Viewing the neighbours differently after this?

[bmbonanza]

Neighbours are a nice older couple. Friday afternoon they had a BBQ - two cars arrived. Today they have packed the dog in the car and left at 9am, presumably since they both went, with the dog, and are not back 4 hours later, its not an essential shopping trip so guessing they have done what the do most weekends and gone to visit their children and grandkids.

I always thought of them as 'nice people' - Am I being unreasonable to think I will view them differently at the end of all this.

And calling them 'killers' is just pointless hyperbole.

Anybody - and I mean anybody - who goes out (for whatever reason) has opportunity to infect and get infected. The fact that some outings are permissible doesn't change that.

Wehttam, I'll stick to my own brand, thanks.

I'm in the opposite situation: we know and like all our close neighbours and they are all being total stars: looking out for each other, doing shopping and care for the elderly on our street. A couple of people made dubious decisions in the early days, but I'm not aware of any issues since - although i wouldn't necessarily be aware.

We now also have a full road WhatsApp group and people we've not really met properly did various errands for us when we were in isolation. I can see it really having a positive impact locally.

We generally have nice neighbours, just doing their best. The Facebook page is extraordinary though. I feel for those facebookers though, they must be lonely. Generally harmless until they start openly judging others.

The locals that piss me off as the ones who are normally rude, unkind and bitchy. They are the ones with the biggest rainbows, the loudest motivational posts and desperate to make a big show of appreciating and giving. Corona virus doesn’t cause a personality transplant so I’m not sure what’s going on there.

It isn't great, this surveillance and clock-watching and I think you should mind your own business, lots of speculation. I wouldn't appreciate that from my very lovely neighbours.

Why is it that the people who disagree with the OP appear to be the bitchiest?

I realise I’m probably getting this judgement from my neighbours.

I’m disappearing for days at a time, sometimes with multiple suitcases.

I don’t know any of them well, so no idea if they know I’m an nhs worker. Because public transport has been cut I’m staying at work for days at a time and coming home when I’ve a day off. I’ve got two shielding parents so usually a suitcase is their shopping (so I can wheel it).

Undoubtedly some folk take the piss, but I’m getting ID checks to get onto public transport for work so don’t know how folk manage!

Because they’re usually bitches Comic

Those neighbours who are perceived to be flouting the rules will be nicely balanced out by the ones who are too terrified and sanctimonious to go out at all and have been at home for 27 days, water on their cornflakes, eating chickpeas, scratching in their hair shirt.

Every single person on this thread who is banging on about curtain twitching & stasi like neighbours...I hope you refuse a ventilator in a shortage along with all the selfish rule breakers. Who do you lot think you are?

Don't you dare partake in or condone putting other people's lives at risk. Frontline medical staff are dying. Shop workers & other essential staff have no choice but to go out, how dare you increase their risk of getting this.

How is someone's right to a BBQ because "it's really boring & hard" worth more than a life?

My NHS Trust has advised that all of us frontline workers move into a hotel for the duration of the virus, so that our families are safe. My sensible and logical brain says good idea. My emotional brain says NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! This is unprecedented and I really hope posters who aren't in the firing line can appreciate why we are so upset about people breaching guidelines.

Likes ventilator is a panacea cure-all

My very unscientific but personal experience evidence is that young retiries are the worst. So many of them are set in their ways- they already have a life that revolves a lot around their home and just cannot get their heads round this as not a huge amount has actually changed.

I’ve found that this self isolation has turned people into a bunch of nosey buggers lol! Yes I understand that people are being selfish, but you never know people’s circumstances so why judge?? You just said that you ASSUME they are doing what they usually do & visit kids & grandkids, but in actual fact you don’t know that so don’t make assumptions! People need to get a life & stop worrying about what other people around them are doing all the time, the fact of the matter is that it isn’t your business.

For the record I totally believe in the full isolation process, I’m a pregnant NHS worker concerned for my baby & my colleagues. However, unless you have undeniable proof people are jeopardising the health of others, please stop posting these threads every other day! It’s exhausting to see the negativity & “moral highground” some people are spewing on these posts!

On a positive note, what is everyone doing to stay sane during this lockdown? Stay safe everyone!!

Didn’t take long for the ageism and wishing a horrible death to appear.

I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the purpose of the lockdown. It is not to prevent most people catching the virus. The only way out of all of this is for most people other than the most vulnerable to catch it. The point of the lockdown is to slow down - not stop - the rate of transmission so that people don't die for lack of medical care. Many people will die from the virus. That has been inevitable from the beginning. The point is to minimise the number of deaths that could have been prevented with medical care available.

The lockdown has been planned on the basis that not everyone will comply. It will not be extended, intensified or lifted on the basis of whether people are complying or not. It will be extended, intensified or lifted on the basis of the tracking of infection rates, which already appear to be responding.

Everyone should comply with the restrictions we have been asked to comply with. You can impose your own more stringent ones on yourself if you like. But focus on what you can control, e.g. your own behaviour, and stop all the absurd hyperbole about how other people are KILLERS, when you yourself might well have already been an asymptomatic KILLER before we ever knew the virus was in the country.

Agree lol. Criticising the OP for speculation and monitoring her neighbours doesnt mean disagreeing with the rules or not following them/hoping everyone does.

I know my neighbours are doing their garden up. Lots of coming and going for supplies and granny and grandad coming round. It is irresponsible but as long as they don’t jump over the fence to mine I’m keeping out of it.
They are actually doing a really good job!

and stop all the absurd hyperbole about how other people are KILLERS, when you yourself might well have already been an asymptomatic KILLER before we ever knew the virus was in the country.

Can you really not see the difference between me being a killer before we knew about this and Doreen down the road, who has been out sunbathing in the park and having bbqs with all and sundry, being a killer?

am i the only one who's minding my business and couldnt give a flying f what my neighbours r up to?

Waw i really thought highly of us as a nation.

AIBU to view us differently after reading this thread?????????

@Hannah021 YANBU!!

I am honestly embarrassed to see so many grown adults tattling on their neighbours to Mumsnet 😂😂

ChainsawBear

Excellent post.

Can you really not see the difference between me being a killer before we knew about this and Doreen down the road, who has been out sunbathing in the park and having bbqs with all and sundry, being a killer?

The effect is the same, is it not? And either way, Doris - or you, the unwitting asymptomatic early spreader - aren't murderers. You are unwitting vectors. What is killing people is the virus. We hope and are working with the aim of the virus not being aided by lack of doctors, nurses, and hospital beds. You might as well focus your ire on the original bat that was responsible for the species jump into humans as on Doris down the road. It's more definitely guilty than she is.

You are not responsible for enforcing the lockdown and the government does not expect 100% compliance. If the government wants the lockdown enforced they will call on the professionals whose job it is to enforce laws. It might be best for your own mental health and blood pressure if you keep your eyes on your own knitting and recognise that you know very little about the lives of others.

Of the people I’m acquainted with who are trying to police their neighbours, they have one thing in common and that’s having pretty restricted and locked down lives prior to Coronavirus.

It’s sad really, that the one time they feel energised, they have a purpose or have something to offer, or to be on right side of the coin when it’s always fallen the other way for them, it’s in the middle of a national emergency.

It’s like at last they have a purpose and they belong in a society that’s largely ignored them.

My 80 year old neighbours (a couple) are getting a shopping delivery every other day.