed to draw quite a few people

I heavily rely on my partner for the social interactions, I’m not as social and outgoing :)
She went round to give muffins when we first moved in and got to know most of the residents.
Since then new people have moved in here and there. The newer neighbors keep to themselves, so we don’t really know them.

Introduced myself the first time I saw them out on their porch. That's what people do in my neighborhood, they sit on their porch to be sociable.

I greet my neighbors by name every day, and they me. We discuss the weather, their family, local goings-on.

I was walking to my car and she barked "are you always going to be parked there" (right outside my house) to which i replied "I live here".

Threatening them and their barking dog at 2am.

They introduced themselves, nice people. The lady across the street drives my Mother-in-law to her appointments when we can't.

My interaction with my neighbors is just to the extent of saying "hi" when we bump into each other and that's it. They have a friendly dog and I love dogs, so I did offer them that I could dog sit for them if they ever needed it, but they never took up the offer. I've spoken way more to their dog than I ever did to them.

Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I believe the era of "love thy neighbour as thyself" is long gone. Back in the day there were many reasons to interact with your neighbors, such as for keeping up with the local news and gossip, borrowing rations when you've run out of stuff, or keeping an eye out on your place when you're away etc. But these days, in the era of the Internet, home deliveries and security cameras, there's very little need to interact with your neighbors. Which is a bit sad, but I guess that's the way the world works now.

They had known me since I was little because the place I have now used to be a family member's, and I frequented the place when I was little. It's very communal here.

We had a difficult move. In that first chaos, we saw the folks across the street with their kid - the same age as out kid (6 years old). Now, I know where they live, and it's a nice neighborhood, so I asked if they would mind a "playdate" at their house for the next few hours (aka babysit). They were happy to do it.

But I should do this in order:

Directly behind us was Agnes. She had the bad kind of dementia, and her daughter (a nurse) was trying to hold it all together. But there was a LOT of screaming as Agnes had no recall of her daughter and thought she was a robber/killer. I had been in a similar situation years earlier and gave our sympathies to the daughter. Agnes died that year and they sold the house.

Clockwise, our left-side neighbor is retired. They winter in Florida. The son is a mental case - shouting profanity and obscenities on the phone at all hours on his back deck. We can't use our deck for the first three years. It mitigated later on. But no relationship there.

Across-left is a VERY private family. Eastern European accent. Grandmother, mother, 3 teen kids, dog. We are told the dog bites. Always pleasant. Never much to say.

Across the street is a busy house. He does some kind of dirt-moving-landscaping thing. Wife is smiley and quiet. Older boys, and a girl in middle school. We ask for a quote for some work like he did for his left-side neighbor. Says Sure, then blows us off. Three times. We don't talk now.

Across-right are the folks from the first story. They have TWO kids. Girl is 2 years older. We became close and still are. The boy becomes a stand-in brother for my son. Like brothers, they have nothing in common, but make it work.

Right-side has the opposite: boy is 2-years older and the girl is the same as my kid. So that's 5 kids at the grade-school bus stop. Every morning the three families stand out front with coffee and chat. wait for the bus, send off the kids, chat some more, head off to work.

The right-side folks have become our closest friends. Wonderful people. We mow each others' lawns, depending on who gets to it first. Outside movie nights in the lawn between the houses. Built matching COVID gardens next to each other. Kids do homework together.

Oh, and back to the backyard. The folks that moved in have a Brooklyn mentality. Squirrels are rats and need exterminating. Every yard needs a fence. Loud music at parties. Suspicious of any new folks. My wife had a bit of that when we met, but lost it after a year or two. I doubt these folks will warm to us, since the fence they put in is 8' high.

There are others further off. "The folks with the Red Setter". "Old Italian Cranky guy". "The guy whose wife died". There's a zombie house on the block - unoccupied for 7+ years. "ZZ-Top dude" - he has a long beard). All folks that walk around the block in nice weather. We wave and smile. Chat about dogs or the weather or the garden if everyone is cheery.

It seems a good idea to remain civil (or silent) - neighbors with grudges make life miserable all around.

I just say hi and then maybe talk about their dog, my dog, or something else surface level.("How about those 'Sports Team Name'?", "You see that awesome new movie/show?", "Hey, did you hear about 'Local Event'?"). I stop to chitchat when I have time and I usually get to know my neighbors. We keep an eye on each others places/cars/etc., have taken care of their dogs while out of town and vice-versa and one of them is an emergency contact for my kids. Its way better to make friends than just be living close to a bunch of strangers. Not everyone is super social, but I still know pretty much all their names and they know me.

I was 7 and the neighbour's kid was the same age. We got on famously.

Moved to a neighborhood with intentionally low fencing (no privacy). I know more neighbors well here than anywhere I’ve lived alone.

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