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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To have expected a response to a Welcome to Your New Home card

300 replies

Sassetta · 31/05/2025 16:28

New neighbours moved in a month ago. The first day we, their immediate neighbours, dropped in a welcome to your new home card. Response? Zero.

AIBU to think it’s basic civility to say, at some point, “thank you for your card, hello we’re so-and-so”?

It’s not as though I want to hang over the garden fence and pry into their lives. I just think that if someone gives you a card it’s polite to acknowledge it.

OP posts:
EatingHealthy · 31/05/2025 18:37

I think it's a nice thing to do but a) the first day was probably too soon, it could easily have got lost or thrown away in the chaos and b) you're unreasonable to expect them to go out of their way to respond. You should have waited a few days and give rice and introduced yourself. You don't add to the list of someone who's already stressed, you try to help them.

Have you moved recently? I moved last weekend and I have so much to do (I'm reading and writing this whilst I eat my dinner off a pile of boxes since I haven't yet had a chance to assemble my table). My to do list is getting ever longer - issues I'm discovering, things I need to buy and there are still lots of basic essential things on my list I haven't yet had a chance to deal with - not to mention all the unpacking I still have to do.
And of course all of that has to be done around working full time. A month is no time at all to get sorted after a move.

MyLimeGuide · 31/05/2025 18:38

faerietales · 31/05/2025 18:18

But that requires the neighbours to go out of their way just to be thought of as having good manners, which makes no sense to me.

If a stranger sent me a card, I would say "thanks" if I saw them in the street, but it would never occur to me to go round and knock.

I am autistic though so all this stuff is generally beyond me - just come and knock if you want to meet me!

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That's a normal response!! If they sent a thankyou card for the card then OP would be inclined to send another card thanking them for that card, and so on FOREVER.

Shallabamba · 31/05/2025 18:39

Topseyt123 · 31/05/2025 17:16

I've never had any such a card and have never sent/delivered one.

To be honest, for me it would probably just get swallowed up in the stress of moving house and I'm not sure I would be able to give it the headspace needed for a response at the time.

I wonder how old these posters are that do this? Could it be a generation thing? My nana is 78 and does not do welcome cards but is very friendly with her neighbours and bought cards for the kids birthday etc.

ChickpeaCauliflowerSalad · 31/05/2025 18:40

HornungTheHelpful · 31/05/2025 18:23

I hate this type of attitude. Do a nice thing if you want to but don’t impose obligations - even a thank you - with it

Edited

This!

a welcome card, is just that - or should be.

Do it because you want to not because you expect something in return. (Even if thst something is just being thanked)

WeylandYutani · 31/05/2025 18:40

SunshineAndFizz · 31/05/2025 18:26

There’s no such thing as a ‘thank you for your card’ card 😂

Then a 'thank you for your thank you card' card. And on it goes

MrsMappFlint · 31/05/2025 18:40

The Tolpuddle Martyrs were transported because six of them had had a meeting. The government used all sorts of things to oppress the people and stop them engaging with each other for fear that the people might revolt.

Yet here, in our Brave New World, people impose these conditions on themselves, not speaking to their neighbours-neighbours who have extended a friendly greeting.

They should have acknowledged the card-that's a quaint old fashioned idea called manners. There is no excuse, not even if they are unpacking the contents of Buckingham Palace.

ridl14 · 31/05/2025 18:40

Yes I think this is rude. They could have dropped round or put a return note through the door if they're shy, just makes it awkward not to.

Raindropsandroses123 · 31/05/2025 18:40

Shallabamba · 31/05/2025 18:36

How can you generalise? You don’t know where me or the other posters are from? I think it’s rude the neighbours are judging the ones that have moved in just because they haven’t replied in a month. I’m polite to my neighbours but I don’t want to be friends with them. Nosy neighbours need to understand some people are private. It’s not about being rude it’s about respecting boundaries. First it’s hello then before you know it, Shelia is crying to you about how her husband is having an affair with the milkman’s dog.

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lol this is Mumsnet, the whole thing is general, hardly an evidenced place of factual information. To add, this is a UK thread so of course I can generalise unless someone has said where they are from
(which they have not!). I’m hardly psychic!

Shallabamba · 31/05/2025 18:40

McCartneyOnTheHeath · 31/05/2025 17:38

It really isn't. Are you my mother?! When I moved she told me I should invite the neighbours in for coffee. Confused

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🤣🤣🤣 well meaning but fuck no

Newname25 · 31/05/2025 18:41

Personally I would pop around with a card and bottle of wine and welcome them face to face

ObtuseMoose · 31/05/2025 18:41

Raindropsandroses123 · 31/05/2025 17:30

The vast majority of these responses are typical British style!
Im from Ireland and your neighbours are considered friends in most situations. I’m with you OP, this is rude as they have been there a month and you are next door neighbours. They should at least be coming around to say hello, regardless of their situation. Come on people it’s not that hard to be nice is it. OP is trying to be welcoming and I would have loved a welcome invite like this when I moved in to my home here.

I've lived in Ireland for 20 years and I've never considered my neighbours friends, especially the one who peed on our front door and threatened to burn our house down.

faerietales · 31/05/2025 18:41

WeylandYutani · 31/05/2025 18:40

Then a 'thank you for your thank you card' card. And on it goes

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Then you're in a permanent cycle of cards until one of you dies - or does the expectation then move on to your surviving relatives? Grin

faerietales · 31/05/2025 18:42

ridl14 · 31/05/2025 18:40

Yes I think this is rude. They could have dropped round or put a return note through the door if they're shy, just makes it awkward not to.

OP made it awkward by sending a card with unwritten expectations attached.

What's to stop her from knocking to introduce herself?

MyLimeGuide · 31/05/2025 18:43

faerietales · 31/05/2025 18:41

Then you're in a permanent cycle of cards until one of you dies - or does the expectation then move on to your surviving relatives? Grin

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Yes. Like a legacy.

feelingbleh · 31/05/2025 18:43

Did you make it clear who it's from as I get a Christmas card from a neighbour every year but their writing is terrible I have no clue who it is

Springhassprungxx · 31/05/2025 18:43

LightCameraBitchSmile · 31/05/2025 17:04

These responses are mad. It’s completely normal to pop round to your new neighbours to introduce yourself and say thank you for the card!

Course it is - l always take a bottle of wine round and say welcome to the road - not aaking them to be my best mate ffs!

YourGreyCat · 31/05/2025 18:43

I think from reading the responses it's quite clear that we're all very different people who like to have different sorts of interactions with our neighbours. Most people are nice so unlikely to be rude, probably just busy, less sociable, or prefers a cordial but distant relationship with neighbours.

MrsMappFlint · 31/05/2025 18:44

faerietales · 31/05/2025 18:35

Sending cards with unwritten expectations attached is the odd behaviour here.

Why can't OP go and knock on the door if she wants to introduce herself Confused

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Well, I imagine they would shit themselves through the eye of a needle if she did that!

chaosmaker · 31/05/2025 18:44

@Sassetta What? I'd think it was over the top and would probably make me avoid you. Don't like cards at the best of times, or people for that matter.

Shallabamba · 31/05/2025 18:44

Raindropsandroses123 · 31/05/2025 18:40

lol this is Mumsnet, the whole thing is general, hardly an evidenced place of factual information. To add, this is a UK thread so of course I can generalise unless someone has said where they are from
(which they have not!). I’m hardly psychic!

Edited
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You get loads of threads on here saying people aren’t from UK or they are from abroad. Not psychic but you are Irish though. Maybe in the UK not everyone wants to be friends with their neighbours? Friendly, polite yes, but not friends.

MyLimeGuide · 31/05/2025 18:46

Springhassprungxx · 31/05/2025 18:43

Course it is - l always take a bottle of wine round and say welcome to the road - not aaking them to be my best mate ffs!

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I suppose it depends on where you live, a road of 7 detached houses maybe? Or a village setting? Someone is moving on my road weekly so that would be alot of wine 😆

MrsMappFlint · 31/05/2025 18:46

chaosmaker · 31/05/2025 18:44

@Sassetta What? I'd think it was over the top and would probably make me avoid you. Don't like cards at the best of times, or people for that matter.

Well, that's odd and we don't want the whole of society to be odd do we.
Your'e the one out of step although, granted, there are more of you coming over the hill.

Boxofsockss · 31/05/2025 18:47

gosh in all honesty as nice as the gesture is, the last thing I would have had time for when I moved was introducing myself to neighbours and thanking them for a card as a full time working mom with a toddler and a partner on opposite shift patterns. I think your being very unreasonable

faerietales · 31/05/2025 18:47

MrsMappFlint · 31/05/2025 18:44

Well, I imagine they would shit themselves through the eye of a needle if she did that!

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Why would they?

I'm quite happy to make small talk with people who knock on the door (I wouldn't enjoy it, but I'd do it) - but I have absolutely no desire to faff about with cards, or to go and introduce myself randomly to people who happen to live next door.

Shallabamba · 31/05/2025 18:47

Perroi · 31/05/2025 17:46

I'm with you OP.
I live in a tiny village on a cul de sac of 4 houses. new people moved in and I put a card through saying welcome from number 1.
I don't expect to be best friends or invited round. My ideal neighbour is polite and says hello and that's it.
Not only did they not respond, six months later they don't smile or speak when we see them. Totally blanked DH when he said hello. They are a young couple in 20s. It's just manners and social niceties.

Tiny village of 4 houses is very different to a large city. I suspect a lot live in the latter. Even if they did accept they don’t want to be friends.

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