Neighbour outraged I ignored the door

[Scrumbler]

For context I've lived in my home for 6 years, I have a baby and we get on with our neighbours very well usually.

Yesterday someone banged on the door a few times and I ignored it. I never answer my front door because everyone who I'm expecting use the side door. We get a lot of cold callers and religious people who knock alot so I will never answer it.
Today I see my neighbour and his son has a bandage on and I asked what happened, he'd had an accident yesterday in the street, my neighbour said his wife knocked on my door at the time for me to call an ambulance because she's panicked and left her phone in her house so I said I'd heard the knocking but didn't know what it was.
He looked at me completely gone out and then asked me why I'd ignored her. I explained I obviously didn't know it was an emergency or I would have course answered. But he told me I was selfish and slammed his door as he went in.
I carried on taking my shopping out of the car and then his wife comes out asking if I'd ignored her! I told her I don't answer that door and didn't know it was an emergency but she just went mad shouting how horrible that was and asked what kind of person doesn't answer there door.

I know their probably still shook up but I didn't know what had happened.
To clarify, their child seems fine from what the dad told me before he found out I'd ignored the door and turned out to be a very minor injury. I feel awful it happened but I didn't ignore them on purpose knowing they were needing an ambulance so I think they've been a bit over the top.

Except they mean different things…

If you say so. I think they are very similar and this is pedantic nitpicking 🤷‍♀️

Never heard anyone dig their heels in over pissed off being substantially different to offended.

I rarely answer my door unless I'm expecting someone.

It's totally your decision what you do!

I’m as introverted and antisocial as they come and even I think it’s really weird not to answer your door.

While we don’t all need to be centre of the community, organising street party types, we do all live in communities and I think we have a responsibility to engage at some minimum level. Like answering your bloody door!

Academic studies have shown happier and more resilient communities are those where people feel able to talk to their neighbours when they need to. There’s even something called the ‘cup of sugar’ test as a marker - asking people whether they’d be comfortable asking their neighbour if they can borrow some sugar. Something a lot of posters here would fail miserably at it seems.

She knew the door was being banged on. The headphoned person didn’t know anyone was yelling anything. If the headphoned person heard someone shouting something after them but didn’t remove the headphones to find out what they yelled then they’d still be in the wrong.

Sometimes I CBA opening the front door, it's usually just Amazon knocking before they run up the drive leaving the parcel at the door

Hope you receive the same treatment if you are in need. Whatever the results of that.

Hope your knocking in unanswered.

Yes.
God forbid anyone needs emergency help, eh?
Damn then and their inconvenient emergency.

YABU. It doesn’t matter that the child ended up ok. It could have been an absolute emergency where every second counted.
Imagine if it was the other way around.

I’d remain extremely pissed off if I was your neighbours. Frankly for as long as we were neighbours.

It seems a really weird and cold society we’re moving towards if people don’t answer their doors.
It smacks of, “I’m alright Jack, stuff everyone else.” Depressing.

Okay... I'm not sure why the snark is necessary but I understand that not everyone would have the capacity to help me should I need it, for whatever reason, and I'm fine with that. 🙂

I don't answer my door. Postie and Amazon know where to leave parcels. Anyone I want to see lets me know they're coming or has a key. I hear the window cleaner so know it's him. It's a pain to stop working or whatever else I'm doing to tell some cold caller or JW to piss off, so I just don't bother.

I dread to think what would have happened if my neighbours didnt answer the door to us when their house was on fire!

Oh right.
So if the police came round to tell you there was a bomb in the next street and you need to evacuate your home, you'd expect them to text you first.
Got it.

I’m curious whether the non-answerers ever knock on doors? Like, if you saw a car on a drive way with the lights on, would you not knock on the door to let them know? What if you saw someone stealing a parcel or saw someone knock a car wing mirror off and drive away? Would you just keep walking?

Because, to my mind, doesn’t that either mean you’re a hypocrite because you expect others to answer to you whilst ignoring them at your door, or that you just carry on through life without extending any basic decency to others in society?

It’s quite sad really that people now think doing the bare legal minimum to be a good person is equivalent to “reasonable” behaviour.

It's your door and you can choose whether or not to answer it, but I don't think I'd have admitted to the neighbours that I'd ignored the door. In hindsight a white lie such as "I was in the shower" may have stopped their outrage, but at the end of the day as others have said, you have no obligation to answer your door and they shouldn't have left for an emergency without a phone.

They're probably still shaken up and stressed from what happened so are looking to point the finger of blame at anyone but you've not done anything wrong. In future though, if someone seems insistent on knocking on your door, perhaps pop your head out of an upstairs window to see who it is and what they want. That way if your neighbours have an emergency in future and they're unprepared to deal with it themselves, you can lend your assistance without initially having to open the door to everyone who knocks.

I get what you're saying. I suppose it's a question of... Was the banging loud/frantic enough that a reasonable person would know that there was an emergency? If so then yeah I agree it's a mean thing to do to ignore.

Do people knock particularly aggressively in Nottingham?

We don't use our front door ever. All our visitors, posties and parcel deliverers come to the back door, open it and announce their presence.
No idea why, it's just always been that way. We do have a little painted sign on the front step inviting people to the back door. Yes, it's a bit strange, but hey, we all have our little quirks..
Your neighbour got a little excited in the heat of the moment- how dare you do things your way when their little darling's life is at stake! They'll get over it.

I don't always answer my door either op, it's not weird at all imo and I'm not scared, have no idea why people would think that. I do now have a ring door bell with a camera so I can make more of an informed choice to answer or not.

I would just ignore them, they are still shaken probably but unacceptable to talk to you like that, they should apologise.

Several of those things (or very similar) have happened to me, so it can't be that unusual. Neighbours will often helpfully tell you if they notice an issue with your car, roof/guttering, or drains backing up etc., or they'll alert you to an attempted burglary. And that's been in both very rough and nice areas that I've lived in.

Maybe the difference is that if you have a reputation for helping others (e.g. answering the door when someone is banging for help), people are likely to want to be helpful to you. If you don't, they won't.

By shutting out the perceived bad, you also shut out everything good that comes from living in a community.

Why are people assuming OP is scares to answer the door to an unexpected 'knocker'? Unless I'm mistaken I assumed it was more about not wanting to be interrupted for something of no interest to you eg JWs, canvassing for elections, Amazon deliveries (not yours) ....even MIL.
I frequently do not answer my door. I do not want unexpected visitors. All my friends and family know this. Of course there's a very small chance that it is an emergency but I don't thing its reasonable to expect me to change my MO because of this. Do you all carry first aid kits just in case they're needed?
For those who say it's only 5 mins I'd argue that no, sometimes stopping and starting something completely changes the vibe for the day/evening.....bit like picking up/dropping off teenagers up from cinema/friends etc.

More mumsnet weirdness.
Woman sits indoors and refuses to answer door when neighbors need help, then sits indoors a bit more posting online about whether that was the right thing to do.
Fgs, yes its your front door but you guys are neighbors, get a cake or a bottle of wine or even a cup of sugar and pop over to theirs and check how their kid is doing etc etc

For those who say it's only 5 mins I'd argue that no, sometimes stopping and starting something completely changes the vibe for the day/evening.....bit like picking up/dropping off teenagers up from cinema/friends etc.

You'd begrudge calling an ambulance for your neighbour (or providing other assistance) because it changes the vibe of your evening?

Fuck me. I'm glad you're not my neighbour.

Agreed. Only on mumsnet have I ever heard of people living their lives like this 🤯

Sadly I think you’re not alone in this thought process. That it’s not your job to help,someone In need so they can fuck off.

going by the thread, it’s not the majority, but no, you’re not alone.

as said, there is no good reason behind the ops behaviour. Or others who deliberately hide and ignore the door When they could answer it easily. Every single reason is negative, scared, isolated, selfish, none of it is good.

it’s actually very sad.

Never knew not answering your own bloody door was a thing, until I came across this weird phenom on Mumsnet.

Cold and rude. Very "2023 UK," unfortunately.