"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.

Dogs always used to just get lost. Now they're always stolen. No conceivable way they just decided to escape the cold boring shitty garden they've been abandoned in while their owner sits in the warm house. Had to be stolen by someone in a van.

The thing about white van drivers is that everyone is so suspicious of them that they get stopped by the Police far more often than drivers of other vehicles, according to my Dad, a white van owner -who is not 'foreign', a dog napper, burglar or 'up to no good'-. Some people really need to get a hobby!

Love our local site for this, particularly when there are youths or hoodies about, favourite being a hoodie checking car doors on the road we live on with picture.
It was DH, checking his car door after he’d locked it. DH was pretty pleased to be considered a hoodie at 40+ and having a very boring job.
Can’t argue with stupid sometimes.

I was on one group where a woman had posted a picture of a car parked fully on the pavement in front of a house saying that she was disabled and couldn't get her wheelchair through. A lady genuinely started arguing that people were entitled to park on their own driveways. That people shouldn't think that they can use driveways for access just because they're disabled. Lots of people were trying to get across that it was a pavement, not a driveway, even when a picture from Google maps was posted to show the piece of pavement in question, she still continued to argue that the driver might think it was their driveway eventually she did admit defeat but it took a while

YANBU.

I live rurally, a mile and a half from the village. It's a nice village but, in all honesty, a pretty boring place! Pub, post office, shop and small library is about it. As I say, it's rural, small, not much here and more a place people pass through on their way to somewhere.

Despite this, we seem to have endless 'suspicious people' lurking around our village. They apparently check out houses/cars etc. to look at places to break into. There hasn't been a single break in during the 10 years I have lived here despite all of these suspicious folk prowling about.

People also post about every single car they don't recognise because 'you never know'

The threads get so long with people reporting 'other sightings' of the suspicious people/cars.

I can only think they have far too much time on their hands!

These posts make me want to simultaneously laugh and bash my head against a wall!
Saw one the other day where a dog walker posted that an "Eastern European" man complimented her dog and mentioned he has two bulldogs so obviously he must be a dog snatcher

Someone posted on our local page about me once, quite a nasty open letter type one about my driving (despite it being their mistake, not mine). I was in recovery from a mental breakdown at the time and the public shaming really upset me, I was shaking and crying all night as comment after comment was left about how I should have my license taken away etc. People really don't bloody think twice before posting these things do they?

@ZombeaArthur

We had someone post recently that their take-away had been delivered to the wrong address and chastising whoever had accepted it. Completely understandable that the people who’d ordered and paid were angry at not getting their meal. However, the responses were completely ridiculous and increasingly aggressive, wishing truly horrible things on the person who’d accepted the meal, ignoring the occasional posters who pointed out that it was entirely possible that the food was accepted in error or was simply sitting on someone’s garden path completely unnoticed.

It was eye opening to see just how aggressive people in this town can get about something so minor and in no way affecting them. There was a real mob-mentality to it, with each post more unpleasant than the last. All over someone else’s dinner!

Was this a North Yorkshire town by any chance? Had the exact same thing recently and comments got shockingly nasty!

My village whatsapp group is full of these, makes me laugh, any unfamiliar person (particularly if they are young) seen cycling, any white van driving slowly etc is swiftly followed by mass hysteria over dognapping , shed thefts etc etc.
Once a poor teenager on his first day at village pub was reported to 111 , he was lost looking for the pub!

I was "outed" as a scammer on the local fb group after I knocked on a couple of doors on the opposite end of the street looking for my cat. Honestly, the post and comments were just unbelievable - I was apparently under influence, trying to get into people's house, armed and followed by a car full of burly foreign men.

Yanbu! Local groups have there uses but mainly they are annoying. There's always someone every few weeks saying that somone is out to poison dogs by leaving meat around which may or may not be laced with rat poison.i just feel like it's hard to believe there's all these dog poisoners out there.

Love the posts about what car is that, why are the police on such and such a street, why is this car parked outside my house (on a public road).

Yet when people post genuine things, people then act the opposite way in response! So for example, the dodgy people who come knocking on doors claiming to be out of prison on some rehab programme and need to sell cleaning equipment door to door at night in order to get a job... yet the comments are all “awww they just need help after coming out of prison” etc.

Oh yes, and the "lost" cats. There's a cat coming to my garden, has a collar with an address two doors down the road printed on it, well groomed and nourished BUT STILL HAS THAT SAD HOMELESS LOOK IN HIS EYES.
Awww, hun, you have to take it in, feed it with the cheapest, least nutritional food possible and definitely take it to the vet in a couple of days! It found you, you're a kind soul, it just knew it! Keep it in a cage, it might be scared of the house if it is a stray!

That is actually what happened to my cat. Then I had to prove I am indeed the owner because the cat was "expensive" and I was, well, foreign.

I met a couple while I was walking the dog this afternoon who told me that they're getting body cams because they are so worried about someone trying to steal their dog. They also lectured me about the dangers of walking the dog alone and that I should wait for my husband to be home to accompany me.

Given the hours DH is working at the moment and that our dog is a springer I think I'd get done for cruelty, poor thing would never get walked!

@42goingon90

Someone posted on our local page about me once, quite a nasty open letter type one about my driving (despite it being their mistake, not mine). I was in recovery from a mental breakdown at the time and the public shaming really upset me, I was shaking and crying all night as comment after comment was left about how I should have my license taken away etc. People really don't bloody think twice before posting these things do they?

This is why I'm not a member of a local group - might see something about myself! I hate those 'to the person in the BMW who overtook me today' messages, I just think get a fucking life!

@forinborin

Oh yes, and the "lost" cats. There's a cat coming to my garden, has a collar with an address two doors down the road printed on it, well groomed and nourished BUT STILL HAS THAT SAD HOMELESS LOOK IN HIS EYES. Awww, hun, you have to take it in, feed it with the cheapest, least nutritional food possible and definitely take it to the vet in a couple of days! It found you, you're a kind soul, it just knew it! Keep it in a cage, it might be scared of the house if it is a stray!

That is actually what happened to my cat. Then I had to prove I am indeed the owner because the cat was "expensive" and I was, well, foreign.

I love your username😂

Hope your cat is ok. Can't cure stupid

I’ve had to sit on my hands after reading our Next Door. Someone complaining about how many people were out and about, yet he himself was out and about. I’m amazed that so far no one has replied to him.

We got another love one here. This thread is inspiring others😂

I read one tonight...’does anyone know what that sound is? Sounds like a car alarm’

Reply.....‘it’s a car alarm’.....

We've got a live 2 dodgy men in a white transit, probable dognapper situation here too. Someone has snapped and asked in loud, shouty capital letters why if all these vans and men are dodgy, nobody has ever thought to take a note of their number plate. His post is being ignored by all the "you ok hun, hold your dogs close tonight, where are they parked, I'll come and sort the bastards out" posters. 😆

Our dog was stolen from our garden yesterday evening . CCTV from our stables shows that they came in a white van. So yes, YABU.

@BeakyWinder

Yesterday a guy posted asking if any other dog walkers were in the park at X time and fancied a chat then to say hi as he was quite isolated atm. Many nice replies then one lunatic decided he was obviously plotting to kill another dog walker. Yes really . I bloody love fb groups I'm in loads just for the laughs they give.

I think we are in the same Facebook group! Or there are 2 wannabe Ted Bundys disguising themselves as dog walkers!

Someone closed an argument on mine (scottish) with the fabulous line . " sook ma hoop"

Oh the day I discovered my local Facebook groups was the day my heart smiled. These pages have brought me endless laughs and I don’t think I could have survived the lockdowns’ without them!

I live in a new build estate but the surrounding streets also have a residents association type group. It’s run by a know-it-all who is always right and is such an annoying busybody! She’s loved by all the local Tory councillors so she thinks that the locals must love her... she’s just about tolerated in all honesty.
When we created our own residents group for our new development she had a fit! She infiltrated it and tried to take over. When that failed she tried to get everyone to join her group. That failed so she threw a hissy and was kicked out. There’s an ongoing (one sided) rivalry now and it’s wonderful to observe!

Lol these are so funny!

We had one once about 'local youths vandalising snowmen' by kicking them down!! 🤣🤣🤣

Also one saying that 'no 10's wheely bin had blown over onto it's side'!!

Stop ✋ the press!!