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.

People who knock on doors are so annoying. I got rid of mine. I climb in and out of the kitchen window. It's bliss.

That's the best way

Dancing en pointe, @Daisymaker.

What did hou mean?

Brilliant, @BadNomad

i don't answer my door when it's un-expected because I have PTSD.

I don't think you did anything wrong, had you have known it was her presumably you would have answered. She could have shouted through the letter box or she could have remembered her phone/went back to get it. I would never blame someone else because I left my phone in an emergency and they were completely unaware of what had happened.

I think the neighbours are being ridiculous, but I think you're being weird! You never answer the door? Ever? Let's hope the next person who knocks isn't wanting to tell you that your house is on fire....

Doesn't having a window just give the neighbours something else to knock on though?

I've bricked my windows up and just use a catflap to go in and out. When someone tries to knock, it just swings rather ghan making a noise, so I am never bothered by the uncouth sound of knuckles on wood.

They can jog on. Your door, your home, none of their business.

Where do you all live that there’s so many life threatening emergencies or urgent events happening outside your doors that you’re like rats out of a trap at the merest ping of a doorbell or knock on the door?

I always tell this story on threads about weird people who never open the door.

I opened the door one weekday teatime to a very polite young man who was scouting locations for a TV advert and they wanted to use a house similar in style/size to ours. Invited him in, he was here 10 minutes while we chatted about the project and he mentioned other work they'd done locally (someone in my child's class's house was used in an Aldi ad) and he asked if he could take a couple of pics.

Following day we had an email saying they were putting our house forward, the following day we had a call asking if they could arrange a half day for a photo shoot in our (very ordinary) garden and a full day for filming. All in all, I think they paid us £1.5k - £500 for the photo shoot, and £1000 for the day's filming. And the crew left enough crisps, snacks, chocolate biscuits and cans of fizzy drinks to keep my kids going for about six months.

But then again, loads on MN would turn down cash to let a film crew in their house because they are very precious about "strangers" too.

How lovely, @HufflepuffRavenclaw

Your house, your rules. You didn’t hurt their son, he had an accident- they should sort themselves out that sound pathetic. Perhaps they will have a go at him next for having an accident …

It's quite a normal response to answer a door, that's why they're built with the facility to attract attention.... you know knockers and bells! Marvellous invention, been used for many years effectively.

As I said previously, maybe an option to have these items not installed would suit some MNS?

It's not that it's frequent, but I've been alive for over 40 years, and every now and then something happens.

Mostly it's minor - a neighbour knocking when it's raining to tell you your gutter is leaking badly, or your car lights are on, or to alert you that they saw someone trying your car door.

Very rarely it's major - my dad being woken by the fire brigade about a fire next door, the neighbour child whose mum had fallen downstairs and needed help.

Also most adults can tell the difference between a normal knock and an insistent, repeated banging. The latter is likely to indicate something urgent enough to warrant peeking through the window, at least.

Answering the door is just like answering the phone. Up to me whether I do it or not.

These anecdotes are lovely but not some kind of gotcha for the overall debate. There are plenty of stories of people being glad they opened their door because they were able to offer/receive help, and there are plenty of stories of people being glad they didn't, or regretful that they did, because someone intended them harm. And that's quite apart from people who simply don't want to be disturbed, prefer to keep their own company, etc. It's a simple matter of weighing up cost and reward, which everyone will do slightly differently. Like some PPs I don't know why lots can't understand that people are simply different, and neither way is necessarily right or wrong.

I dream of this happening to me! Our house is kind of unique (not in a Tracey Island way, but in a crumbling round the edges way) and I always imagined it would make a fab location. But no one has knocked yet. Only nice neighbours and delivery folk. And the occasional politico who gets given short shrift or a grilling depending on how bolshy I feel!

I'm lucky, if anybody knocks on my door.
I would generally jump a foot in shock first because nobody outside of deliverers do. Then I can open my kitchen window, stick my head out and ask what they want because my kitchen is above my front door.
Next time it happens I would suggest becoming a curtain twitcher rather than completely ignoring.

I think it's so weird that so many mumsnetters won't answer the door, like they're beset by hordes of folk trying to get in.

What's weirder though is that OP didn't open the door because it wasn't the right door. She would've answered if they banged on the tradesman's entrance, presumably.

Also - OP never says next door neighbour, just neighbour. If they'd been out on bikes with the kid no it might not have been quicker to go back home, especially if they didn't want to leave an injured child alone.

BTW I totally get not being able to answer the door sometimes. If I'm working sometimes I won't. But to just have a blanket policy of 'I don't answer if I'm not expecting it' is so weird.

I've lived in big northern cities and small southern towns so it's not to do with area, in my case. And besides, I'm not like a rat out of a trap. It's just that if I'm around and hear someone knocking, I'll check who it is and answer if it looks like it might be interesting/ important/ not a cold caller. And it's not necessarily life threatening or urgent, but it's quite often something positive or something that would be better attended to.
I knocked on a neighbour's door recently because she'd left something important on her doorstep. Fortunately for her she opened the door and retrieved the item. Did it require 999 and was she super-speedy, no. But it did benefit her to open the door.

You can tell that the thing that depresses me isn't "people not answering their door", because I helpfully wrote what the things that depressed me were.

Plenty of people have said on this thread that they don't open the door "because it's always xyz". They are extrapolating that because it's not yet been useful to them to open their door (which is not even a safe assumption because they would need to open the door to see it was xyz) that they need to implement a policy to never answer it. Feel free to read the thread.

It may be ‘normal’ but it’s not obligatory.
Or the Pearl clutching moral failing so many are implying here. For every emergency implied is being ignored there are probably 10 JWs, cold callers, or things that don’t warrant the level of froth going on here.

The other brilliant facility of a door is it keeps those who apparently can’t conceive of other people living a different way to them right out! My favourite!

I think you have beautifully articulated one side of the divide, @takealettermsjones . It is deeper than anecdote. At the risk of generalisation, my guess is that the YANBU voters believe as you do. OTOH I and I suspect others voted YABU because we believe that the banging, indicating a potential emergency, raised the ethical obligation on someone not indisposed or seriously traumatised. We think the OP was BU because she could have easily investigated a potential emergency she was well positioned to help with, and did not.

Shame you didn't think to say you were in the shower, OP.

I don't think it's weird of you to not answer the door if, as you say, everyone who knows you knows to use the side door. If you routinely use another door I'd assume the knocker was a cold caller etc too.

I don't answer my door for randoms but I do look out of the window to check who it is. A few days back we had one of those ex-con doorstep salesmen with a bag of tat to sell at the door - he was so rude when I said 'no thanks' through the window and wouldn't open the door. Tough shit! My house, my time!

Maybe take them a bottle of wine round and explain that your door useage is based on answering the other door and that if they'd knocked there you would have answered?

Well you don't live near me then, canvassers for the local mps, milk delivery seller's, tree maintenance, landscape gardeners. Telephone, electric company etc canvassers trying to get you to change providers. I don't need to lie. Nor do I need to open my door to strangers