not to answer the door or phone if I dont feel like it

[thefruitwhisperer]

Sometimes I cant be fucked. I do however always call the person back when I can be bothered to talk, normally within an hour or so.

DP thinks Im an abomination.

I used to take parcels in for people, until the same neighbour starting ordering from the Next Directory about three times a week and NEVER being in, my hallway was like a shop stock room.

This is the same neighbour whose dog walker drove into our car and then denied it, neighbour witnessed the whole thing and refused to write a statement for court. So I don't feel I'm being entirely unreasonable.

I think this thread shows that when it comes to door opening it depends a lot on where you live. The number of random sales people and church recruiters we get round here (inner London) means I never answer the door unless I am expecting someone. We don't get random visits from friends or family without a text/call first.

All phone calls get screened. If it's an unknown number I wait for them to leave a message. I simply can't be arsed to listen to some sales person's script because it is a waste of time.

- it's a bit of a leap to assume that because you don't always answer the door / phone that makes you antisocial and unwilling to help others!

'Equally, I'd always take a parcel in for neighbours, in the same way they do for us - I'm amazed how many MNers on this thread are too selfish to do this.'

Just because people don't answer the door, doesn't make them selfish or a bad neighbour.

Did it sound OK in your head before you posted that?

YANBU.

If I'm busy cooking/dealing with the DC's/watching something/generally can't be arsed I'll call them back later.

This drives my mum mental, she just doesn't get it and thinks that if a phone rings it must take priority to anything else that you might be doing at the time. And she leaves very snitty messages for me if I have the audacity not to pick up the phone the second she requires my attention.

"I find this "it's too much trouble to open the door" attitude really odd"

So do I. I have taken in parcels for next door and they have done the same for us. It doesn't happen very often. We don't even get JW where we live because we are tucked away and I know if someone rings the doorbell it isn't for some trivial reason.

As an aside, when we lived in Leeds we once got disturbed by a loud hammering on the front door one Saturday evening. I answered the door to the police who had received a phone call about domestic violence. They had got the wrong address and came to our house instead. They told me that if I hadn't answered the door they would have smashed it in.

Once when I lived on my own, I had a similar experience to the one you describe, Bunbaker - the police hammered on my door at 4am saying they had had a phone call reporting screaming from my flat (there wasn't). It frightened me, if I'm honest.

I don't live in a particularly busy town, now, but we get an awful lot of aggressive sales people, I also get a lot of people selling door to door, as well as many people trying to 'save' me and get me to go to their church - I have 4 children under 6 and I really can't be bothered with answering the door sometimes.

I take in parcels for my neighbours, I catch their dogs when they escape from their garden - I even tell the neighbour opposite when they've left their lights on (for all the thanks I get). And I used to take in the old lady in her 90s who used to wander the streets/lock herself out/escape from her carers when she was alive.

I don't consider myself a bad neighbour. Quite the opposite. But I do reserve my right to not answer the door if I don't feel like it.