What is happening on your street WhatsApp?

[Poppingby]

I'm nosey.

On mine, somebody is asking whether a wandering cat is lost (answer: no, as usual) and someone else's delivery has been nicked from outside their house. They are warning us to rethink our safe places.

This is exactly the kind of drama I'm here for!

Complaining about cat poo. As usual 😅

I organised advent windows in 2020, it was brilliant. The local parish council took it over since and it was not nearly as good as when I did it, of course 😆

Christmas invites are being given out, organisations for a carol singing and a house chicken has been left behind when someone moved out at the new house occupants don’t want her 🐔

Exactly! Lost parcels and recycling bins would forever stay lost. No-one would be able to get a personal recommendation for a good plumber/electrician/decorator/cleaner/. gardener. Spare fruit and veg from people's trees/allotments would go to waste. And everyone would be buying stuff that they could actually be borrowing. It's absolutely superb.

Tonight I am munching sticky toffee pudding and custard courtesy of the street WhatsApp. One of the residents can only make sticky toffee if she follows her original recipe, but it makes enough for 12 and there's just her and her husband at home now. So we regularly get gifts of baking from her.

Someone else offered a lawnmower for free if anyone needs one as her husband bought her one for her birthday, but they already have one. She also (with a laughing face) asked if anyone knew a good divorce lawyer.

Also an offer of help from a guy who has big ladders to anyone who is planning to put up Christmas lights. Plus amusement at the fact a company has leafleted offering to do lights for £100 when you can borrow the big ladder and big ladder man for the price of a cup of tea.

I was sceptical about joining but ours is great.

Windchime drama.

Next door fitted a wind chime over the summer. It’s loud. More wind bongos really, especially when it’s windy. We (DH, kids and me) have been doing the British thing of bitching about it among ourselves and saying nothing to the neighbours.

Recently our house and 4 others closest to us all got an anonymous letter asking the house with the wind chime to take it down. Some strong words were used. Some unusual spellings.

Currently the WhatsApp is 1) people saying it wasn’t them 2) a few people saying they liked the wind chimes 3) people not saying anything good about the wind chimes but saying that anonymous letters are unpleasant (us) 4) an unhinged couple suggesting that we all get wind chimes in solidarity and 5) a lot of speculation that it’s someone from the block of flats that backs onto their garden which is frankly not a massive investigative leap. (There was a 6 - someone focusing on spelling mistakes that apparently indicate someone NOT A NATIVE ENGLISH SPEAKER but we all ignored it and I think his wife made him delete it.)

It’s the most fun in ages. It was just dying down when DH threw petrol on the whole thing by wondering if it’s the same person who sends us unhinged notes about our hedge. It clearly is, as having 2 anonymous letter writers in a small road is statistically unlikely, but it’s all gone a bit CSI with discussions about handwriting vs typing, and consistent phrasesology.

The wind chimes are down though.

This is top-notch stuff @natscimum but anonymous notes make me go a bit Darrell from Malory Towers. Very unpleasant. Still, the WhatsApp group has at least potentially blown it all open.

In the last few days: Someone was looking to borrow a saw, someone else volunteered their husband - seems they have sorted it all out.
Someone was giving away a car cushion and back rest.
Another person’s cleaner was looking for another client on the street to fill a gap, I have requested info!
Finally someone posted a reminder that one of the local primaries have started taking orders for Christmas trees.
A while back there was a spate of our recycling bins going walk about! Four of us in the street had ours go missing, three were recovered. I got a new bin as one of them promptly ordered a replacement then theirs showed up. That’s about as exciting as it gets.

The evri man has randomly dumped Alan’s parcel. Again. And there’s an autumn organ recital at the church to raise funds for something or other

A recycling box has gone missing

A large black cat was wedged in the birdfeeder at number 23 this afternoon about 3.30pm. It was scaring all the neighbourhood birds and eating the fat balls. The poster is requesting that the cat is fitted with a bell.

Is there a chance that the letter came from someone next door?

Annoyed by the wind chimes but unable to broach it with their husband/wife/father/mother?

Halloween parade. Lost parcels. Speeding. Recommend a tradesperson. This makes up most of ours. Occasionally complaints about the communal garden.

It began when someone asked whether anyone had a spare onion. Now onion lending and borrowing has been going on up and down the street for years. 😁

How do people join one? I mean, I don't even have my neighbours phone numbers so I wouldn't know where to start.

I also live right at the end of a very long road, so not sure how it would work for me.

People moaning about fireworks going off is a hot topic along with the red paint on the local zebra crossing - supposedly to resemble the England flag

One of our neighbours just took the initiative and put a note through everyone's door saying she was starting one and if you wanted to join send her your number. As new people have joined the street they've been told about it by existing neighbours/the people they bought the house from.

It's not a massive street which helps. I think it would be harder if you live on a very long road, but you could perhaps just do your block.

Well, ours caused a bit of a stir because half the street started it in COVID and the other half didn't know about it and were scandalised to be excluded when they found out. That's all settled down now. I was in the scandalised half so I don't know how it started but maybe notes through doors or just neighbour to neighbour?

I think I'll stick to community Facebook groups, though again, due to the nature of my road doesn't really work for me very much.

Ours is ‘ is it a mink
ir an otter stealing our Koi’ . Middle class village :)

Surely owls fly? They don’t ’run away’. Maybe why said owl hasn’t been found, if you’re looking for a running owl , and not a flying one.

Ours is a lovely group. On Halloween, people listed which houses were offering sweets for the children to visit.

Sue was trying to track down a parcel which was delivered 'to reception' It's only houses so no 'reception' Eventually tracked down in Janice's outhouse.

Has anyone’s lights just flickered?

Is the internet slow for people?

Has anyone got the paper travel section for the Times with the discount coupons?

Not here at 34/21/50 etc..

Basically it’s a chat of older people. I love it.

Bins and parking, bins and parking, fa la la la la la la la la.