Why do you know nothing about your neighbors?

[BobRip]

I have found that my Power Trac tractor has been a big ice breaker for some of the folks in our neighborhood... they come over and ask, "What the heck is that thing?" So, if you want to make new friends and meet your neighbors, go out and purchase a Power Trac today. If you want to remain lonely, buy a John Deere. Everyone's seen one already and you probably won't even meet a repairman for a few years.

I have ended up doing a lot of task for my neighbors with my Power Trac, when their tractor would not do the job. This has made a lot of friends.

 

[deerefan]

I do not have any neighbors within 2 miles....though I am very good friends with the folks close to me and even the fellow we bought our place from. We are very rural. It took my wife and joining the volunteer fire dept. (best thing we've ever done) to meet some people!

 

[dmccarty]

You are lucky if you have neighbors you talk with on a regular basis. I remember in the neighborhood I grew up in everyone knew each other on the whole block and usually further. Most of those old neighbors are still around even though my parents moved after raising my brother and I. If you seen each other outside it was not uncommon to talk to each other across the chain link fence for at least 15 minutes. Now, with a family of my own and neighbors it just does not happen. It seems like in my neighborhood you get to know people and they will move within two years. No one stays in the same place for very long. I am the exception, so far been in the same house for ten years. It is very different compared to 15 - 20 years ago.

When I was a kid it seemed like everyone knew everyone else. I think its because the kids force the parents into meeting the parents.

But people move so much now adays they just are not interested in putting down roots. In our old neighborhod there where two types of people, those that stayed and owned the homes and the renters. The houses on both sides of me where rental as was one across the street and one behind us. We tried to be social with them but when people are setting of fireworks at 2:00am, playing loud music, blocking your driveway, etc it makes it hard. The people who owned houses in the 'hood knew each other but for the most part we did not socialize other than a chat at the mailbox. Some neighbors down the streets would have a block party from time to time but even that little clique had issues with each other.

But by and large I think people don't socialize with the neighbors because:
- The kids are not there to make it easy/required.
- People move so much.
- We have AC so there is no reason to go outside in the summer which provide the opportunity to talk to the neighbors.
- There is cable/sat TV.
- People are just so darn busy with work.
- Kids dont play at home anymore, they have sports, hours of homework and other extracurricular activities.
- The Internet.
- There are just other things to do.

But there are exceptions. 30 years ago my parents sold our house and we moved to another state. This year my parents drove through that old city to see how it had changed. Of course it had built up. The cotton fields have been replaced by houses and stores. Our hold nieghborhood has matured. But many of the same people are still there. The family we sold the house to three decades ago are still in that house! They said only a few people have moved out. That is one heck of an exception.

Later,
Dan

 

[scott_vt]

I would like to suggest that everyone invite their neighbors over for a neighborhood pot luck. Get to know your neighbors socially at least once a year or even every other year, get together and have a little party.

Mornin Rox,
That is an excellent idea, one problem though, I beat you to it

When Kathleen and I bought our home in Vt 5 years ago I went out in all directions to introduce myself and who I was. Maybe 3/4 mile radius. We dont have many neighbors, but I thought it was a good way to start meeting people. Kathleen thought I was nuts ! Over the next year I got to know some of them better and started some friendships. Then one cold january weekend we went up to our place and low and behold I froze the pipes on the north side of the house I went to some of my neighbors and asked to borrow some of their tools to repair my damaged pipes. I had forgot my toolbox and it was a sunday with no way to get anything done ! Between three of my neighbors tgools I was able to repair my broken pipes By the end of the day all my neighbors were standing in my home trying to find out how I made out with the repair When everyone had gone, I turned to Kathleen and asked her if she understood what I had done when we bought the home ?

Since then we have had some of them over for cookouts and such ! I would do the same thing for them as they had done for me ! Hopefully someone will learn from this story.

Thanks for the oppurtunity to tell it !

 

[slowrev]

I read topic after topic on this website about people having issues with their neighbors and they will take considerable time and go to great efforts to go around and around talkng with different neighbors, government officals etc., but never talk man to man directly with their neighbors.

I would like to suggest that everyone invite their neighbors over for a neighborhood pot luck. Get to know your neighbors socially at least once a year or even every other year, get together and have a little party. This social networking will go very very far in reducing future issues. And it is a good thing to do, simply get to know your neighbors a little bit more than just waving at them. This first step does not have to lead to becoming "best freinds" or even friends but will greatly improve your understanding and evaluations of who you have living in proximity to you. The real only way to do this is in a social setting. Perhaps this is a good winter project, throw a party, and i like pot luck everybody brings a dish and it is something to talk about to break the ice. We can, and occasionally do, go to any of our direct neighbors when we need help or advice. Why? Becasue when we moved here we invited them over for cocktails a couple times and for lunch (lunches her are like full course dinners). Just a very small social effort has pays huge dividends. if I lived on a road with 5 or 6 houses i would invite them all over.

Just an idea for the TBNers to consider for 2007.

I know all my neighbors and have no problem discussing anything with them. Well religion and politics can be touchy for some of them...

 

[Tig]

I know my neighbours. I help them whenever I have an opportunity to. Most of them treat me fairly. Day to day I prefer to keep a respectful distance from some of them because I know that we do not see the world in the same way.

 

[Jagmandave]

When I bought my country property, I made a point of trying to meet my neighbors whenever I encountered them and have met all of them on all sides of my land. All have been friendly, nice folks, the guy across the road came over and helped me fell a big tree one afternoon, and the guy next door let me keep my tractor in his unused garage for a while. Another called me one day when he saw a car parked in the drive that he didn't think was mine (it wasn't either) and so on. When we build this spring, I'll be glad I've met them as they might be a bit more tolerant of the noise and increased truck traffic on our dead end road due to my construction. After we move in, I will invite all over for a big B-B-Que and get-to-know-you party. From there, we'll see how it goes. Since we walk our dogs a lot, I expect to continue at least with the friendly waves after........

 

[caver]

I help the elderly neighbor lady if needed. Neighbors helped my Grandma when she was alive, just returning the favor. I've said Hi to a few others but two across the street have never made any effort to make an acquaintance. One likes to blow leaves out into the street stopping at about the center of the road. He's a lawn freak. I got an anonymous letter in the mail with a clipping to the editor about how people don't care about keeping their yard clean. I assume it was him since I had a large Sweetgum cut down and most of the large pieces were still laying next to the stump. I was almost to the point of finally renting a log splitter and cleaning it all up when that letter arrived. After that I changed my mind and left it there for about three more months. I also went out of my way to neglect mowing the yard. for the rest of the season. Lawn freak likes to put the house on the market about once every two years so he probably thinks it's the reason his house never sells.
Flip side, I'm attempting to get to know all the neighbors that surround my property in the Ozarks.

 

[RobertN]

When I was a kid it seemed like everyone knew everyone else. I think its because the kids force the parents into meeting the parents.

But by and large I think people don't socialize with the neighbors because:
- The kids are not there to make it easy/required.
- People move so much.
- We have AC so there is no reason to go outside in the summer which provide the opportunity to talk to the neighbors.
- There is cable/sat TV.
- People are just so darn busy with work.
- Kids dont play at home anymore, they have sports, hours of homework and other extracurricular activities.
- The Internet.
- There are just other things to do.

A lot of that is what I was thinking.

We have met all but one of our neighbors. A couple have been over whne when have had a party, Easter egg hunt etc. Neighbors next door we see all the time; thier washing machine brok last week, and while waiting for a service call and then parts to be ordered, they used our washer.

The new ones two houses down... They moved in a couple months ago. My son baked cookies to take to them, but we were'nt able to catch them. Much like us, both parents work. Then they have been busy in thier house. And, the gate is always closed... We talked with the old neighbors before they moved. They had met the buyers a couple times, and gave us the heads upo that the folks were real nice...

There is so much that keep people busy these days. Like this; being on TBN instead of outside . I have met some really fine folks here though... There are things that keep people in... Used to have to go out to see a movie, but now people have VCR/DVD/7 channel sound and don't need to even go out thier front door. And, air conditioning on the 105-110 degree days we get here.

Some folks just like to be out on thier own. We're on 5 acres parcels here. Some folks just like the privacy.

I see it too in other things. As part of a family thing, I was in the Odd Fellows lodge a few years back. Here is a fraternal group that really does do good things for the community. In the greater Sacramento area though, most of the lodges have shut down, or consolidated. they can't get young people to join, or retain them if they do. But, if you look around the lodge, you can see why it used to be so important. It was where people socialized. Picnics, etc. There was no TV, or other in home entertainment. There was the days when each lodge would have a full marching band for parade, ceremony, funeral etc. Other Fraternal Goups were/are the same.

I have seen the impact on volunteers too. There are a number of on TBN that are firefighters, both volunteer and full time. It is hard in our area to get and keep volunteer firefighters. First, it takes a big commitment of training to get started. Then there is continuing training. Then there are the actual calls. there is so much going on in life, then add this committment. Then, factor in how often a lot of people move.

I am not sure how long the volunteer program will remain in our area. The 5 local districts are mostly staffed. At my station, they're staffed 24/7 with an engien company. Our volunteer staff responds to in area incidents, and to staff stations when the paid crews are out on big calls. With so many staffed stations and crews, and the difficulty of maintaining a volunteer crew, I think it will wane away in the next ten years around here...

We have been able to keep a good crew of Scouts going in our Troop. It is hard though competing with video games, cable/sattelite tv, internet etc.

As mentioned above too, with kids, the homework load... My kid is in 7th grade. I never had anywhere near as much homework as he has. Especially in 7th grade...

so, I do know my nieghbors, a little. We are fortunate to have good nieghbors. But with everything above, we don't see most of them very often.

 

[schmism]

we got to know the 2 neighbors on either side of us fairly soon. As 1 of them we had to settle the driveway issue with, the other had an agreement with the previous owner to maintain the front 3 acers of alfapha/hay ("grass" to me) and wanted to konw what i planed on doing with it... (nice guy about 800 thousand years old)

as for the rest i dont know... mainly because the neighbors behind me are "farm land" so theres no telling who owns it these days, as the house that you can see, isnt neccarly the guy that owns the acreage around it anymore...

Part of the problem is you never see them "out". when im at the property im "outside" or the sheds open or something... so its easy to "find me"