Elderly neighbours overly helpful/friendly

[Lollyloup95]

I'm due baby 2 very soon. Our elderly neighbours have always been a bit keen on offering their help, and now were having our second child, whenever we see them they constantly (normally 3 or 4 times in that one conversation) say "if you need anything please let us know!"
Once, I understand is friendly, but the 3rd or 4th time makes me feel like they feel we need to ask for more of their help! Which makes me feel awkward. They say it in a a way that we NEED to ask them for stuff.

DH and I are pretty self sufficient, in our early 30s and this is not our first home. When we moved in they acted like me were buying our first house but soon realised we didn't need loads of help with the house.
But now we have a second baby coming they are overbearing and I'm uncomfortable they are going to bother me a lot and act like im a poor soul who needs help.

How can we stop them treating us like kids who they need to look after?

Could you ask them to give you a couple of thousand quid for a revamp of your front room?

I’d just bear with them.

It doesn’t hurt you to listen to them offering help. You don’t ever need to ask them for any. Perhaps they just enjoy speaking to you and offering is part of that. You might find them a bit annoying, but being tolerant and friendly to neighbours is just the right thing to do - it’s such a tiny inconvenience to you.

You simply don’t sound neighbourly. You can still be perfectly capable and self sufficient, as well as friendly and neighbourly.

So actually I think it’s your problem in your head and not a problem they are creating.

Personally, I’m if the view that good relations with neighbours are very worth cultivating. Often they won’t be people you’d choose to be friends with, but friendly relations are worth a lot - see all the threads about unpleasant neighbours! And little helps to each other can be so useful - putting someone bin out when they go on holiday, feeding a cat, taking in parcels if they are out, lending tools, sweeping th area in front of their drive as well as your own if it snows. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. And what goes round, comes around.

Offering help is just words. It’s not intrusive or really impacting you. Listening to them offer costs you absolutely nothing. They are being kind.

It strikes me as odd that them simply speaking to you to offer help is upsetting you so much. Are you generally someone who only wants to speak to a tiny circle of people that you know well and finds everyone intrusive?

You’re about to have a baby. People offer help. Quite often they offer and the offer is never taken up….that’s fine.

Do you know, you never know when having a neighbour who will help you out can be a lifesaver. People with 2 small kids might find they have to rush to hospital with one child, and a parent is on their way to be with the other child, but a neighbour being able to come in for that 20 minutes they take to arrive, just makes a massive difference. Knowing you’ve got a singed-for parcel coming and won’t be in, and that they will sign for it for you - can be so useful. Being able to ask about local services - can be useful.

Its not about living in each other’s pockets, just being friendly.

It’s called being neighbours. You help each other out with little things, and big things sometimes. Our previous neighbours were very nice, not in your pocket, but thoughtful beyond ‘keeping tidy and not being noisy’. They were a godsend when I had a heart attack and no family around to help with kids, school etc.

Our current neighbours are like you op, clearly need no one, they ‘invited’ us for a cuppa sometime the day we moved in, I tried twice to strike up more than a nod/wave if we see each other.

What a sad world it’s become where offers for help are seen as banking favours for later. Perhaps that’s how you work OP?

I must admit, I have come to the realisation that I am probably overthinking it all slightly as I have got irritated and I'm not being particularly neighbourly in the old sense... but I have never had neighbours like this! Even when growing up in my parents houses the neighbours were never so full on and they were elderly as well.
It was a much more relaxed vibe where people spoke when they saw each other but there was never any pressure to get your neighbours involved with your goings on. Maybe my parents would use the builder over the road for something and pay him, or the mechanic next door etc etc.

I guess what is irritating me is the fact they are not letting us have a level relationship. We can't even have a chat with them about normal things, it's just questions fired at us and "are you okay???" In a very concerned way If they haven't seen us for say, a week or so...in the winter!
I have tried to ask how THEY are and talk about the weather etc, but the questions are ignored and we're just asked about us.
It feels like they are trying to be parental over us, and not in the comforting way, but in the overly invested, constantly checking up on us kind of way.

Any DIY project DH does the man says "I could've helped with that!" But DH has repeatedly told him he's the sort of guy who likes to work on his own with no distractions - I don't think that's offensive is it?

If we're leaving the house and their door is open (which is every single hour of the day from spring to autumn) they hear up and appear straight away. If we're in the back garden they talk to us over the fence.

But maybe I should force myself to be comfortable with all this then?

I can see I’m in the minority on this, but I think they’re being too keen to force their “help” onto you even when you don’t want it. I don’t believe you should force yourself to feel comfortable with this when you’re not. Someone said that these people seem to want to make you their project, and I reckon they’re right.
I do wonder whether all the PPs telling you that you should be grateful, would be grateful themselves if they had neighbours who offered “help” several times per conversation and wouldn’t accept that it wasn’t wanted.
Help that is unwanted isn’t help. It’s something that the helper does for themselves.

this, definitely

“If we're in the back garden they talk to us over the fence”. Sorry, this would irritate me… 🙈
I don’t want to speak to people in my garden, i don’t mean a “good morning, lovely day”. But I do not want to chat the entire time. I’d be planting a few bushes and going out there in stealth mode.

Maybe they don't get much outside stimulation so have nothing to say if they are home all the time and you both have the same weather what can they add? Seeing other people is their getting out and stimulation. Does it really matter why think about it once you've parted and got on with your day

But an offer of help isn't help it's not like she's coming home to a mown lawn or her washing being taken in. It's just a common phrase between neighbours particularly elderly ones

I think this is not helpfulness but OTT intrusiveness. If it were me, I would become more assertive in declining their offers of help.

Seriously, (insert name here), we do not need your help with this.
Look, we've told you before we don't need help right now.
Please, may I ask you to stop - we can manage without your help.

Of course this means that you won't really be able to ask for their help if you were to need it at some point in the future, but presumably you have a back-up system in place.

It does sound a bit intrusive to be honest. I’d be inclined to try to pull back a little, make less conversation etc for a while and see if they get the hint. I wouldn’t want to have a confrontation and would want to try to keep things civil, as it can be handy to be able to ask your neighbours to do small things on occasion such as bring your bin in if you’re on holiday.

seems like maybe they don’t know what else to say and this is the only way they know how to speak to younger people? Who knows. Annoying tho.