What are the BEST and WORST things your neighbours have done for you?

[PatheticTrumpet]

That's about it really - just wanted to know.

Best - neighbour (an IT engineer) arrived at the door when we were DIYing and had just managed to bang a floorboard nail through a water pipe. Cue a fountain in the kitchen. 'Ah,' he said, 'I used to be a plumber, I'll get my tools.' All fixed in a few minutes!

Worst - hm, I suspect that teenage activity in my house might once have earned us that accolade... Sorry neighbours!

Best one: goes around the street in Christmas day with a bag full of gifts carefully chosen for each child living around her.

Worst one: Noisy students shouting in the early hours when walking drunk back to their houses.

Worst:back in my student days the loonies downstairs started threatening us, leading us to leave our rental term part way through (they kept calling the police insisting we made too much noise - even when we were out ).

Best:lots of lovely neighbours over the years - feeding cats, taking in parcels, taking bins in and out when we were out at work (including one little old lady neighbour barely taller than the bin - in the snow when the collections were all mucked up winter before last), giving toys and books to DD, generally being friendly and sweet. Most people are lovely in the NE

Interesting idea - ok - one side, neighbours for nearly 20 years, have cooked and done washing for me, helped when I had my first baby, drove me to antenatal classes, took me to hospital, came with us for my first scan with DD2, paid the milkman and the window cleaner, let themselves in to check I hadn't left the iron on, watered my plants, lent me sugar, eggs and tea, picked me up from the airport, taken children to and from school. And much more. Writing it down like that makes me realise we were really blessed with them. Now they are too elderly they never ask for our help, its a shame we can't repay them.

Other side, tried to sue me. Twice. both the current and previous neighbours on that side (once each). There's something about that house ...!!

Best - always there at a moments notice to look after animals and children, always offering to lend things, helping out with random odd jobs, cooking meals, helped us move house, moved 4 hours across the country to be our neighbours again, great social life, just perfect.

Worst - tried to get dh sacked, ignore me, actively makke life difficult.

SAME PERSON FOR BEST AND WORST!

best... look after the children in emergencies.

worst. flat downstairs smoke hash...and it floats up through the cavity walls into our kitchen.

Best-came in every week to clean for me when I had chemo.
Worsr-different neighbour-complained about our dog peeing in the gutter outside our house

Best - local business take parcels for us & keep an eye when we're away. Have been known to chase the less responsible local kids for us on occasion...

Worst - said kids, who recently have:

• Gotten in a street paper bin and then set fire to it (resulting in a torrent of abuse when we called the fire brigade to sort it out)
• climbed onto the garage roof between myself and my elderly neighbour and urinated off it before starting to masturbate. This was brought to a halt by then putting a leg through said roof and getting stuck.
• Shot the poor old cat with a BB gun
• Natrowly avoided them playing at jumping off my garage onto the roof of my convertible (that would've ended well ) because DP overheard them planning it and went out before they jumped

The adults and most of the local kids are lovely. These ones though...and the worst is they're barely into their teens!

Worst thing: Accused my children of throwing dirt onto their conservatory roof when it was actually birds kicking crap out of their (filthy) guttering and threatening me and them "I will get someone round here to sort you and your fucking kids out".

Charming. Maybe they will sort out your vile yappy shitting dogs at the same time. She did it to the people who lived here before us too but I bought before the disclosure thing came in :( I think they just hate kids.

Best thing they did was fuck the fuck off to a town 200 miles away!

Best: Fed me tea and toast one morning as I had locked myself out of my flat for the 2nd time. And yes, he helped me the first time as well. Pity he was gay, and has moved away.

Worst: Different guy to above has refused to fix the damage to the paintwork in my flat done by the pipes we all share on the balconies of the flats next door. First he lied to me, that there was only one leak, then a few months later when I said the damage was getting worse, he lied by not telling me about the second leak. Has keep saying that he will get my paintwork fixed, but I know now that that is all lies too! Ggggrrrrrrrrrr!!!

My existing neighbours are lovely. Feed the cats when we go away and leave us little gifts at Xmas.

Our previous neighbours were litigious knob-heads, threatening us with legal action every other week. It is our own fault for buying a house next door to a barrister with a shared driveway - no good could ever have come of that scenario.

worst = Shared bottom part of driveway. Neighbours shovelled a 4 foot high wall of all the snow across to block my side of the driveway while I was away overnight, I was 8 months pregnant, hubby was away on deployment, I arrived home with 5 year old sleepy DD, in heavy snow, late in the night and could not get to house to get shovel. Could not get car, self or luggage back into house. Cab driver knocked on neighbours door and they refused to come and help dig a way through. Had to go and stay at freinds house until they could come and help me the next day to access my house.

On the other hand my wonderful neighbour on the other side once spent hours trying to catch my escaped ducks on a muddy rainy night when she found them in our front garden. We were away and she had just got back from a wedding and was slipping around in the mud in her heels pretty dress and fancy hat. She caught all 6 of them and returned them home. Bless her!!

We have no good neighbours where we live now. This is supposedly a nice middle class road in a peaceful part of town and yet I have been shouted and sworn at, threatened with violence and had a neighbour lead his dog over to our lawn to shit on it. Nice. :(

Our neighbours at our previous house couldn't have been more different. Lovely kind elderly couple who used to baby-sit for us.

iMoniker - shared driveways are the work of the devil :(

Worst - having a drugs raid next door when my housemate at the time was heavily addicted to smoking cannabis himself, I've never been so scared in all my life.

Best - little gifts at Christmas and on DD's birthday, advice from a former nurse which is great when you're a brand new mum, babysitting, lending of stuff (including money). To balance it, I move her bins, have done her shopping in the past and DH and I do jobs around her house sometimes, including shovelling snow when the weather is bad.

It's not always been perfect though, my dogs have escaped into her garden before and she moans that I don't spend enough time gardening . Her daughter threatening to call EH on us didn't go down too well either.

My neighbour keeps a box file of notes on every conversation he has with a neighbour - he proudly showed it to me. When he thought we were out I caught him in our back garden peering in the windows. He built a new fence and installed a cat flap in it so his cat could get into our garden (I soon blocked that up!).

And he threatened to call the police when ds had a party. Ds was EIGHT and there were 10 boys playing Star Wars in the garden - in the afternoon.

And to cap it all he is a loan shark.

I can't compete with most of these ('weeing in petrol tank' )
but

Best - general taking-in of parcels, keeping an eye out when we're on holiday, signing passport applications (my neighbour who's a JP), having us round for Xmas drinks and mince pies and, this goes for most of the people on my street, being up for a friendly smile and nod/passing of pleasantries/full-on conversation and a giggle.

Worst ? honestly can't think of much, although there is a guy who revs and revs his noisy motorbike for ages on the street sometimes.

Also the family who had a two-day-and-night Indian-style wedding in a marquee in their back garden, two doors down, in the summer so our windows were open and it was NOISY. But mostly I was annoyed because it sounded like a hoot and they didn't invite us.

I'm in London, and I think a lot of people expect to find that I share a street with addicts/pimps/ferocious dogs etc, but in fact it is a peaceful residential street and I have lovely neighbours.

Best : fantastic family, we have become great friends with them. My dh is kidnapped to watch football next door on their giant screen so I can watch rubbish in peace (sometimes with the female members of the family next door) We feed their cat, they feed our houdini hamster We regularly have bbqs etc together.

Worst : previous neighbour complained we were too noisy, I didn't go into our garden for months incase I saw her over the fence as she'd tell me all our latest transgressions

I MISS MY OLD NEIGHBOURS - they where lovely, one side was always there for a chat and fed our cat when we went away. the other side had two boys who where carpenters so great for fixing stuff. The also had a habit of turning up to parties with a crate of champagne!

That being said the neighbours did build an avery and promised that they would not put any sort of parrot or paraquet in it - two weeks later too freeking cockateils!! Worst screaching noise ever, took me 6 months to work up the courage to mention it (we have a noisy DS) at which point his wife was so relieved she hugged me - she had been dying to get rid of the screaming buggers!

New neighbours are okay, both oldies, the scots on one side dont speak and the other side are a bit deaf so even when you do speak to them they dont hear you and you have to keep repeating yourself. They have a yappy dog but thankfully are very good and keeping it quite.

We used to have a neighbour a lont time ago that used to never stop talking, if one of us got caught we would have to do the 'Darling, dinners ready' call to excuse ourselves!

Best:-
Thai neighbours who were forever bringing us their local food to try (although the durian did end up in the bin by the bus stop) and also invited us to their Buddhist housewarming complete with authentic monks. It was a wonderful experience.

Worst:- tie between the one who set her dog on my cat, minding its own business out at the front of my house, and the one who followed her in the house who brought all her friends home and shut her (sticking) patio doors very loudly regularly at 2am.

Current neighbour isn't friendly but is at least quiet. Sometimes you can't have it all.

Mine are such fun and so kind, I love living here. There is one mad household but they are drowned out by the niceness of the others.

Best: Making me cups of tea and chasing thugs down the road when I was broken into at 3am

Worst: Being heroin dealers and therefore the cause of the break in (thugs too thick to get the right house number despite having enough fingers on one hand)

Same people, thankfully now moved on by the HA and their 6yo taken into care!

Disclaimer, i don't usually advocate families being split but this kid was never going to succeed stuck with those parents