Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Unfriendly neighbours

70 replies

Lemonnata · 31/01/2022 17:54

DH and I live in a cul-de-sac in a lovely area, have been here for just over 3 years.

Neighbours are all great apart from one elderly couple, we've always been friendly but have to initiate greetings every single time otherwise they blank us. They are very friendly with all the other neighbours.

The husband on bin days brings in everyone's bins except ours, around ten neighbouring bins, from the communal area right to their gardens, leaving our lonely little bin on it's own which I see when I get home from work (I've seen him do this when I've been working from home). It's so obvious. Another neighbour sometimes beats him to it and brings in everyone's, including ours.

When I was outside cleaning my car the wife went from door to door pointedly delivering Christmas cards, missing us out.

I'm not THAT bothered but do find it irritating and weird when we've been nothing but pleasant. My DP says not to let it get to me (he's way more easygoing than me!) but it annoys me.

We are the only people that rent in the street and my husband is Eastern European. WWYD, if anything?

OP posts:
icebearforpresident · 31/01/2022 19:09

I moved last year and have a neighbour like this. Her thing is every time a car she doesn’t recognise is parked in ‘her space’ (not her space, parking is just on street) she’s at our door complaining about us being in ‘her space’. Not once has it been our car, we live in the middle street between the harbour and town centre, there’s strangers parked here all the time, she’s even seen us in our car, but despite this she’s at our door.

The house we now live in belonged to a family member, she died and we bought it from her estate, off market. Like you, I think the problem is she thinks we rent, and therefore don’t deserve to live in this house/street.

Every time I pass her I smile and say hello, it’s clear from her face it infuriates her, which is why I do it.

GreenFingersWouldBeHandy · 31/01/2022 19:10

That you've just used the phrase the wife puts me on their side.

The wife?

Is she an object?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2022 19:10

Are you the newest people in the street. Maybe they actually know everyone else

Well, blanking people's friendly pleasantries and being orchestrating deliberately petty micro-aggressions is hardly going to help them get to know people, is it?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2022 19:16

That you've just used the phrase the wife puts me on their side.

The wife?

Is she an object?

Eh? It's a very common way of referring to the individual members of a couple when reporting what they say/do or how they relate to the speaker. It's unspeakably boorish when a certain kind of man dismissively refers to his own wife as 'the wife'; but she isn't OP's wife, is she?

What else would you say? Why go to the effort of saying 'the female member of the married couple', when (for heterosexual couples, at least), there's already a single, universally-understood neutral term?

WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll · 31/01/2022 19:18

....and why didn't you equally object to OP describing what 'the husband' does with the bins? Confused

Tara336 · 31/01/2022 19:19

We rented for a little while and I was genuinely shocked at the snobbery of some people! It was quite clear that they saw us as some sort of second class citizen which was ridiculous and said an awful lot about the sort of people they were. Ignore them, they are idiots

marqueses · 31/01/2022 19:22

I wouldnt do anything, I'm not bothered if my neighbours speak to me and I'd find the bin thing a bit weird, I don't need someone moving my bin.

BABAHOTEL · 31/01/2022 19:24

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

That you've just used the phrase the wife puts me on their side.

The wife?

Is she an object?

What about the husband? That's ok is it?

@Lemonnata honestly ignore their antics and greet them with a cheery smile and wave, really act like you've not noticed?

Do you send them a Christmas card?

IncompleteSenten · 31/01/2022 19:27

I would no nothing.

They're either snobs or racists, maybe both. They don't deserve space in your head.

I'd stop even trying with them. Just go about your day.

IncompleteSenten · 31/01/2022 19:28

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

That you've just used the phrase the wife puts me on their side.

The wife?

Is she an object?

She also said "the husband"
Lagarthatheviking · 31/01/2022 19:29

From personal experience I would be wary of getting involved with people who act like this. You can’t control others actions or reactions, it has nothing to do with you, more to do with them and their own opinions and prejudices. Ignore, rise above it.

Santahasjoinedww · 31/01/2022 19:31

My entitled arsehole ndn is so entitled he decided to take down our rental property back wall with sledgehammer..
Both houses listed buildings.
Claimed because he owns he can decide to take the wall down.

Mamette · 31/01/2022 19:33

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

That you've just used the phrase the wife puts me on their side.

The wife?

Is she an object?

Unfortunately snobbery towards renters is real. I have been both at the receiving end and (separately) invited to collude in it by a “friend” who wanted me to validate her blatant exclusion of a woman from her neighbourhood book group. I was Shock (renting woman had lived there for years, friend was new to the street).
Mamette · 31/01/2022 19:33

Whoops don’t mean to have a quote attached, sorry!

minionsrule · 31/01/2022 19:37

I agree with the renting point.
We were the only renters on our block and our NDN in the early days refused to take in a parcel and sent the delivery guy to my office (which was 5 minutes away).
Delivery guy told me neighbour refused it because 'they just rent'. No idea why that was relative in the decision making process.
Honestly, ignore them (don't take in parcels, ever!) and be super friendly with your other neighbours

affairsofdragons · 31/01/2022 19:42

@ANameChangeAgain

We are the only people that rent in the street and my husband is Eastern European. WWYD, if anything? this is your answer unfortunately, its old fashioned English snobbery and xenophobia. Sorry you are having to put up with it. There isn't much you can do, unfortunately. Just carry on as you are, be friendly with everyone else and ignore the batty ones.
Agree, My first thought as well.

Some people suck.

BABAHOTEL · 31/01/2022 19:43

@IncompleteSenten

I would no nothing.

They're either snobs or racists, maybe both. They don't deserve space in your head.

I'd stop even trying with them. Just go about your day.

I make you right!
WomanStanleyWoman · 31/01/2022 21:08

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

....and why didn't you equally object to OP describing what 'the husband' does with the bins? Confused
Because some MNers like to turn anything and everything into a gender issue. These people rarely let anything like the facts get in their way.
burnthur5t · 31/01/2022 21:55

The wife of our neighbour's two houses down used to regularly bring our wheelie bin in as myself and DP would be out at work and she was retired

She had been doing this for around ten years

We put the house for sale eighteen months ago and she stopped bringing the bin in instantly. It's like she took it personally that we were leaving

In the end we didn't move and she brought the bin in a few more times. She died unexpectedly about nine months ago

ancientgran · 31/01/2022 22:05

@Lemonnata

DH and I live in a cul-de-sac in a lovely area, have been here for just over 3 years.

Neighbours are all great apart from one elderly couple, we've always been friendly but have to initiate greetings every single time otherwise they blank us. They are very friendly with all the other neighbours.

The husband on bin days brings in everyone's bins except ours, around ten neighbouring bins, from the communal area right to their gardens, leaving our lonely little bin on it's own which I see when I get home from work (I've seen him do this when I've been working from home). It's so obvious. Another neighbour sometimes beats him to it and brings in everyone's, including ours.

When I was outside cleaning my car the wife went from door to door pointedly delivering Christmas cards, missing us out.

I'm not THAT bothered but do find it irritating and weird when we've been nothing but pleasant. My DP says not to let it get to me (he's way more easygoing than me!) but it annoys me.

We are the only people that rent in the street and my husband is Eastern European. WWYD, if anything?

We live in a nice cul de sac, been here 25 years and our neighbours were vile when we moved in. They mainly ignore us now. I was really upset in the first lockdown, my husband is disabled and my kids moved away to live in cities for work so we were very cut off. My nextdoor neighbour organised a party on their front garden/drive on VE day and invited everyone but us. I had spoken to anyone face to face for months except the postman and the Sainsbury's delivery men.

The giveaway with our bins is we have recycling boxes and the man nextdoor has made heavy wooden lids to stop the recycling flying around, he's made them for every house in the cul de sac except ours. It actually makes me laugh every week when the bins go out, I go out of my way to make ours look a mess, pile them higgledy piggledy on each other and I do hope it annoys him.

My husband is black so your husband not being white British doesn't surprise me in the least.

I don't think you can do anything, we've tried over the years and a new family moved in opposite us and they are nice but the rest are the same as ever. I long to move.

Oh and we are the old codgers round here.

ancientgran · 31/01/2022 22:06

I hadn't spoken to anyone face to face for months.

Totalwasteofpaper · 01/02/2022 06:29

@Justmuddlingalong

I really wouldn't give it head space. Just be grateful for the nice neighbours you do have and stop having any interaction with the not so nice ones.
This.

I am fascinated by just how much time my in-laws and aunts and uncles some older people have to get worked up about fuck all.
Ss an FYI... You will have committed some intangible "crimes or transgression... most likely imagined.

It could be that you rent, or your DHs ethnicity.
It could equally easily be

  • you parked the moving van slightly wide
For their liking...
  • you gardened "too early" one Saturday in 2019
  • your bin wasn't "properly" by the kerb on Tues 6th Feb 2020
Etc etc

I wouldn't give it a second thought. I also wouldn't bother being even remotely polite
Unless it was to be over-the-top cheery to wind them up.

lollipoprainbow · 01/02/2022 06:36

I live in mews and I'm the only one who rents, there's definitely a feeling of snobbery here. The neighbours mostly elderly definitely look down their nose.

phishy · 01/02/2022 07:02

Sounds like they are either racist or feel superior because you rent.

Ignore them, but if they ramp it up, take action asap, depending on what they do. Don’t feel you have to be kind or understanding, or they will keep getting worse.

lightnesspixie · 01/02/2022 07:03

Play their game. Beat them out to the bins and bring them all in bar theirs. And have a good chuckle while you're doing it. Then organise a street party and invite everyone except them. The bloody fools are nasty snobby xenophobes.