Your neighbours

[BitSilly]

Neighbours
everybody needs good neighbours

So the theme tune goes!

But do you have good neighbours?
What's the weirdest things your neighbours have done?

I can sort of laugh about this now as we moved away 7 years and two house moves ago but we had very peculiar neighbours who copied everything we did.
It got quite unsettling at the time as I felt I was being watched all the time.
If we bought a garden bench arbor thing, guaranteed within the next 24 hours, there'd be one in her garden.
The strangest thing was if I got a plant, for example, a red rose bush, and planted it in the top right corner of my garden, she would get one and plant it in the exact same location in her garden.
This is just one example of many.

Anyway, as I said, we've moved now and have brilliant neighbours thank goodness.

Oh my god that would drive me mad! How bizarre. Glad you don't have such strange neighbours now! Our current neighbours are OK on balance, as they are pretty quiet, however they are obsessed with parking near their house and frequently make it difficult for us to park on our drive, which I struggle with. I've also heard them having sex on multiple occasions which gives me the ick. I'm no prude but I don't want to hear it.

where do i start? my elderly neighbours comes out of his house and walks round my car on my drive checking my parking! the neighbours at the other side have sent the kids round in the past for; flour, butter, internet password, plug in their phone as they have run out electiricty??

we've had the bloke from next door use our garden as a cut through so he doesn't get caught on cctv at the front as he's not allowed at the address?

and we have bin wars.. if we dare put our bin even in inch out of line the neighbours comes out, moves it and does a finger wag at our ring doorbell!

I'm very lucky. I have a middle aged couple on one side (adult kids have moved out) and a younger couple the other side with youngsters (one nursery and one primary). They're not noisy and they're friendly and helpful.

There used to be an elderly bachelor gentleman there before the young couple. Whilst I felt a bit sorry for him being lonely, he didn't respect boundaries and would try to keep me or DH talking for hours while we tried to manage our (at the time) young children and busy lives. He would also go on and on about wanting to "go upstairs as all his friends had already left" ie, he wanted to die. However he'd be quick on the phone to an ambulance if he felt even slightly unwell. Hearing him saying he wanted death was difficult as DH's dad was ill with terminal cancer at the time.

Oh I hated it! I love gardening but it really put me off.
She did exactly the same thing to another neighbour but for the interiors, as their houses were the same lay out.
Literally, if mutual neighbour decided to redecorate their dining room, weirdo neighbour would be buying paint the next day!
Absolutely bonkers.
We'd laugh it off by saying she's just got no imagination but we both said we wouldn't mind if she just spoke to us and say "Oh I like your XYZ, I'm looking for the same, can you tell me where you got yours from?" but she never said anything.
Just went and did it.

My neighbours are large smelly cows (literally 🐮) they live on the field with a derelict Croft house they like to live in when the weather is terrible! 😂.
prior to this I had a lovely older gentleman who wasn’t there half the time, but when he was would help me with diy, have lovely chats, just the perfect neighbour!

I've caught our neighbour looking in our bin. Not putting something in it. Just looking in it. Scuttled off when he saw me. Another neighbour walks their dog every day at 5am past our house (seen in ring doorbell)

I have the neighbourhood gossip on one side. She is very loud, and I sometimes hear her talking about me. I do not interact with her at all.
Other side is a large Goan family. During one of their parties, they were singing 'Dancing Queen' by ABBA, and the combination of their accent and the happiness of it all made me smile.

Fortunately I have lovely neighbours.
At a previous house the neighbour would play Barry White on repeat, can’t remember the track, for 2 or 3 hours at a time. She was a magistrate but the people after me had to take out an injunction against her for harassment. She was also the local mayor twice.
I was so happy to move, fortunately it was rental and I was only there for 6 months.

It got to the point where we deliberately waited until they were away on holiday to redo our front garden by planting a new hedge.
I am not kidding but the day after they came back, they were out there, digging up their old hedge!!
I wish I was joking 😆

I have great neighbors. We’re a quiet road of 15 houses. The long term residents have a lovely tradition of inviting a priest in June to say mass in the communal courtyard for the feast of the saint our street is named after (I live in Italy!), followed by a barbecue. Every house is responsible for preparing something: the pasta, the meat, snacks, dessert etc. It was interrupted by covid for a few years (when I arrived) and restarted two years ago. Despite being a foreigner and on my own I was invited and made feel most welcome. I’m already looking forward to this year!

I have had really odd neighbours in the past. The absolute worst I have had played incredibly loud music in short blasts throughout the day and night. One or two songs at a time but full volume so the whole house used to shake. She got pregnant and moved her boyfriend and his untrained dog in who were horrendous. The dog used to throw itself into the fence barking if I was out in the garden with the kids and when I once complained the boyfriend ran up and down the lounge barking and would then bark every time he saw me.

Now I have lovely neighbours. My garden backs on to 2 other gardens but, as is a cul-de-sac is visible to about 8 other gardens. When I moved in I put fairy lights along the fence, a week or so later all 8 gardens had the same! That did make me laugh.

We've been renovating. The neighbours are mainly elderly and all very friendly.

One neighbour proudly showed me the step ladder she had specifically bought- to peer over my fence. She wanted to take photos of the building works to send her adult son- who had never even lived at their property! I half joked that she would be able to see from her bedroom upstairs, but she said she gets a closer view from the fence!

When we were on the scaffolding painting, we saw a neighbour 2 doors down, lawmowing in the nude! Oh- he had safety boots on, but nothing else at all! 😳

Our newish neighbours, a young family, are lots quieter than the previous occupants who were lovely people, elderly but deaf with a tv speaker attached to the party wall. They only went to bed very late and we had to ask them a few times to lower the volume then they got very upset that they'd bothered us.
One time she came round to complain about our "new" outside light that was too bright and shining into their lounge and bedroom and they couldn't relax or sleep properly. I pointed out that it was actually their light, fitted onto the wall between their lounge and bedroom.

The complaint about their own light made me laugh 😁

Honestly, having experienced the crazy, I never take for granted what a blessing it is to have good neighbours.