"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.

My favourite are the fake enquiries that are actually advertising.

First Chloe posts Hi does anyone know a local business selling sweets online? I don't want to go to Amazon.

Then ten mins later along comes Zoe hi Zoe, I recommend Suzie's Sweets, they are great value and Suzie offers brilliant service to suit all budgets and requirements.

You all need to take a look in MN classics -
The wholesome village Facebook page - so funny it hurts

The close up picture of a small wooden fork you get with chips found in the local park. Quick, get onto Facebook to warn local parents of young ne're do wells taking drugs. 🤯

@LadyCounterblast, they certainly do! In my local area this week, trying to steal dogs. Loving this thread, as we get all of these, white van man, the the annual ones of kids with no lights on their bikes, fireworks and moaning re noisy aircraft...we’re near both an raf base and small army barracks. I love ‘em but don’t dare comment as even a reasonable, fact based response gets a real slagging from someone.

I’ve just had a look at our local page and there is a man in a woolly hat looking through fences , he is also generally behaving oddly . What is ‘oddly’ though ? I always imagine someone with their back pressed up against the fence SAS stylee.

People who ask if anyone knows why there's an alarm going off.
Pictures of a cat to look out for....cats pretty much all look the same.

A particular favourite of mine are the people who’ve just encountered the wild parakeets for the first time (there are quite a lot of them) and put up earnest posts about somebody’s lost parrot down the park.

But the police post such warnings on our rural page.
The last one was a white Ford Ranger, 57 plate.
I don't object to getting those warnings.

Our local town FB page has many complaints about fireworks. Apparently, it is a thing to mark somebody's death or anniversary of. Gets the keyboard warriors out every time.

The ones I get most frustrated with are when someone posts about a 'stray' cat coming into their garden...does anyone know who it belongs to..looks hungry etc and someone replies saying 'I'll have it!'
I mean you can't just steal people's cats!

I have all the same crap on our group and it's just tedious, yes. I've more or less stopped using Facebook though, because there is nothing on it from any actual friends. Just random neighbour bollocks. I don't miss it.

@CandidaAlbicans2

We get "found a cat" posts on my local group. Not "found a dead cat" ones, where it would be useful to find the owner, but live cats which are most likely not lost but just doing the normal cat thing called roaming 🙄

This one really does my head in! ‘This cat has been in my garden three times this week. Has anyone lost one?’ and then everyone starts commenting saying ‘take it to the vets to see if it’s chipped’ or ‘I’ll take him in if nobody claims him’... he’s most likely somebody’s pet who is just walking round doing cat things!

@Baconking cross post but you hit the nail on the head!

Just had to google Nottingham knockers.
Our very small estate has a Facebook page.
It’s quite interesting how people frantically backpedal.
Funniest was one woman breathlessly reporting a sighting of a very black man with a dog. She advised the residents to be aware.
The very black man with a dog subsequently introduced himself as a consultant cardiologist.

We had fireworks posts last night. There were about 4 bangs at 9pm & within seconds there were 2 or 3 posts about how selfish people are.

my local nexrdoor.com was full of "a man walked along the road, be VERY careful" most but not all posts were racist.
the ones that weren't were generally about cyclists or runners - either activity generating hate and suspicion regardless of ethnicity
Runners breath heavily - well, maybe, but they also go past you ten times faster than the old git trying to post on nextdoor.com every twenty yards.

Oh and conspiracy theories about 5g masts. (Esp the council only put them on council estates to kill.infect council tenants, not the posh incomers with the temerity to own their own homes or rent privately. The fact that no private blocks are more than four floors, compared to 24 floor high council blocks that the council own escapes them...)

I joined back in March, and haven't looked at it probably since April. I dread to think how many virus/mask conspiracy threads they have

“There’s a black and white cat in my garden. It looks lost. Does anyone know if it has an owner? I’ve given him some food.”

“You shud take him to the vets hun. See if he microchipped. He looks lost”

“That’s my cat. We live two doors down. He’s not lost. He’s an outdoor cat and just roaming. DO NOT FEED HIM!!”

Repeat x1000

I read a great one recently for the area where I used to live.

There was somebody asking if anywhere sold flowers in the row of shops that has an independent garden centre/florist at the end of the row. The first reply was from somebody who used to live in the area but now runs a home based flower arrangement business about six miles away, saying there wasn't and hasn't ever been one, so if they contacted her, she'd be able to do something for them.

The second reply was from the owner of said independent garden centre and florist saying 'You know there is one, because we're the people you buy your flowers from at trade prices'.

It made a lovely change from the helicopter ones, the brown faced people in vans/cars/walking/coming out of the doctors, the teenagers telling their parents that they had been nearly abducted when they've decided to hang out in the park with their boyfriends/mates and need an excuse for being late home from the shop and the 'whose cat is this' posts.

I should add, the very black man was amused at the description of himself being very black and the -racist idiot- woman who had initially posted, compounded it by stating ‘well you can’t be too careful’
He is our delightful NdN

OP your post made me laugh out loud (and I really needed it) 😂 so true. One of the reasons I deleted my Facebook!

I see I’m not the only one with a cat problem 😂

The best pile on I ever saw was a mum saying her daughter had been bullied, naming the school these girls were at.

Every response that followed was that her daughter was the bully and that the others were actually being picked on by her.

I screenshotted the entire thing in case it was deleted

@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

Brilliant

Free to a good home, fringed lampshade, classic 1970s style, slightly nicotine stained with a small tear in the fabric.
Followed by 6 posts of "I'll take it."
Followed by 23 posts of posts of "that's really unfair, I bagsied it first."

I don't have any to add because I left all my local pages for this exact reason.

But you write so well - your post had me laughing hard 🤣🤣

We had a cracker a few months ago after someone stole some eggs from a local farm that sells through an honesty box. Fair enough, nicking eggs is crappy behaviour. But I'm not quite sure it warranted the 'Farmer Psycho down the road has a gun let's get him on the case, we need to get on top of this or there will be NO MORE EGGS' insanity that appeared within about six posts.

The other one we get a lot of is people complaining about other people coming to our village and parking on the public highway and walking their dogs on the public footpath. There was talk of marshals in high vis and some sort of pass control system on the gates. It was brilliant