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.

I assume if my neighbours needed help they would also shout my name and help????

I would definitely answer the door then!

@LookingOldTheseDays will you tell us how you think the demographics align with our responses?

I am heavily YABU. Both DH and I have PG degrees and are lucky enough to make very good (him) and good (me) money doing what we wish. Thanks partly to inheritance we are distinctly UMC financially. My father is a successful businessman, my mother a housewife. DH’s father was at the pinnacle of the academic/scientific establishment and his mother was a teacher and an activist. Both DFs came up the hard way. All of our DPs would also have answered the door.

It's really odd not to answer your door. Even odder that the knock would have suggested urgency, yet you didn't sense that at all.
YABU.

I do understand how it's annoying if you get a lot of Nottingham knockers and Jehovah's Witnesses. I lived on a street like that, however, I bought one of those stickers from Amazon and put it near my front door, this stopped 99% of these kinds of interruptions and if they did I just pointed at the sticker and shut the door.

You should be able to open your front door

Chains don't always work, I managed to break mine by opening the door while listening to some hyper music 🤣

I sometimes don’t answer the front door if I’m on my own with baby / at night / not expecting anyone. You’re allowed not to.

I genuinely don't know.

I know that younger people seem to be more averse to face to face contact/interaction than older people - perhaps because they grew up texting? When I was a kid, the way you contacted your friends was quite literally by walking to their house and knocking on their door!

In my experience, poorer people tend to rely more on their neighbours for mutual support, so people in more deprived areas might have more of a sense of mutual obligation? In the area I grew up in, crime was high so everyone kept an eye out, I remember a neighbour chasing away someone trying to steal tools from my dad's car, then knocking on our door to tell us what he'd done.

If I were guessing, I'd say the geographic areas least likely to open doors might be affluent suburbs? People can feel very anonymous and disconnected in areas like that.

All total speculation though!

It's not just opening the door or answering the phone because you are doing something important or afraid of Jehovah's Witnesses. There are a large number of weirdos on Mumsnet who are affronted by the idea of other people speaking to them without an engraved calling card because something terrible will happen.

On one of these threads about interacting with our fellow human beings, I explained that one snowy morning an elderly woman stopped me and asked me to help her. She'd gone to get her shopping but on the way back realised the pavements were treacherous. She asked me to hold her arm to help her balance. We got to her block of flats and she keyed in the code. I asked her if she wanted to help her to her flat with her shopping thinking: "Please say no because I'm really late for work." She said she'd be all right and thanked me. I was late for work but was hoping someone would ask me why so I could tell them what a lovely human being I was. But the people at work aren't really fussed about timekeeping so I just sat down.

Someone on here said she could have been trying to lure me into the flat where a gang was waiting to rape me. Or that I could have been anyone and she was stupid because now I knew where she lived and saw the door code (I did but I didn't know what flat she lived in and didn't have the key but above all, I am a harmless-looking middle aged woman who is in fact entirely harmless).

That was a few years ago but we still say hello if we see each other. The elderly woman and me, that is. Not the crazed paranoid freak on here.

You are not weird for not opening your door. No one near me opens doors unless they're expecting someone. Probably because stuff like this happens in my area

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-58915375

It must be nice to live somewhere where you don't have to worry about these things

I'm sorry, I feel awful saying this, but I find this legitimately hilarious! 🤣 The more I read it, the funnier every sentence gets. It's like you've been sitting around waiting around for the perfect time to read off your well-prepared self-congratulatory life history script, then you were like "ah fuck it, I'll do it on a door knocking thread".

Anyway, I'll join in to lend data to your door knocking thesis. I live in a well-off, possibly the most central bit of London, lots of MPs are my neighbours, so I'm guessing the majority of residents here have stellar credentials... I wasn't exaggerating when I say up to 5x unwanted visitors a day, every single day, for weeks on end at certain periods. "Pinnacle of the academic/scientific establishment" or not, most people probably have a threshold for how much doorstop nattering they can put up with!

Last time I had someone banging on my door liek that it was my ex neighbour who is a narcissistic a-hole cause I was doing something he didnt like, he did stuff like that a lot, shouting ,many complaints 7 official last year to council, cops, anti social but I had hard evidence he was full of it every single time so none were upheld. My point being she must have a reason for the way she feels

My experience is that people who live in deprived areas open their doors to their neighbours. Possibly because they are aware that it could be them needing a favour or some assistance next time.

Your neighbours sound like hysterical weirdos.

And what about people who do not live in deprived areas?

what @DinnerThyme says is spot. I am so glad i am not a person who live in the weird world where people don't answer their doors. My parents are one of those freaks that put in electric gates with no buzzer i am like how do you know when people are calling sure they can ring me they say, yeah i say what happens if an ambulance of the guards come they don't have your number, They give out that the courier throws the parcel over the wall, instead of ringing. I say some aren't allowed -UPS are one and why should they they ring you when you could have spent the 50e extra to put a buzzer on that they can ring ? To me its rude. I was one of the census enumerators last year, visited 1,000 houses i was shocked by the amount of people who didn't answer the door. Could clearly see you in the people in the house. This was a requirement from our government, it was advertised all over the internet, radio and tv that people will be coming to your house. I was in my official yellow hi vis clearly labeled who i was with identification. Yet people still ignored me, ignored my notes or loved in big houses with gates with no buzzers. On the plus side i met some lovely people especially old people who were very happy to see me and talk. It actually opened my eyes to how people have become and honestly it was frightening. I will always answer my door, will always be happy to help someone in need as i will never know when i might need that help myself

Before I came on Mumsnet I didn’t realise not answering the door was a common thing. Personally I have lived in all sorts of places, salubrious and not, and managed to get to an advanced age without being attacked at my front door. Occasionally it means I have to speak to someone I’d rather not, but I have coped. I imagine the neighbour was panicking and looking for some sympathetic help.
My aunty had a woman come to the door asking for money. She gave her a fiver and the lady said ‘I think you can probably spare more than that with your big car in the driveway’. My aunty said ‘I don’t keep money in the house’ and the lady said ‘maybe I should visit you again so,’ in a certain tone if you know what I mean. At that exact moment my cousin turned up to visit, he’s in his 40s and huge and the woman hurried away.

A man pushed my uncle’s neighbour’s door in when she opened it to him and tried to get inside. Her dog started barking and he ran off.

I’ve had a man come to the door claiming to be from a gutter cleaning company and ask was the man of the house not there. It was freaky. I totally get why some people would rather stay behind closed doors!! (I do answer the door always btw)

What about them? I was responding to the poster saying "It must be nice to live somewhere where you don't have to worry about [crime]", and making the point that areas with high crime rates are not full of people refusing to open their doors.

I wouldn't generally answer the door unless I am expecting a package. If it's a cold caller I sometimes stick my head out of my upstairs bedroom window and tell them I am not interested.

However, if someone was repeatedly banging on the door, I'd think it was important and at least look to see who it was.

I don't answer the phone if I don't recognise the number either.

It's not about being scared, it's just that I hate cold callers, they are so annoying. And if you're working you're working and don't want to be disturbed by the "I am just doing work in the area" brigade (yes, if you were any good you'd be booked up and you wouldn't need to cold call).

I don't get it either. The
Only time I wouldn't answer is if it was after dark and I wasn't expecting anyone and the person was a stranger. But only because I live on my own.

These are awful, @stayathomer . But they are quite different to someone banging on the door. In that case you can take a look and see that it is your neighbour, in a panic. Then hopefully do the right thing.

If you are genuinely indisposed then of course you cannot. Intention matters

Yes I think that's the issue here. If someone was banging a lot, I'd at least look out of the window, see it was the neighbour and then open the door.

I have no time or understanding for people who have a generic “I don’t answer my door if it’s not pre planned or it’s the wrong door” just bloody answer it

yes but I don't have friends, so why would I answer it

Yes technically you don’t have to answer the door. But you might occasionally get people legitimately knocking for help etc. that don’t know about the weird side entrance rule. I think it’s weird that a grown adult wouldn’t hear knocking and check to see what it was. And to be honest if I were your neighbours I’d think you were strange too. YABU

So only poor people answer their front doors?

I LOVE it! Absolute lunacy!

You’ve made a choice not to be available to your neighbours, which is your prerogative in your own home, and they’ve decided you’re not very neighbourly, which is fair enough. I don’t think you can have it both ways: never opening your front door and being part of your street community. Both are valid choices but I’m not surprised at how your neighbours have reacted.