AIBU to refuse weekly lifts to a neighbour's hospital appointments?

[IGotDreams]

We have lived in our house for 4 years and know the neighbours to say hello to, taken a parcel in for them occasionally, we chat sometimes but we don’t know them well. We are friendly but not friends. We are busy with work, kids and general life.

One of the neighbours has asked if we can take her to a hospital appointment once every week for the next 4 weeks. One of their adult children can apparently bring her home.

Technically we could do it if we moved things around without too much difficulty, but as we don’t know her well, we said no. She looked shocked when we said we couldn’t help and she walked away without saying goodbye.

I mentioned it to my parents in passing last week and they said I should have said I’d help but I explained we are busy and she can make other arrangements. When I spoke to my parents last night, they asked me if I had changed my mind and was going to help the neighbour out. I said no and that we hadn’t even thought/spoke about it since as we are busy. My mum said I should be willing to help people more. I disagreed. We are busy and have enough going on with our own family and friends and that the neighbours aren’t my responsibility. In my neighbours situation, I wouldn’t ask for help from neighbours who we hardly know.

Would you have helped? I won’t be changing my mind and helping but wondered if people would generally be more helpful than me. I did say to my parents that they could help my neighbours out if they wanted to but apparently it isn’t there place to. They said they would do it for their own neighbours if asked.

Also, 4 times.

2 hours x 4 times.

That's a day's work...

“Quite mean” for being unable to take time away from her JOB and commitments with her young children?

Jesus wept.

I know! It's absolutely insane.

I suspect the ones not getting it either don't have jobs or are retired or are retirement age and have not worked.

As I have to take someone to hospital on the regular, I'd let them know when I was going and invite them to fit in with that. If they can move appointments (I know not always possible, but sometimes).

I would help but I genuinely like our neighbours they are lovely people and if they came asking for help short term I would.

So bloody what? No one had ever taken my bin in for me. I can take my own bin in. I don’t need neighbours faffing about with my things in the name of “help”.

I also don't think bringing in someone's bin warrants a two hour drive in return.

The bin thing is baffling and has been mentioned a lot. It takes seconds. My kids have brought the bin in before now when they were very young. When we are on holiday, our cleaner sorts the bins, but if she didn’t, they would wait a week or so. We have brought neighbours bins in, it’s such a tiny thing, it doesn’t even resister as doing anything. It’s not even slightly comparable to what my neighbour has asked.

We plan to move in a few years and not have neighbours. How will we cope? Like everyone who lives without nearby neighbours.

I would say yes provided it wasn’t 190 miles away at school drop off time but I have a flexible job. Also, if something’workwise’ came up I’d tell her she’d need to get a cab or make other attachments that date.

The thing that gets me about this thread is that, if the OP had come from the opposite perspective and said she didn’t drive, but was hoping her neighbour could take her on a two-hour round trip, the responses would have been “But WHY don’t you drive? It’s a life skill!” and that she was a “CF” for expecting to be “ferried about”. (It’s always “ferried about”.)

Why now is the OP being told to give up a huge chunk of her day and that she should just “be kind”? Where’s all the ire for non-drivers now?

Exactly. I let my neighbour’s son get into his house through my garden last year when he locked himself out. It cost me nothing to do it. I’m not expecting his parents to redecorate my front room in return.

Spot on. There have been plenty of threads of just that nature. Especially people wanting lifts to hobby groups, which is less demanding than the hospital drive since they are going there anyway.

This. I would do it in a heartbeat, I can't believe the utter selfishness of some people on here.

I absolutely wouldn’t have taken them either. I think this would be a slippery slope in doing more and more for them. I don’t drive and I would never expect a stranger to ferry me around. It’s never been easier to be savvy, so even if they can’t access public transportation, uber, taxi services, red cross, hospital transportation or volunteer drivers, they have a child who can help.
i have no problem with being polite and civil with neighbours or helping in a genuine emergency, but they sounds they have plenty of time to research and plan options. I find it very odd to think that somebody I barely know would expect me to repeatedly inconvenience myself, going out of my way, to run around after them, all because they couldn’t be arsed to organise something themselves. As for your Mum, if she feels that strongly, did she want you to give her phone number to your neighbour?! I imagine not!

If it’s so easy why isn’t her own children doing it?
I have to say with work and my own children an extra 2 hour car trip once a week would tip me over the edge. I wouldn’t do it because she doesn’t need me to. Her own dc and partner need to step up, she is protecting their work because they are important to her. The op isn’t.

Yes i would

I think it would be a nice thing to do. This is how you build your “village”. Non of us know when we might need a favour from a neighbour. It’s only once a week.
my husband used to get a neighbours newspaper on a Saturday, it meant so much to her that her adult children mentioned him in her eulogy.

I don’t think it’s the fact that you refused OP but your incredulity that a neighbour would ask for help.

It’s understandable that you don’t want to miss end of term stuff for your DC and that it’s tricky to move work meetings around. It’s fine to refuse to help for many reasons, and your reasons are entirely valid.

But YABVVU to be so annoyed that a neighbour has the audacity to ask. I think it’s a sad world where people are judging others for reaching out for help. I think part of the reason the world is such a shitty place now is because we’ve lost our sense of community.

YANBU to say you can’t help but YABU to think that it’s wrong to ask a neighbour for help. I think it’s quite sad actually that anyone would think badly of another person asking for help.

It may have helped if she hadn’t said right and walked off without any other conversation or even a goodbye. It’s not an acceptable way to act really is it. It’s not polite. Was she showing any community spirit in her behaviour?

I have a community, my family and friends. They are the people I put myself out for. I have done small things for neighbours like take parcels and lend them things but that’s as far as it goes for neighbours. If our groups/communities get too big, there are too many people to help.

She has her family, partner and friends who are her community. She has shown no interest in wanting to be friends in the past and then asks a big favour out of the blue. I answered politely and she said right and walked off. She was rude when I hadn’t been, yet somehow, I’m the problem to some people. It’s ridiculous.

If as you say you could take and drop her easily enough by moving things around but you said no as you don't know her well I think you are being mean. It's once a week for 4 weeks - not really a big deal. Perhaps she doesn't have the same network of support that you do. What happened to kindness?

A cold fish because I said no to something requested of me from someone I hardly know that would have impacted my work and children. Right.

I work a lot of hours. I do lots for my husband, children, parents, aunts and uncles, siblings and friends. I will go the extra mile for them.

As a neighbour, I am a polite and considerate and have done the usual neighbour things in each place I’ve lived like taking in parcels, bringing in their bins and lending them things. If that makes me a cold fish in some people’s eyes, I can cope with that easily.

She has children, a partner and I presume friends who I see visiting. Her children can’t drop her off because they’re working and that somehow makes it my responsibility, even though I am also working and she’s not my mum. Make it make sense please. I would do this for my mum or my partner but not for everyone else’s mum or partner. She needs to take it up with them. Or just get an uber.

Indeed none of it makes it your responsibility. I'm sure if she could have asked anyone closer to her she would have. It's about whether or not you want to help a neighbour in need - you could but you don't.