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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To start a lovely neighbour thread

102 replies

Gobelinoisawitchescat · 06/12/2019 18:44

It’s the season to be nice - so as an antidote to all the cheeky fucker neighbour threads - thought I’d start a nice neighbour thread instead.

I’ve just moved in around a month ago- neighbour popped by today to both bring me some Christmas cake and also ask to meet the dog as she had seen him in the garden and thought he was sweet so wanted to
Say hello.

Aibu to ask for your nice neighbour stories.?

OP posts:
theSnuffster · 06/12/2019 21:13

Previous neighbours were lovely. Lady and her teenage son. Just the kindest people. One thing that stands out is when DD was born. She spent some time in SCBU, we came home to find they'd cut the grass for us, tidied the garden etc. I still miss them and they moved out about 6 year ago!

Birthdaycakemondays · 06/12/2019 21:16

Ahh this is a nice thread Smile We used to have a lovely really old couple across the road & they loved my DD (back when there was only 1 DD.) They used to remember her birthday always (how?!) & she would get a card with a fiver in & at Christmas to. Always said the same thing ‘happy birthday P! What a beautiful little girl you are.’

Ahh they were lovely, I miss them.

ILoveToSing · 06/12/2019 21:20

Both my neighbours are wonderful. One of neighbours sons does the bins and if we go away they feed our cats. We borrow things from each other and they adore my baby dd. If we move in the future I would certainly miss them!

exWifebeginsAgainat46 · 06/12/2019 21:27

when i moved in i had no power at all as the last tenants took the electricity meter key with them and it was a Bank Holiday weekend so the letting agent couldn’t help. i was faced with the prospect of glow sticks and torches for 4 nights.

within about 20 minutes of discovering this (when popping their heads in to say hello and welcome) my neighbours had set up an extension lead from their flat to mine and let me use their power until mine was sorted.

i had an un-let flat the other side, so no neighbour and was stressing about new tenants being someone with a giant telly and a cinema system, as i only have a studio so no room to escape to. in fact, the new neighbour is a lovely woman about my age who is as keen on a quiet life as i am.

we all take parcels in, i lent my neighbour some fairy liquid once, one of them is going to do some wallpapering for me.

i moved here after a nasty break-up. i have anxiety and OCD and get very panicky about noise or intrusion. i could not have been luckier with the neighbours i have. i hope we all stay here forever.

Whereland · 06/12/2019 21:46

I would be so lost without my next door neighbour. We're both at home with two kids and call in to each other every day. The kids play, we drink tea, we don't care what each other's houses look like.

Inferiorbeing · 06/12/2019 21:50

Our neighbours might wind me up at times with music and noise but they are lovely. Bins always put away, we are a young couple so they always offer to help with jobs if need be, offer advice and tools, offered family members to park on their drive so they can be off road, even once offered DP use of their van as he needed to take stuff to the tip! I hope they never move.

Birdshitbridgegotme · 06/12/2019 21:52

My neighbours are lovely. We feed/wLk eachithers pets when needed. Very friendly but not overbearing. Take parcels for eachother, bring bins in on bin day and even scraped the ice off my car one morning whilst doing their own.

exWifebeginsAgainat46 · 06/12/2019 22:01

god, that sounded a bit sinister. i hope we all stay for ever and ever and EVER.....

QuietCrotchgoblins · 06/12/2019 22:17

My next door neighbour is in his late 80s and always pits my bins back in off thr street on bin day.

On the occasions I have forgotten to put bins out and been cursing myself/Dh he has done that too.

Other than that he is friendly and keeps himself to himself. We are very lucky after previous horrible next door neighbours

Sweetpea55 · 06/12/2019 22:24

A new couple moved in next to us. We I troduced ourselves and she said 'we don't live in our neighbours pockets' So I thought fair enough
But they have turned out to be so kind and considerate. She brings my recycling boxes/ bin back down the drive after emptying . I in turn remind her if it's boxes or bin because she forgets.
While the builders were doing thier renovations we told them to put their car on our drive so it was out of the way of the builders van so she gave me some flowers and a beautiful pefumed candle.
Our husbands have made us both a little step so we can chat over the fence
It's lovely having kind and thoughtful neighbours

Brigante9 · 06/12/2019 22:32

It’s the season to be nice - so as an antidote to all the cheeky fucker neighbour threads - thought I’d start a nice neighbour thread instead.

This is so odd: driving home, I thought I’d start a similar thread tonight given how many horrid neighbour threads there have been!

Mine (attached semi) are FABULOUS! The dc are polite, we are never harassed by them, they play beautifully in the garden, if we’re out there, the mum quietens them down.

On the other side, we have a elderly lady who is frail (age is relevant here!) and we check on her and help her with gardening etc. We found her when she had a stroke and got an ambulance. She loves the dogs and babysits them on the 3 days a month we both work the same hours. We invite her in for dinner/drinks. She sent her grandson round yesterday to help us with something.

We all take in parcels for each other, we don’t moan about it. I’m paranoid about moving having had really horrible neighbours who were druggy violent wankers. I’m incredibly grateful to have such great people around me.

SteelRiver · 06/12/2019 22:55

Great thread! We're lucky to have lovely neighbours. We're quite rural and it's just our two houses for some distance. They always watch out for our house if we're away for a few days and we always take in parcels for each other.
There was a huge storm last year and, unbeknown to me (husband was at work), one of our fences had blown over. It's a fence that keeps sheep in the field, and our neighbour came outside and fixed it for us, in the pouring rain with wind howling around him!
They've also, just this evening, dropped off a handmade Xmas wreath for our front door.

Original poster
Gobelinoisawitchescat · 06/12/2019 22:59

Some lovely stories here.

OP posts:
Original poster
Gobelinoisawitchescat · 06/12/2019 23:03

I do have to say - I’ve moved a fair amount and always had nice, friendly neighbours- and I love in London - often thought of as unfriendly

OP posts:
dobbythedoggy · 06/12/2019 23:18

We have really lovely neighbours. We get lots of things passed onto us for the children. Such a lovely family and a wonderful change from the previous owner. When they first moved in theor house needed lots of work. One of the children was small and one of them stopped by to enquire about their sleeping schedule. They made sure the builders weren't working on the adjoining wall during their normal nap times.

Our house is a very odd old house that was split in two. We share the main front door with the other side. The neighbours a nice too, we always take in each others see deliveries. Because of the set up they've saved the day a few times by listening out for dd with the monitor when ds has been poorly and I've been on my own with them and needed to make a dash for the hospital before anyone else could get to us. Meaning she could stay asleep rather than be scared and scooped out of bed. They've also kept ds on a few occasions so he didn't need to come out on the school run in terrible weather.

I really miss the group of men that lived in the flats next door to them for a time. They were used to relocate the tenants of a supported dry house when fire after a gas leak caused lots of damage. While the people that lived their before them and since them aren't bad neighbours, they were especially kind and considerate. One of them happened to be walking past the first time ds had a sezuire. I opened the door to leave it open for the paramedics he stood outside and got one of the other tenants to flag down the ambulance at the end of the road and another to make sure no one took the parking space on the road directly outside during the prime time for parking on the school run. They made sure Dh knew what was going on when he finally got home and called him a taxi to get to the hospital as I hadn't been able to get hold of him. When we got home they knocked to check on us all. One of the lovely gentlemen would knock on the window every morning if the curtains were open to ask if I had milk for tea on his way to the shop. We were very sad to see them go back to their original property.

SomeHalfHumanCreatureThing · 06/12/2019 23:23

My neighbour is a particularly excellent human, and one of the best friends I've ever had. The rest of my neighbors are pretty great too, we often have booze nights.
Theres one that's a bit of a dick, but reckon they'll probably move fairly soon.

Osirus · 07/12/2019 00:17

I own my original family home and am still surrounded by the neighbours I had growing up. All their children have since left.

When I had my daughter, they showered her with gifts, and some still do on her birthday/Christmas.

They are just all so lovely.

TeeniefaeTroon · 07/12/2019 00:28

Our neighbour is in his 80's and we thought we'd lost him a month ago, the strong old bugger pulled through and was home from hospital a week later. Every year he buys my wee boy a Christmas present but he's had to give up his car for a few weeks at the moment. He come round yesterday with a twenty pound note and a gift tag that he'd filled out. He asked me to get my son a present and attach the gift tag from him. Bless him.

NearlyGranny · 07/12/2019 00:47

Our lovely NDNs are a generation more elderly than we are; they're actually GGPs! They have our house keys permanently, water our plants when we're away and are actually casting proxy votes for DH and me next week as we're in Oz. In return, DH lends tools and manly expertise, climbs ladders and mends things and I share flowers and baking. I would not be so easy in my mind leaving the house empty for months on end if they weren't there.

BitOfFun · 07/12/2019 00:49

When I was diagnosed with a serious illness last year, my neighbours regularly walked the dog for me. The wife is a talented singer, and she sang at my wedding as a gift. Another elderly gentleman down the road who I'd chat to regularly found out I was ill, and has brought me flowers twice now and offered to keep me in his prayers. I absolutely love my neighbours.

wheresmymojo · 07/12/2019 00:56

We have a lovely community feel on our little estate - we have a FB page and people help each other out all the time by lending each other things or whatever.

I walk one of the neighbours dogs for free one day a week because it gives me a reason to be out of the house. Another neighbour is learning clinical hypnotherapy so gives me free relaxation sessions as a guinea pig. We give unwanted salad leaves to the neighbours at the top of the road for their grumpy old rabbit Grin

When we get snowed in we tend to offer to do a run to the shops for anyone on the estate that can't get out as we have a 4x4.

I've recently struck up tentative friendships with a couple of the women on our road which has been nice - nothing overbearing just nice chats over coffee, etc.

wheresmymojo · 07/12/2019 01:01

In fact our whole village has a lovely community spirit - we have an A road that passes through and last year a lot of vehicles were getting stuck in the snow causing tailbacks.

The local farmers came out in their tractors - one with a snow shovel attachment going around clearing roads. One pulled stuck HGVs/vans.

A lot of local people (including my DH) went out and helped push stuck cars up the hill for a few hours. Loads of people came out and gave people stuck in the traffic hot chocolate, tea, biscuits and sandwiches.

It was in the middle of all the Brexit voting chaos when I'd started to feel like I hated being British for the first time. It totally restored my faith in humanity and I've kept that with me since.

echt · 07/12/2019 03:49

A delightful thread.

We, (my late DH and I) have been so lucky with neighbour, both in the UK and Australia.. Before DH, neighbours came out to support me after I was mugged at knifepoint in a lift.

Later London neighbours took in parcels, put out bins, watered plants and looked after the cat. 10+ years later I'm still in touch, with them all though mostly Christmas-cardy. One neighbour is my proxy voter for the next GE.

Here in Australia, the same, still in touch with neighbours when we rented.

After my DH died, neighbours who had been peripheral came out of the woodwork to condole. All wave, say hello daily, and with Australian houses' high fences and extensive car-use, these occasions are not what they were in London, so the acknowledgment is so much the more appreciated.

Closer neighbours keep their eye on the bins to wheel them in, as I do for them. One neighbour brings freshly-caught fish occasionally and I reciprocate (or is retaliate?) with my pesto. I throw newspapers off the pavement into yards when I walk my dog early. We all look out for each other.

IWantADifferentName · 07/12/2019 04:13

My mum’s neighbours.

She moved to a new area in her seventies to be closer to family. She made some very good friends very quickly but then she was diagnosed with cancer. Her friends were fabulous. I’m tearing up just thinking of them. They kept inviting her out and were understanding when she had to cancel at the last minute. They were happy to move the weekly card game to her house when she couldn’t go out and played an easier version (despite being very competitive) when she wasn’t able to keep up. They were thoughtful and respectful and there for her in an emergency when DB and I couldn’t be.

I moved in with my mum three months before she died. She had lived in that house fir only 2 years when she died. Her neighbours extended their friendship to me. After my mum died, they brought me food so I didn’t have to cook and sat with me while I sorted through her things. One even adopted her cat.

Those three ladies took such wonderful care of my mother and me. I will never forget their kindness and am proud to consider them my friends.

Scarfaceclaw21 · 07/12/2019 04:36

Mine are amazing. The whole street are good friends and socialise a lot. The kids all play together and are always popping in and out in summer. Everyone helps each other. It's like a little haven from the rest of the town.