"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.

We have a couple of "community pages" for the large, new build estate where we live. My DP, and best friend are literally just there as voyeurs 😂. DP's ex is a notorious " there are children outside, its 8pm. In the middle of summer hols. HOW DARE THEY BE ON TRAMPOLINES IN THEIR OWN GARDEN?!?!" kind of post author. And the politics!!! Oh my goodness! grabs popcorn better than the telly. But can someone please share this picture of an old lady because she bets she won't even get one like.....

@ImNotACat

Oh god yes the missing dogs posts where the dog went missing in Fife in 2016, but that's not gonna stop Jackie from Plymouth sharing it today "just in case"

Brilliant!!

On my FB now recorded on ring doorbell someone went two feet in someone’s drive. How dare they.

Our latest one was woman whose little dog had gone missing from the back yard. Cue reports of white van in the street so neighbours wanting footage from ring doorbells to get his reg and report him for dog theft. Dog found several hours later in the garden having got itself stuck under the hot tub

It's dog poo on ours. Always causes a row.
The woman who said she "uses a stick and flicks" into the edge after her dog was practically lynched.

@GalesThisMorning

We had one recently where 2 "Muslim" men stopped outside of the playing field in my rural Welsh village and approached a woman with her child. She naturally (?) ran away and they stayed where they were standing.

This led to people declaring that there were Muslim men wandering around the village looking to nab children. People on our local Facebook page were going out looking for... brown men in a white van, apparently.

As a long time resident of the village and the mother of brown sons it really upset me.

Oh, this reminds me of the one where someone circulated a letter from a local dance school with information supposedly from the police in which the description was given of a young man - height, weight, eyes, hair and, apparently, "mentally challenged" who had apparently exposed himself indecently to a girl. The story didn't ring true, nor the way the police had supposedly offered advice, especially as I knew some of the "real" story because BIL was there. Subsequently, the police actually contacted the dance school and asked them to please correct the false information they were sending out (although I think it was suggested more gently).

Mind you, more amusing are the lost pet turkeys wandering along the main road...

I love the “Eastern European accents” ones. Like anyone posting would even know what an Eastern European accent was 😂😂

I'm devastated that I have no panic-stricken FB groups to lurk on... The nearest village to us is obviously far too sensible. Must try harder, LadyB!!

I've lived on the same road for about 10 years, as have most of my neighbours. Last summer I got stung on my eyelid, it turned nasty and I had to wear a patch for a few days. I was reported on our local FB group as -'a strange woman,with a patch, peering at houses and looking suspicious' - later reports gave me a limp

I read them, mentally file them under "doom mongering shite" and forget about them until I get a hysterical WhatsApp message about them from DSis.

My local Facebook page is full of these.
Foreign men hanging around, white vans driving about. Suspicious people walking about probably trying to look for dogs to steal.
There seemed to be a particular obsession with a fish van driving about that went on for a few weeks. So many conspiracy theories about it!
It drives me crazy.
It's good for communities to keep an eye out for each other but there never seems to be any proof or police reports and its always a friend or someone's relative that it happened to 🙄

Haha, there was one of these on a local page this morning "a foreign man dressed in black was walking behind me and my wife in the park"

Well yes Bob, it's a single file path and your profile photo clearly shows you've got 4 of those yappy little rats dogs so it's not really a surprise a queue builds up when you walk them.

Our local page once had a warning about a "dark man looking over fences".

It's quite racist where I live, lots of suspicious "forrin looking" men driving around in vans.

A dog of the same breed and colouring as ours went missing (don't worry, it was found safely. Just got the scent of a rabbit and fucked off for a bit) and someone actually posted a photo of me walking our dog asking if this was the missing dog and if anyone knew who I was.

We were quite new to the area at the time and many aspersions were cast over my character until I saw it and put them right.

@LadyMonicaBaddingham if you sign up to NextDoor then you can set it to as wide a perimeter as you please. I can guarantee you have some NIMBYers near you . Or just Google 'NextDoor memes' for a laugh.

Agreed OP - I have my street WhatsApp permanently silenced because everyone gets themselves into a complete lather about every single vehicle on the road. They have even taken to going out to accost people walking up the street (which is ridiculous given how many people are walking around to get a bit of exercise during lockdown).

@TheVelvetiser

I've lived on the same road for about 10 years, as have most of my neighbours. Last summer I got stung on my eyelid, it turned nasty and I had to wear a patch for a few days. I was reported on our local FB group as -'a strange woman,with a patch, peering at houses and looking suspicious' - later reports gave me a limp

@TheVelvetiser 😂😂😂😂 You poor thing but this is absolutely hilarious!!!

The yearly consternation about the ‘series of loud explosions’ at 11am on 11 November. Ummmm, what could that possibly be now??

I parked my car round the corner from my house as I was having building works done and my drive was needed for materials. Post pops up on local fb: "this strange car has been parked here for 3 days, it must have been stolen and abandoned, I've notified the police." Mind your own business, person with too much time on your hands!

No one wants to be openly racist round our naice neighbourhood so descriptions are usually things like “man with Celtic accent” are given as descriptors.

We also get lots of open letter type messages such as “to the woman in the grey Passat who went round Fanny Way like it was Silverstone race track.......” usually combined with a reg plate photo

I live for local Facebook pages. I’ve moved far far away from my tiny little hometown but I’m fond of it and check in with the local page regularly.

Mostly it’s like ‘what time does the post office open?’ Or, ‘there’s a dead crab on the beach, beware’ (wtf) but this one woman has taken it upon herself to write a poem every day. I cringe inside out. This one is about the importance of staying in in lockdown. Just an extract. It’s truly awful and totally unnecessary 😂

‘Here in Lockdown yet again,
Because too many people have shown disdain
Is it really so difficult to understand
The rules of the government’s covid 19 plan?
Stay at home if you can
Only go out of absolutely necessary!!
Work from home if you possibly can
DON’T go to work if the environment is inhospitable
If you’re ill stay in and keep others safe
Please understand the reason why you need to isolate!
Nothing fake about these deaths
When 80,000 have taken a last breath’

On and on like that it goes. It shouldn’t make me laugh as much as it does. Half the residents have made it their business to spy in people who they suspect of being second home owners, you get a lot of ‘saw a family getting out of a range rover on the front today, never seen them in my life, second home owners?’

Then everyone gets their pitchforks out

@SmidgenofaPigeon

I live for local Facebook pages. I’ve moved far far away from my tiny little hometown but I’m fond of it and check in with the local page regularly.

Mostly it’s like ‘what time does the post office open?’ Or, ‘there’s a dead crab on the beach, beware’ (wtf) but this one woman has taken it upon herself to write a poem every day. I cringe inside out. This one is about the importance of staying in in lockdown. Just an extract. It’s truly awful and totally unnecessary 😂

‘Here in Lockdown yet again,
Because too many people have shown disdain
Is it really so difficult to understand
The rules of the government’s covid 19 plan?
Stay at home if you can
Only go out of absolutely necessary!!
Work from home if you possibly can
DON’T go to work if the environment is inhospitable
If you’re ill stay in and keep others safe
Please understand the reason why you need to isolate!
Nothing fake about these deaths
When 80,000 have taken a last breath’

On and on like that it goes. It shouldn’t make me laugh as much as it does. Half the residents have made it their business to spy in people who they suspect of being second home owners, you get a lot of ‘saw a family getting out of a range rover on the front today, never seen them in my life, second home owners?’

Then everyone gets their pitchforks out

Wish we had a poet

@SnarkyBag

No one wants to be openly racist round our naice neighbourhood so descriptions are usually things like “man with Celtic accent” are given as descriptors.

We also get lots of open letter type messages such as “to the woman in the grey Passat who went round Fanny Way like it was Silverstone race track.......” usually combined with a reg plate photo

Oh god, the open letters! The very height of passive aggression especially in situations where the issue could have been addressed at the time ie "To the lady behind me in Tesco this morning, it's two metres for a reason!!!!! Back off!!!!!!"

Why not just say something at the time?

We have one currently doing the rounds on a local Facebook page. The usual 2 men in a white transit, looking to steal dogs from gardens.
The original warning was for a street in a town at the other side of the country.
Eg Hamilton Place in Edinburgh. So the Facebook posts in Hamilton, Lanarkshire erupt. I feel a slight embarrassment, especially when Senga posts, "Aye, I saw them, gied them a look and the drove off at high speed." Followed by all the clapping emoji posts. 🙄

This thread is almost making me want to sign up to a local FB just for the entertainment, but I'm also thinking ignorance is best when it comes to the neighbours more bizarre opinions 😂