Anyone else with bizarre neighbours on NextDoor?

[FizzyPink]

I’ve been on the app for a couple of years now and when we lived in North London it was quite interesting to browse. Usually people discussing new local restaurants, things going on in the area or recommending a builder etc.

Now that we’ve moved I’ve joined our new neighbourhood and it’s utterly bizarre. They’re all completely obsessed with cats and helicopters.
It seems every week there’s a post where someone is concerned about a cat that they’ve seen a few times and looks “lost” Que lots of people offering to take said cat in and then 9 times out of 10 the owners coming on the thread and telling everyone their cat is totally fine and just wanders around like cats do!

Then we have the people who regularly post about spotting helicopters in the local area and does anyone know why?! We’re in London zone 2, near multiple hospitals, there are lots of helicopters!

Do you live where I live? That sounds like the stuff on my next door!

We have someone who regularly has a rant that posts warning about ”suspicious van” seen or ”someone offering to cut trees as we’re in the neighbourhood” are detrimental to the neighbourly feeling.

She also doesn't like posts about missing cats, escaped dogs, bonfires or dog poo.

Every week.

Mine has people trying to set up vigilante groups to chase off travellers and car vandals.
Today we've had a moronic poll about face masks and someone living next to a park moaning about how noisy the park is.

It's worse than here! 😉

You are definitely near me. We have the helicopter stuff (duh we’re right beside Brixton and there have been loads of BLM rallies!). They are all totally mad!

We have one who launches into lengthy descriptions of how to do DIY whenever someone is looking for a plumber or someone to lay a patio, or whatever. One of the jobs she did it for had the potential to either be straightforward or a complete ball ache due to frequent changes in European standards for the items concerned (dh had just done it himself and it had turned out to be the ball ache variety) so I had to pass on a warning about that one.

It's potty about potholes here on nextdoor.

Suggesting we honk our horns when passing a house with a pothole outside it so they will take action.

It's quite good in some respects, I don't do Facebook or any of that jazz so it is good for local things.

There are some members though that I avoid reading posts from as I know its going to be jaw droppingly bizarre and/or aggravating.

We just get lost and found cats and offers of apples and plums in ours.
DS lives in a fairly posh part of London and gets nice stuff offered for free. A Weber BBQ, retail price well over £1000 and one of these for his little DS, including the mattress, another £150.
The DS loves it.

Ours is a mixture of mainly the mundane interspersed with some eccentricity. There have been a couple of bun fights which have turned quite nasty! One was a lady who got fined for parking her car in the car wash section part of Tesco car park and overstaying. She hadn't known that it was treated the same as the main car park. She came on to ask if anyone else was aware, got advised to appeal it, and was then accused of trying to wriggle out of the fine! Chaos ensued as the insults flew and people piled in on both sides. Just like MN. Felt quite at home!

Ours is similar with added snitching on pubs/ groups that aren't social distancing...

Oh and warnings of travellers spotted locally....

I deleted mine as it was overrun with people trying to get more victims recruits for their MLM scheme.

I used to live in Crystal Palace and OMG the obsession with helicopters and cats! Mad!

@MissDai5y that is so odd! People are always beeping their horns outside our flats and id always assumed it was to alert the drug dealer upstairs that they’d arrived but perhaps they’re all actually alerting me about pot holes!

Aahhh @Xigris you must be on the same neighbourhood as me!

Hahaha Nextdoor has some mad stuff on it! My neighbours mostly talk about cats and rubbish in the park but there have been some interesting debates about blm and racism. Mostly respectful and coherent but with quite a few opinions I couldn't agree with.

But my goodness people like to complain about the most innocuous stuff on it.

I am a former neighbourhood lead on NextDoor. My neighbours were 80% arseholes and petty so I left the site!

Our local Facebook group is exactly like this, every time the police chopper/ air ambulance is up there's loads of 'choppers up again, anyone know why?' and the cat thing as well, although it seems to have calmed a bit after a couple of people got a bit irate at being called by the vet to pick up their 'lost' cat that some wannabe do gooder had brought in. I got something through the letterbox about joining nextdoor but I wouldn't entertain it after seeing what they're like on an open forum!

Oh and the threads on cycling. So dull and I can't understand the hate on either side of the debate.

Ours was obsessed with litter but no one prepared to do anything about it other than complain about the council. They wouldn’t listen to reason about the state of council funding. It ended up with someone saying it should be like the 1950s with all the women cleaning the front steps.

I left!

We only get the occasional mention of helicopters. But we do get mentions of cats and dog poo. But the real obsession is parking and pot-holes.

Just recently lots of complaints about bonfires and DIY noise. Always missing cat posts and loads of spammy MLM stuff.

Frequently have posts about suspicious vans but we're rural and thefts from farm sheds is a problem so they are quite useful.

Yes, just the same where I am! Lost cats, an escape artist dog who is always running around the local roads (and is a danger to motorists!) Choppers overhead, and yes, we've started getting the travellers' tales too.

But I do find it quite useful for local knowledge and what's going on near me.

My local Nextdoor groups are obsessed with helicopters too. During lockdown they were convinced the police were spying on them, although the helicopter in question was usually the air ambulance - we're about 1/2 mile from two big hospitals. Apparently, despite everything that was happening, the police had time to fly around the muesli belt looking for innocent people having barbecues.

They're also terrified of teenagers, to the point that they post warnings that teenagers have been seen walking along their road.

I'm curious, does NextDoor have rural pages/groups, and do you have to identify yourself?

oh I forgot. An absolute obsession with the removal of bottle recycling facilities. It was bad enough when one site was shut down but then the next nearest went and people were apoplectic!