Do you talk to your neighbours?

[medusa]

We talk to loads of our neighbours and have spoken to pretty much everybody in our street on a fairly regular basis over the last 20 years. Partly that's due to being in a little cul de sac with lots of stable long term residents I know, but we do all look after each other the best we can.

[Isabelle]

My neighbours are horrible at both sides, just nasty people. Fortunately my lease is up in a few months. Shame, because I like the house and it is cheap (but nice) and the landlady seems nice.

[Mister M]

I talk to some of my neighbours - I live in flats with communal staircase so it's hard to avoid them!

[*_ash_*]

One side, yes, when we see each other. And she thanks me because I take her wheelie bin in every week. She brought me some fruit she grows to thank me.

 

Other side no. They shout at each other and I can hear it. I can't stand shouting.

[Cyclone]

Ok, I was thinking about when I was a kid growing up, neighbours used to know one another, pop in for a cuppa, fetch something from the shop for them... and chat etc.

 

I'm not sure if it's just my area and I know society has changed a lot over the years... but wouldn't it be nice if we could get back to the good old days!

 

I was wondering if others still had that community spirit?

 

If not we should go on a mass appeal and get it back... and ideas?

 

How long ago was this, and do you believe it was universal.

 

I don't believe my parents have ever been for a cup of tea with their neighbours, they know them obviously, and will talk to them occasionally, but being a neighbour doesn't make you a friend.

I know my current neighbours, to say hello to in the street or to take a parcel. But that's it, and that's enough.

[scottf]

Yeah, we know our neighbours either side of our house and up our side of the street- they are terraced houses though so you do live closer that normal houses.

 

We have a drink in the summer and a good chat- its nice.

[Minimo]

I live in a block of 9 flats. There was a time when I knew all 9 tenants by name, and we would all chat and help each other.

 

But now I only know 3 by name, and talk to two of them. The other flats have constantly changing tenants, some never even seen.

 

The same was and is true of the wider neighbourhood. I wish it wasn't so. I always smile and say hello to anyone I meet but it never seems to go any further.

[L00b]

Good friends with immediate neighbours on one side, and very cordial with 3 further sets of neighbours after the good friends one (all neighbouring detached houses), very cordial with immediate neighbours on other side. Always helping one another with this-that-the other, round each other's place for BBQs and occasions. A 'proper' community spirit writ small, which is possibly odd for an exec estate.

 

Not speaking with neighbours 'at the back' adjoining our garden, as (i) they're tools generally and (ii) I've filed a complaint at the Council's Planning Department against their new decking (...so that's pretty much that for neighbourly relations with these )

[Guest]

Some of them yes, some in passing to say hello and some I've never met. Living in blocks of flats you can go for years without bumping into the person that lives next to you or opposite.

[spilldig]

This happened not long after we moved here. Is it raceist or not,you tell me. We had an asian family next door but one. Nothing wrong with them as far as I could see, and we always spoke. Now they had a little girl about the same age as my son. 6 years old,and one day the mother found the girl and our son playing happilly in front of our house. She got really nasty and started shouting at the girl. My wife went out to see what the shouting was all about just as the girls father came out and he started hitting the girl and virtually dragged her in the house. My wife was too shocked to say anything. They moved not long after.