"Watch out everybody, a white van was spotted in such and such street" and other such pointless panic-mongery

[ImNotACat]

AIBU to be totally fucking sick of the "warnings" on local social media about absolutely bloody nothing?

Yeah, you saw a white van. OMFG the driver got out and left something on a doorstep then took a photo Perhaps he's a delivery driver you thick drama llama.

And what? An Asian woman with glasses was taking photos of an empty house on your street?? Quick, log it with the police. She must be up to something. Or maybe, just maybe, she's a fucking estate agent?

A car drove slowly past as you walked your dog? Yes, BECAUSE ITS POURING and the driver was probs trying to avoid soaking you as they went through puddles.

A van was seen driving very slowly round Labyrinth Close with 2 men in the front peering at the front doors 😱 That would be because the numbers are arranged in some bizarre configuration that makes no sense and it's basically impossible to find your way around if you haven't been before. Every time I have to drop something off to that estate (I do local deliveries for work sometimes) I expect to see a post about a badly dressed woman driving a rustbucket and staring into people's gardens 🤣

I mean I know IABU to care about Facebook really but it's infuriating watching people getting so worked up about fuck all.

@Theimpossiblegirl

Lots of these are completely ott, but last week these posts did lead to the locating and arresting of a couple of white van men who had been targeting the local villages and farms, so sometimes they serve a purpose.

Fair point

@JamesMiddletonsMarshmallows

Oh and people taking it upon themselves to share "this PEDO is living on Crook Street watch out for your kids" or sharing a missing person plea that isn't from the police. I've often commented on both saying don't trust non-police sources and for good reason and been called and accused of all sorts including being in cahoots with said 'pedo'

Also, I have been following a documentary series on channel 4 about paedophiles and undercover police. They said that they are really careful not to 'out' paedophiles in the community as it sends them 'underground'.

The cat ones. Sheesh. My friend has a v friendly ginger Tom who likes to wander down the same 3 streets. He's a typical Six Dinner Sid and will eat anything. Without fail, there's a weekly post with somebody saying he's "lost" or "starving" and my friends reply again that he is neither, please stop feeding him as it's upsetting his stomach. Same woman who is a repeat offender keeps saying "he was out at 1am (he's a CAT), he was out in the snow (he has a FUR COAT), he demolished a tin of tuna (he's a CAT), you need to keep him indoors in winter (he's a fucking CAT).

I also have a friend whose elderly cat (20) was constantly photographed and described as neglected. Friend repeated over and over again that the vet was happy, they were happy, the cat was happy. She only went out to lie on the grass in the front garden in the sun. Never went anywhere. Eventually the repeat complainer took the cat to a rescue place. The rescue confirmed on FB, she was just elderly, wearing a collar, chipped and completely well. Did the woman stop? Did she fuck. Kidnapped the cat again and tried a different rescue. And on and on. The only stressful thing in this cat's life was bloody Maureen wrestling her into a box and forcing her into various rescues.

We’ve had some corkers lately.

Cctv still of cat in a garden at 3am. Cat just passing through clearly. Posted with “has anyone lost a cat, it was in my garden”

Following week.
Suspicious man in van in street at 2am. Seen on camera going down neighbours drive.
Reply suggests they saw the milkman delivering at 2am and will ask him if he saw anything suspicious...... the idea he was the person is never entertained.

The young lad who called everyone on a small local group every name under the sun because his car has been cloned. He rains as he’d only posted it on there one of the members had stolen his details. A quick click on his profile revealed him gurning away sat on the bonnet of said car in his cover picture. Plate on full display.

A free weeks ago someone posted footage from a ring showing a lady walking towards a door at seven am. She is about to ring the bell, looks at a folder and leaves.
For twelve hours she’s shared as potential druggie, distraction thief and general miscreant, until she gets home from work and sees the post. She tells the mob she’s actually a carer and was going to get an elderly neighbour out of bed but realised she was at the wrong address. It takes a further twelve hours for the post to be taken down with no apology.

Currently there is a man who is “trying to set up my own home gym does anyone have any equipment”. He’s now posted this across at least five sites and the urge to reply ‘Argos ’ gets stronger with each posting.

We get the dog thieves/burglars marking houses stuff from time to time. We also once got a share of the classic urban myth about someone being approached by a random weirdo in a supermarket car park, making their excuses and legging it and the weirdo is later picked up for some minor offence and found to have handcuffs, duct tape and a giant knife in the car boot. All carefully customised to at least UK if not local level. Quite a few people commit the grave offence of driving down a street while being foreign too. Luckily in my kind of area these groups are not too much of a thing, but they still exist.

I wish people would check Snopes or similar before posting urban myths, it drives me mad.
We had the milkman one as well, someone posted a photograph of the poor man driving down their close at 4am. How dare he deliver milk without asking permission from the locals first?

We've had the 'marking the pavement with paint to steal dogs' one. It was the council marking the pot holes for refilling.

Someone put a picture up yesterday of a giant rock, needing two hands to lift it, painted with a big red X, that had apparently appeared in their friend's garden. Obviously a subtle way of dog thieves marking the house. When probed as to whether this was local, the chap said he wasn't sure but assumed so as it was his friend, but he'd check. Turns out that no, it wasn't local, it was a thing doing the rounds on WhatsApp and his friend didn't actually have a dog anyway. There is also a local man who is going through a mental health crisis after a traumatic event. He just sits alone on a bench in a park and people have noticed him and try to talk to him, buy him things (whilst videoing/photographing it it put on FB to show how kind they are) but he really, genuinely wants to be left alone. Every few days there's posts asking about him, people haven't seen him for a few days, who should they phone, etc. Other people then comment with his name, where he lives, his medical history, the trauma he's experienced, the health care he receives, the services he accesses, etc. "Oh, I always buy him some chips and a cuppa and I donated my child's favourite blanket/my husband's warmest coat, etc to him but it was just left on the bench". He doesn't want or need any of these things, he just wants peace. He deserves the same dignity and privacy as everybody else. Being unwell doesn't mean he should have his health issues and traumatic background, his name and photograph all over the internet because some nosy virtue signallers can't respect his privacy.

@Cantaloupeisland

Or the 'accident on the main road, hope nobody seriously hurt, thoughts and prayers' etc which roughly translates as 'oooo what's happened?!'

We just had this. "Lots of police in the village today. Hope everyone is ok?"

You mean: someone tell me what's going on, because the telly is boring

We also recently had "saw these children playing by the stream. Hope it's not too cold for them?" Accompanied by a secretly shot photo. Said 'children' looked about 18 years old and well dressed for the weather!

One of the dog markings on a wall here was very clearly seagull shit.

"This thread is so funny!

I especially love @SimonJT "I was the suspicious man" 🤣🤣 fancy, a male on the school run! Tsk."

I think the point is SimonJT is a non white male on the school run, there's some racist arseholes out there and these pages give them the chance to disguise it as being a concerned neighbor.

@Beseigedbykillersquirrels that sums up everything that's wrong with sm. So bad.

I'm sure my Close must have a WhatsApp group or FB group as everyone else seems to know what's going on eg on VE Day anniversary my neighbours all knew each other were decorating their houses (I didn't); but as the only single childless woman I'm not included... probably a good thing.

The other day some amateur photographer posted some lovely sunrise photos from his morning beach walk, and praise for his breakfast he bought from the beach cafe. Cue several people implying he was lying somehow because the cafe doesn't open until 9am well after sunrise, and some arsey cow saying 'I'd love to do this but unfortunately I am in lockdown'.
The poor bloke explained that he had gone home and gone back out again for breakfast, that he had only gone out for a walk with his partner who he lived with but the woman still cited her 'keyworker status' and claimed it's not worth the risk. The risk of walking through a quiet town and on a deserted beach at sunrise with the person you live with? Competitive lockdowners are the worst. During first lockdown there were people who lived near the main road insisting it was just as busy as ever. I posted saying it wasn't - I drove to nearby city regularly for work and was doing the trip in 2/3 of the usual times so it can't be as busy but they weren't having it.

The two fixations on ours are:

• What colour bin is it this week
• Who's got a bonfire

I swear if you even light a match in your garden round here, the bonfire police are on you straight away!

oh the lost cat ones drive me up the wall.

cat face has been taken to the rescue shelter twice now and i've had to pay £80 to have her back. someone thought she was a stray because no collar, and she looked hungry (did she fuck - she's a fatty catty).

Our local group has a gem this morning.

A painted pebble (white with a black cross on it) has turned up in a garden on Church Drive. This has been reported to the police, because it might be a way of marking that a vulnerable person lives there. This is terrible, shocking, what is the world coming to and so on. Watch out everyone, make sure you keep an eye on your neighbours.

Then someone points out that it's identical to the painted pebbles that were given out in church yesterday for Ash Wednesday, so maybe someone walking down Church Drive just left it in a garden because they didn't really want it?

Someone has come along and totally missed the point of the comment about the church. They have declared that the country is going to the dogs if thieves are trying to cunningly disguise their markings by making them the same as the pebbles that they give out in church . It's disgusting, people will stoop so low blah blah.

🙄🙄🙄

The one that really annoys me is "Look at me I'm a saint I took in a parcel for you x at no y" then x gushingly says thanks and starts arranging pick up etc. FFS just text the person directly to say you have their parcel no need to try to get neighbour of the year on the WhatsApp group for it (half the time it feels like I am surrounded by the sort of idiots that "reply all" on emails sent to an entire company).

I'm so relieved to see this post... I thought it was just where I lived and I'd landed in a weird part of the country!! I can relax now and not plan my escape!

I am quite disappointed I never spotted any "Eastern Europeans in a van straling dogs posts". I would take great pleasure in explaining that it's not economical and logical to drive around day and night looking for some pure breed to strleal it when they can just drove back to Eastern Europe (whatever people think it is) and get them cheap and without risk of prison🤷🏻 Even with actual papers.

We have a ‘breaking news’ group on FB run by the owner of the local gutter paper. It is just full of people posting “heard sirens going through X town” “heard helicopter overhead”

My local town group is just full of people asking what Chinese delivers, what time Asda shuts and did anyone hear that Big Bang? With lots of hysterical, fear mongering COVID posts - OMG, saw 2 teens walking down my street

The pets one drive me nuts - saw this cat, it looks hungry so gave it some food. How can you tell it’s hungry? I have a cheeky fucker cat who has perfected his poor little kitty face, he is also massive and clearly not starved, he’s on the bloody lost pets page at least once a week - stop feeding my fucking cat you nutters.

NextDoor is my main form of lockdown entertainment

Yesterday’s highlight: “a car has jus sped so fast past mine !”

Well, thanks for letting us all know.

We also had one a few weeks ago and I genuinely felt sorry for the poor chap. He was moving abroad and advertised a garage sale sort of thing, basically saying he had a few bits and pieces that he’d leave on his front, and if anyone wanted anything they could take it and leave a donation, which he’d later give to charity. We’d had some severe localised flooding at the time, and he also said that he’d already donated lots of clothes and other bits to a charity that was helping the people who’d been affected.

Well. There was uproar. Apparently this was highly insensitive after the area had suffered flooding. Apparently he should give ALL of this to those who’d been affected by the flooding, yes, even the stuff they didn’t need or couldn’t make use off people just spoiling for a fight when there was nothing to argue about... madness!

I don't use FB and I'm reading this wondering how you stand all this stuff.

Having said that I was once that busybody, but it helped no one. I was washing up and saw a young man in a black jacket with a logo on the back walking past the houses opposite, stopping every now and again to have a closer look. I thought that they might be from a double glazing company looking for business, but there was something "off" enough to make me take note of some details. A day later the police came door to door saying that a house opposite had been burgled. I had to go to the police station and give a description and look at mug shots, but I was a useless witness. He had been too far away to have a really good look at him. Maybe I should have been nosier and gone out to check.

I'm not usually so nosy, so sometimes you do need to trust your instincts.

We had an excellent one a couple of weeks ago. Woman was absolutely fumming about a dog that was weeing on the lamppost OUTSIDE her house.

A lamppost. On the pavement. Where dogs have urinated since the invention of lampposts.

Anyway, it didn't go the way she wanted so she stropped off claiming she didn't have time to argue as she had a "shift working for the NHS". 😇

My local area fb group are the worst for this! All kicked off a couple of weeks ago over a delivery driver having to come up close to someone's front door to see a number after dark... Then a milk delivery service were after new customers in the area... The fuss people made, you'd think these poor people just trying to earn a pound were all serial killers!