Not on street WhatsApp!

[ThereWillBeSigns]

Would this upset you?

We've lived here for 8 years and just found out there's a street WhatsApp that we've never been asked to join. It was our new neighbours who told us about it - they've been here 18 months!

It's probably nothing personal. Nobody will ask for money. It's just a really useful thing for trades people recommendations, queries about public transport,schools, events, people asking favours, checking houses when people are on holiday etc. it's no big deal, certainly not negative and can be really useful.

The money thing is because that's how I found out about the group - our immediate neighbour asked us (in person) to contribute to something because 'not sure if you're on the street WhatsApp'

Oh I see. Sorry, I missed that.

It won’t have been deliberate - these things are a ball ache to sort out! People miss flyers or have settings that send invitations to spam/block, someone types in a transposed number… there are a thousand ways to accidentally miss someone off.

Then the organisers just assume that person wasn’t interested - which is common! Far worse to hound people for responses, so nothing gets done and no one thinks anymore of it.

@ThereWillBeSigns I was asked to set up a WhatsApp group for a hobby by someone who wasn’t confident with her phone.
She gave me the people to invite, but one person’s first name was spelled unconventionally. She didn’t know that, so a totally different person (eg “Rachel” not “Raychelle”) was invited and obviously ignored it.
“Raychelle” was hurt and insulted until we clarified the reason for the confusion and added her. All’s well that ends well.

I quite enjoy ours, it's useful and friendly. I don't think all the neighbours are on it though, it was set up in 2020 and not everyone wants to be on it, my friend isn't who lives across the street.

We have a local Facebook page, it mainly consists of the same 10 or so people complaining about parking, speeding, kids on bikes, dog shit not being cleared up. It was good when the cat went missing (I would never have found her) but I'd hate to be in a WhatsApp group.

We have one, but it’s generally only people complaining about the service charges so I avoid and message my closest neighbours privately
only time I post is if a parcel has gone missing( DPD!)
I wouldn’t take it personally, just ask the neighbour to add you.