To report neighbours to 101

[Gwillow]

Since the lockdown my next door but one neighbours have had visitors to sit in the garden. They’re currently entertaining yet more people for lunch. I haven’t seen my parents or friends for over two months despite living nearby, I work in a hospital and am seeing first hand the results of this pandemic and putting myself at risk. We and so many others are making sacrifices every day and I’m furious that they’re acting as though everything is normal. My DP thinks we should stay out of it but I’ve had enough and I want to report them. I’m not sure that anything would be done however. AIBU?

@Givenupno

Glad you have the gift of prophecy

At the end of the day, this was NEVER about saving lives. It was so as not to overwhelm the NHS. Our local hospital is pretty empty at the min, so it’s obviously worked, whether people flouted to guidelines or not.

Sweden’s neighbours did much better than Sweden - but hey that doesn’t fit the agenda

In the short term and at what cost.

We won’t know who has handled this well and who hasn’t for another two year at least in my opinion.

Statistics at the moment are pointless

Hi! I feel your frustration and yes it is very unfair but unfortunately there are always going to be people like this who think they can do as they please. Someone may have reported them already? As lockdown is lessening there is no point now really but at least you can have self pride and worth that you have been responsible and kept your family safe. X

My next door neighbour works in a care home and lives with her adult son who is also a carer. At the start of lockdown they appeared to be sticking to the rules, but for the last four or five weeks they've had multiple friends, grandkids and other family members round almost every day. They had about 20 people crammed into their small back yard having a BBQ and drinks on Sunday and all day yesterday. Later on, they all moved indoors and carried on partying until late. At one point, they spotted two police officers walking down the back alley, so they all quickly ran inside and hid! Afterwards they joked that they should build a higher fence along the back wall so that 'nosey bastards' couldn't see in and report them. One woman present then opined that she was a keyworker so she was exempt from the rules anyway

I'm not one for reporting my neighbours to the police, it would be pretty obvious it was me and I don't wish to provoke a big fallout or revenge on us. So I'm just avoiding them at all costs (which I should be anyway). It does piss me off though when I am trying so hard to make my kids abide by the rules and keep us all safe.

My other neighbours seem to be sticking to the rules, except another house over the back from us. They've had 'friends' going in and out of their yard to chat all day and night throughout, while their kids run riot up the street without distancing from anybody. I say 'friends' as I now suspect they are dealing after I spotted two lads handing money over at the gate and pocketing something quickly...They've all been ill and coughing their guts up throughout, but they're 'not worried because everyone we know who's actually died of it had cancer or heart problems anyway'!

No wonder this area is the no.2 hotspot in the country overall if there's a couple of houses like this on every street.

Statistics at the moment are pointless

Whereas mindless assertion isn’t 😳

@Aridane- you’re not listening are you? You are claiming that the only relevant comparison is between Sweden and Denmark/ Norway, but there are lots of other relevant comparisons. There are significant differences between Sweeden’s context / demographic composition, and those countries. In particular Sweden is significantly larger, more diverse (larger immigrant communities) and a very different care home context- more similar to homes we have here. Most of Swedish deaths were concentrated in its care homes and migrant communities.
Denmark and Norway have done very well in containing the virus, but it remains to be seen how sustainable that is. Sweden, like the UK, did not aim for a strategy of containing the virus, due to a concern that containing the virus was not realistic sustainable. As mentioned , the purpose of lockdown in many countries including the Uk was not to contain the virus, but to flatten the curve to avoid the health service becoming overwhelmed. Sweden has achieved that goal without lockdown. Their high death rate is largely down to a terrible failure to protect care homes (which they have acknowledged, but it is hard to see how lockdown would have helped with that) and their migrant communities. They are now investing significantly in trying to correct those mistakes.

Belgium had a tough lockdown - they have 804 deaths per million. As did Spain with 574 (and they haven’t counted all care home deaths). UK and Italy (also not counting care homes) currently on 544. Sweden on 399. It’s very difficult to draw meaningful comparisons across countries , but if you are interested in doing so you will see few patterns.

You can not compare Sweden Denmark and Norway. Unless you exclude most British towns and just consider rural GB. That brings you closer to the density etc but the key factor about Scandinavia is that the infection was by and large concentrated around Feb half term skiers and not lots and lots of infection points like the U.K.

@Meeeh yes I think it’s very difficult to draw comparisons between countries (especially by drawing on crude, reported death per million stats) - that was my original point in response to a PP who was trying to draw such comparisons to claim that we were right to lockdown and Sweden was wrong not to.

But in response to your point about density- most Swedish deaths have been concentrated in Stockholm which is a major city with a pretty high pop density.

I listen, @bizawit / I just don’t agree with your assertions

I am so relieved that the prevailing view on this thread has been YABU.

@aridane - which ones?

@BeltaneBride me too!

No you are NOT being unreasonable in the slightest. In fact, I’m absolutely disgusted that so far the vote is leaning more toward YABU. Something tells me that this speaks volumes about people’s actions and behaviour over the last few weeks.
My neighbour is also one of these idiots who has been having a string of constant visitors. She is an a and e nurse yet is conveniently self sheilding due to asthma. I can not believe that she has the audacity to go against lockdown rules whilst her colleagues are putting themselves at risk day in day out and are quite literally dying. Needless to say, I won’t be speaking to her again.
So many people have been affected by this awful situation and the least we could do is to respect the advice that has been given to us. We have not seen family or friends now for almost twelve weeks. My son missed his first birthday party. My grandfather died of Coronavirus. My husband is self employed so financially we have been hit hard too.
But in the grander scheme of things, at least we are still healthy.
To the OP, all I can offer you is my support and reassurance that (sadly) you are not alone. Hopefully this will all past and at least when you look back, you know that you did the right thing

Why?

Needless to say, I won’t be speaking to her again

I’m sure she’ll be devastated. Hope you’ve been practising a pained look of disappointment for when you cross paths in the street.

My neighbour is also one of these idiots who has been having a string of constant visitors. She is an a and e nurse yet is conveniently self sheilding due to asthma. I can not believe that she has the audacity to go against lockdown rules whilst her colleagues are putting themselves at risk day in day out and are quite literally dying. Needless to say, I won’t be speaking to her again

I'm not sure I've read a paragraph dripping with such poison and judgement in all my time on MN and I've been the round the block on here with a few NCs.... !

I agree. As the wife of a keyworker who has effectively had to self isolate from all friends and family in case he brings it home from work, I’d be livid too. My neighbour across the road is a nurse with little ones who had to move out to protect her family while she continues to work and that breaks me a little bit inside. Take heart there are others out there who are equally enraged at the sight of hundreds dragging little ‘Chanel’ to the beach at the drop of a hat while whinging at the risk of schools going back. It’s exposed the Jeremy Kyle ‘I’m alright Jack’ or the ‘Ah but I’m a special little snowflake because...’ brigade. The hypocrisy is stinking especially the clapping - utterly pointless if the other 23 hours 45 minutes a day they are sticking two fingers up to it and doing whatever they please. If we’d all been this pathetic during the war, we’d be speaking German by now.

I’m lucky my neighbours in all directions have been adhering to the rules, a large percentage of them are elderly admittedly, but they seem to be thoroughly decent folk and I count myself really fortunate and by the sounds of it, fairly unusual.

My advice? Either report but expect them to get nothing more than a bit of a talking to or apply the entire ‘mind your own business’ rule. After all consideration and neighbourliness works both ways. Next time you spot their house keys left in their front door, remember ‘mind your own business’, car lights left on and draining their battery? ‘mind your own business’, burglar snooping about their garden while they’re on holiday - ‘keep your nose out of their affairs’. When their car won’t start on a snowy winters morning and they knock your door for a jump start, smile sweetly, flick them the bird and slam the door in their face! Maybe then they’ll get the message that community spirit works both ways.

My FB feed in the last couple of weeks has photos of colleague's DH and small children at the top of munros. It's OK though as they were taking their daily exercise and social distancing. The fact that they drove an hour from their home to find the car park was closed and no one else climbing it only gave them further justification for their actions that they were somehow following Scotland's stay at home message. Neighbours have had parents round since the start. Infuriating.

Is your neighbour Dominic Cummings?

I totally feel you op. I would report to the police, 100%. We don't know if it would make any changes, yet that's what I would still do. You never know, police might talk to the neighbour and they may change their behaviour.

Also, I'm really surprised at how many people here are saying that breaking lock down rules is kind of "okay" when they're under some sort of "situation". And this makes me really worried and disappointed because I think people really don't realise how serious this situation is and we have to follow the lock down rules very strictly so we can save more lives not only just the people who are infected but also whoever needs medical cares when they need it!!!

I think it must be really stressful and frustrating given your work to see others breaching guidance. I don't think you should report them or confront them, though, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, falling out with neighbours is stressful and you don't need that in your life for the foreseeable. Secondly, are you totally sure there are no exceptional circumstances (e.g. my mum has had a few garden visitors but she is terminally ill and has decided to take her chances rather than live out her final days without seeing her loved ones). Lastly, I think this communal effort to protect public health has to come from a willing and positive place, which will have to include tolerance of variable adherence to guidance, or it will all get very nasty socially/ politically. There has been a failure of political leadership and that's where we should be directing our frustrations.

We are allowed to meet people outdoors, up to 6 people in fact, at a social distance. How are the doing anything wrong if that is the governments rules? I would mind my own business and do what you do and leave everyone else to do the same.