[Closed] How good are your neighbours

Ours are mint! When we 1st moved in they came round & introduced themselves with a pot of tea & asked if we needed any help. Paul is ex forces & apparently this happens!
Brilliant neighbours.

I live in a hamlet of 11 houses. Everyone would do anything for anyone round here. It would be a shame to live any other way.

Of course, when I lived in London, it was much the opposite...

my neighbours are great

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I have no doubt that ours would help as needed and visa versa. The teenage lads on one side have babysat for our kids and let them paste makeup over their faces on my 4 year olds birthday. The couple on the other side are older but we still get on great, help each other out etc. We even extended our house, the ultimate test, and no fall out over that. Their are good people and their are bad people, I guess it's just luck of the drawer.

And we live in London (well Twickenham)

You have good neighbours.

Most people do and i think its a shame so many people are so blind to it.

I'd answer the door and gladly help anyone who needed it.

If I lived somewhere where I couldn't ask my neighbour for help in an emergency at 11 o'clock, i'd move.

My neighbours have now retired and also removed the pampas grass. I could rely on them in an emergency, though friends a few doors up would - and have - been invaluable for crisis childcare. Though we did provide them with emergency accommodation when their house flooded.

Ours are great also. Eggs from the chickens on one side. The older lady has the emergency key to let us in. We take her shopping once a week and sit for the kids the other side if it's late and there's a need for the lone mother to go out (her husband works nights). Some of those across the road make a racket early in the morning/late at night fighting over access to the kids. It's not a bad neighbourhood for a small town.

When we 1st moved in they came round & introduced themselves with a pot of tea & asked if we needed any help.
Brilliant neighbours.

When ours moved in next door, semi detached, I took a bottle of wine round to say welcome. I received a "**** off you ****" from the wife. They've only got worse.

Neighbours on the other side, across the road junction are brilliant. Noisy kids but at least they are out and about and playing.

Horrible.

He deliberately upset my wife on the day of her father's funeral.
We had been nothing but pleasant to them, but he was snotty from the start.

They move next week.
🙂

All other neighbours are absolute darlings - friendly, helpful, quiet.

Living in a reasonably rough area of Bristol one house is full of students and other than a constant smell of weed coming from their back garden I don't hear much from them. At least one of them's always in as well which is mega useful for parcel deliveries. The other side as far as I can tell is a foreign couple, literally never see them.

The other side of the road is council houses and full of Jeremy kyle sorts. At the moment the sunny weather means they spend most evenings outside p*ssed on Stella on plastic chairs, beats blaring and shouting at each other while attempting to get their £2 disposable bbq going.

Our Tenancy agreement is up in September then I'm out of here. Saved a lot this last year mind as the rent is so cheap.

our neighbours are fantastic. we water the plants when on holiday and all that kind of thing. wouldn't think twice about knocking on the door in an emergency and i am sure vice versa. good neighbours are a blessing

As we are the scruffy ones in our street, they tolerate us very well tbh, we have a group BBQ thing going on at the moment which has brought us all closer recently, that and there has been some nasty incidents going on recently so everyone seems to be looking out for each other. It's all good

I live in a pretty ropey part of South Manchester, my neighbors are ace 😀

Yeah, occasionally there's a very pissed up party going on till 3am but when my bikes got nicked 3 out of the 4 reappeared 3 days later in the back of my neighbors transit with assurances that the lad that nicked them wouldn't be doing it again.

Gardening out the front is pretty much impossible for stopping to chat. Speaking of gardening, the lad across the road does the front gardens of all the old folks for free while he's doing his own.

There's also a chap that litter picks every morning while he's walking his dog.

Northern Moor, ain't it great

No idea, I've not seen any of them yet! I've just moved in about 4 weeks ago. I hope they stay invisible!

Last place I was in, my neighbours were magic, couple of gay female doctors next door who were sound, and a woman and her daughter underneath us. Couldn't have asked for better really.

Yes, really good. Always on the look-out for everyone, taking deliveries, giving away spare eggs etc. All good. Having lived in places where no-one knew their neighbours, I really appreciate good neighbours now.

my neighbours deserve better!

We have great Neighbours. Single women both sides. One side takes all our packages in and looks after the cat while we are away. The other is hardly ever there but nice when we see her. The neighbours behind smoke a lot of weed and play loud music a lot but I quite like their taste in hip hop and their freestyle rapping is hilariously crap. We have a big Romanian family A few doors down who a really friendly and we chat to several others who live in the street. All in a not particularly fancy part of Bristol. It's great here.

Fantastic - elderly couple on one side; he taught me all I know aboout plumbing and has helped me with lots of DIY projects. They look out for us when I'm away on trips. Single mum on the other with 3 kids, their garden looks like tinkers live there but they are a lovely family and she often nips round for a glass of wine and a chinwag. Others opposite and further away we are on friendly terms and keep parcels, one has a son who is a bit of a dickhead but that doesn't impact us too much, one retired chemist further down wanders up the street every morning and collects all the litter.

Out back we have open fields, heifers and bull currently munching their way through all the grass; I'm on friendly terms with the farmer who supplies our firewood.

Great contrast from where we lived in Burnley and we were forced to move when a drug dealer/former robbery with violence type moved in next door and life became very unpleasant.

I live in London
And my neighbours are real cool, we always help each other out, and they just love my son ,Giving him presents from the day he was born
I even go out for rides with my neighbours 24 year old son!!
It might help that I'm a builder and they always need stuff doing...

But if you put the effort in .....you'll get great neighbours !!

The mentions from the Bristol residents have reminded me - when I used to live in 'posh' parts (ie Clifton or Westbury Park), the neighbours wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. In BS3 now - much nicer.

Our neighbours are good folk. Played cricket with the fella opposite once or twice, been to the retirement party of neighbours on one side. The ones on the other side are friendly enough but keep themselves to themselves which is fine. Nearly neighbours on the next street over are really good friends. Only been here a couple of years so quite happy with that really.

Some people are just dicks/weird but I find in general if you're nice and friendly people will reciprocate.

And as above, I reckon there is something wrong if you couldn't call on neighbours at 11pm in an emergency.

Live on a small estate in a small village.

Our current neighbours are great. We've got a good mix of folks living here and the kids play together too.

Fair few of the gents get out on our bikes together...just like being lads again....although our respective partners shake their heads when we head out in an evening with spades, saws, strimmers and the like.....

Take the dog for a walk in the evening and what should take 20mins takes 1.5hrs....always good to have a chat!

I'm actually a bit gutted. Our previous neighbours proved to be dicks. (Overhearing the firm disapproval of our 'accents' being one thing among many)

They've recently sodded off and have been replaced by top chaps who didn't hesitate to offer a chilled beer at the end if a sunny day. Interesting to talk to, and interested to talk to us.

I'm gutted as we are moving in the next 6 months or so and need to replay 'neighbour roulette'

My neighbour recently replaced all my fencing while I was away. They take sympathy on me because I don't have as much money as them.

Grumpy old ex-copper on one side, harmless enough, but is happy to let his house crumble around him. Which is a worry as it's the other side of mine.
Mad crazy single mum florist on the other.
Mad as a box of frogs, and is spot on 90% of the time.
Apparent from when she decides to park on my drive, so I then can get parked..
Opposite? Great couple, ride bikes and go to the pub with them.

Great neighbours who retired this year. The missus is currently painting our side of the fence which they put up and wouldn't take a penny for after the wall was rebuilt due to ivy. Again they wouldn't accept money even though I stood there with the deeds saying w e need to pay half. Other neighbour is a bit of a dick, he's currently moaning that the upcoming exchange to ******is paid by the kids but free to staff. I'm one of the staff. He obviously didn't see me at all the fundraising stuff.

Well the grumpy weirdo who lived next to me moved away(on the Imperial scale of weirdness, using the marooned together on a desert island test, I'd have walked him off a cliff on day one he was that weird).

Other neighbours great but old boy next door in his 80's is terrifying as wont ask for help so yesterday we had to politely but firmly tell him to stop wobbling about on the top step of his step ladder to prune his fence one handedly with the trimmer and let me do it at the weekend! He has a record of pruning the lead and not using an RCD.

We count ourselves very lucky, neighbour on one side lets the dogs out for a tinkle and stroll whilst we are out at work and the other let us use his electric when we were having problems with the wiring in our house.. Just remembered I need to borrow his ladders to sort my windows out too. 🙂

All told pretty good. We're end of a terrace of 4 so no-one on one side, but the other 3 are pretty good. Next door are a couple and their teenage daughter, she's a nurse, he works up town so quite often they just pass in the night. She's lovely, although can chat a bit if she gets going (it's a Portuguese thing) - he's a bit odd at times, i wonder actually if he likes the sauce a bit too much; eg; was clearing up outside after gardening one Sat afternoon using a shovel on the driveway to clear up leaf mulch and he came out in his pyjamas 'complaining' about the noise as he was still in bed. At 3pm.

Far end is the young couple with a baby, we don't see much of them but perfectly nice when we do.

The ones in between are the diamonds. He's a proper tradesman, joiner by trade but can do building, chippying, plumbing, the lot. And being a proper tradesman he doesn't lend his tools, instead he comes and does it for you. Need a tree topped? Rick's round with his chainsaw. Fence post dug out. Rick's got a Kango in his van. He recently did all the soffits, fascias and gutters, for all 4 houses at mates rates, and then because I fetched and carried stuff for him over the weekend up and down the scaffold tower, knocked a load off for me. He did eat a shedload of meat at the barbecue we threw to say thanks though...... His wife's a sweetie, always spends time with the kids, they have 2 collies that the girls love going round to throw a ball for, and they both ride bikes, although mainly roadie stuff. They even got married on the start line of the Etape Caledonia. Yay for Rick and Jo!!

The 'nightmare' is Mumtaz who lives opposite with her son and daughter. She's a proper ****stani grandmother widow, her late husband was a consultant at the hospital, and she's always having members of her extended family round. Which means she's always cooking, and the smells are just to die for. You only have to leave the house when Mumtaz is in the kitchen and you're like the Bisto kids, and if she catches you she'll fetch you samosas, and bhajis, and..... So if I smell her cooking I have to hide otherwise I'd be 86 stone. Her sons (one's married and moved out) are decent cricketers too, used to play against them and they give the ball a hell of a whack.

Mixed bag really

Lovely Bangladeshi family on one side they're the most peaceful and respectful people you could ever wish to meet

Other side have three girls in their 20s who attract boys like flies. Parents have cars, the girls have cars and their boyfriends have cars so that's EIGHT fricken cars all over the road. But they're all right really 🙂

transplant38 - Member

My neighbour recently replaced all my fencing while I was away. They take sympathy on me because I don't have as much money as them.

They now own your fence ! id have it in writing that they replaced but its yours and add that to the deeds ! Trouble will come when you move they move etc !

I keep myself to myself and have lived in my house for 16 months and only spoken to my neighbour once, after they'd taken a parcel in and I hadn't been notified. I did overhear them moaning about my front lawn once, but as I'm out at work all day, either riding or playing tennis on weekday evenings, and very often away at events at the weekend, I think they'd also moan if I mowed it at 6am or something. Meh.

Elderly other neighbour I've yet to see. It is quiet here though and never hear any trouble, in fact I was late for work once cos I couldn't find my keys to lock the house door, spent ages looking everywhere (as you do), they were in the ignition of my unlocked car out on the street.

If I was asked for anything I'd be more than happy to help, but never have been, don't mind really. I'll probably be moving within the next 6 months anyway.

the last place we lived next to Ant and Justine who we would move back next to us again if it were in our power to do so, they work at the same place as me so bump into them occasionally 🙂

one side are really nice, keep to themselves but we chat whenever we see them, the teenage daughter recently got a horse and they are never at home !!

the other side are no bother, pretty quiet, we only see them every 12mins

so when looking for a new house next door should include retired former trades people at the lower end of the socio-econ scale, that include 1st generation immigrants.

Cool.

We currently have a lovely retired couple, a doctor and her plumber husband (go on, beat that:-) and 3 generations of HK Chinese, (yes they do run the local, Fairway Chinese takeaway on your way home from Eastridge.)

Thinking about it there's only me that bring down the hood.

^^ 5 times an hour seems a bit much. Do you get nights off?

Our neighbours are friendly retired types, don't know them well. We've never (before) been the neighbourly chat-over-the-fence types, usually out all day at work and never meet, but this is changing a bit...

I just have a retired old lady next door, we say hello.
She's ok, never hear her, she never complains about noises coming from my place, but I am conscious of the noise, so she probably only hears me occasionally.
Her middle-aged son washes his mountain bike outside her house, but I've never even chatted to him about it!
I think the term "nodding acquaintance" applies to the rest of the road.

I live in a cul-de-sac in one of the roughest parts of Edinburgh - my neighbours are great and they would do anything for you. They have their moments and there can be a fair bit of police activity at times, but it's great living here.

Well i got a set of hope xc for wheels for nowt and a brand new in box XT mch for £20 off mine - so pretty bloody good!

Handy being mates with the local bike thief eh thestabiliser? 😛

I think we're pretty lucky really, we live on a small development with a lot of older, retired folks in. They must have been dreading it when a 21yr old and 19yr old bought the house next door. When we got the house we turned it into a building site for 18 months on and off which can't have been easy for them but they never really grumbled. Since its been finished we've always made an effort to give them a hand with stuff etc.

Norman next door is a nosy old sod but is a brilliant neighbour really, always signs for parcels and lends me any garden tools I need. In return I help out with his tech problems and help out with his grandkids if need be (they do run him ragged).

The other side keep themselves to themselves which suits us fine and the ones opposite are mostly the same.

Oh and John (the oracle) who knows all the going ons in the village and puts our bins away for us when they've been emptied.

Sssshh, he's twocking me a pump and some tubeless sealant, today!

We live on a small village green, most people are fine & we can stop & chat to them, there is a small flat setup where there are some more senior citizens who are the neighbourhood NIMBY's and moan about everything, to everyone. They tend to be ignored.

Our immediate neighbours on one side we barely talk to, other than the wife takes the odd parcel for us, they've been there a couple of years now. They have a couple of screaming toddlers, so we tend to avoid them.

The other side we've got some new neighbours, they seem nice, and will pop round for a chat to say hello, and are pretty sensible with the noise, smoke a bit of pot & like to sit out in the garden drinking until late but it doesn;t bother us at all 🙂

The previous neighbours were brilliant in that house - young couple who were obviously in their first house. The girlfriend was a certified nut job. I think she had aspirations of becoming a porn star, albeit a bad one. They went at it, like rabbits at 110 decibels, at random times of the day and night.

The neighbours on the other side came & complained to us about it, so they could obviously hear it too.

As well as liking to f*ck loud, they liked to fight loud too. Screaming rows at 2am was the norm. It only lasted 4 months thankfully. When they moved out, the blokes parents came to apologise, as he was so embarrassed to even face us. Apparently she smashed a kitchen chair over him whilst he was asleep in bed one night 😯

She wasn't even hot.

Sssshh, he's twocking me a pump and some tubeless sealant, today!

Does he happen to have a spare YT Capra lying around?

i'm not sure yet; only lived in my house for 3 months so far. on one side, the bloke seems to be a good sort, friendly enough and quiet but his partner has never even smiled, let alone said anything to me and i can usually hear her nagging him for ages and ages on weekend mornings through the adjoining wall between my bedroom and theirs. he just lets her get on with it seemingly!
the other side, i've barely even seen them but can hear their kids legging it around the house and all 3 of their cats like walking into my house if i leave the kitchen door open for more than a few seconds. not great when you're as allergic to them as i am!
further away, there's plenty of cycling types in my street but it's not massively surprising given that i live 5 mins ride away from rivington village and all of the lovely west pennine moors roads and trails...

wallop - Member
The mentions from the Bristol residents have reminded me - when I used to live in 'posh' parts (ie Clifton or Westbury Park), the neighbours wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. In BS3 now - much nicer.

This. Grew up in Clifton / Redland, moved south of the river 25+ years ago. Much nicer and friendlier.

House next door to us (semi) is rented and had various people in there during the 14 years we've lived here, mainly Poles. All been great, no issues at all.

I cannot speak highly enough of our neighbours - especially the older man directly next door. We live in an end-of-terrace on a cul-de-sac, and with as many kids as I have, we can be pretty loud sometimes.

From the day we moved in and I was doing some work with power tools, we went next door to apologise to him, and to let him know that, if we were disturbing him in any way, he just had to let us know, and we would adjust our activity. In any case, he told us then that we never had to worry about it, and any time I have talked to him since, he has only reinforced this.

When my kids are outside playing, he watches out for them, and he never makes demands on us. Consequently, our lives are richer for living where we do, and at the very least we try to buy him a fruit basket (or something) every once in a while. 🙂

We live in Cumbria and my next door neighbour lives in Southampton so it doesn't get much better than that. She is even very nice when she is around which is about four days every other month. My next nearest are really great, four pleasant kids on is the same age as ours, we help each other with jobs on the houses etc.

We used to live in Langwathby and that was hell we had to get out. They say every village has an idiot but that place had five and they all lived near me.

I used to have a great neighbour - old bloke, widower, ex-copper, nice to chat to, perfect really. Unfortunately he had a stroke last year and has been in a home since, and his son (also a nice guy, but lives in Brussels) has put his house on the market... apparently my new neighbours are exchanging contracts tomorrow. So slightly concerned, after a year of complete peace... But generally speaking most people are fine, so not too worried.

The family on the other side are a bit weird, keep themselves to themselves mostly, but apart from owning 5 cars they're fine. We exchange the Spanish equivalent of "Morning!" and "How's life?" when we see each other, but that's it.

So a no-score draw at the moment.

Generally good, although the bloke from the couple next door is very OCD. Not normally an issue but he has recently removed one of the two braces holding up my twin wall chimney so he can brick up the gap on his side of the loft 👿 Not worth making an issue of since my builder will come back and sort it. Reckon in another 12 months he'll be too decrepit to get up into the loft 🙂

I'm in London and was lucky enough to move into a street next to Doreen, a resident for 50!! years.She's 80 year old now & she's off walking in Exmoor this week. Third walking holiday this year! She lets me use her lawn mower ,I don't have one so i there's more room in the shed for bikes.
The price for this is I have to listen politley while she tells me cyclists are dangerous when she is driving....ha.

I live in the centre of Cambridge in a terraced Victorian House. Quite an eclectic bunch of neighbours, 20 years ago the area was out of fashion and dirt cheap, so a house could be bought for £60k, now nowhere in town is cheap and the houses go for £600k. I pretty much know all my neighbours on both sides of the road +/- 6 houses. They are a mix of retired OAPs, early retired photographer bumming about, security guard with two very viscous dogs, two University lecturers, student house (undergrads), a few shared houses (Post Grad / young professionals), IT Guy, organic bread baker...

Thankfully ours are pretty good which came in handy the day one of them turned up at the front door with a huge box with "SPANK" written across it. Despite me insisting it was a set of wheels and offering to open the box as proof they were happy to walk away with a wry smile!

We lower the tone of our neighbourhood. When mrs aracer went into labour for the second time we dropped off mini-aracer #1 with next door neighbour - get on very well with them and their kids play with ours, but actually I'm sure the neighbours the other side would have happily looked after him as well, and I can think of another couple of families within a few doors who would also help out on a similar level. We sometimes feed their rabbits when they're away, and I've helped fix bikes for several neighbours.

Though of course we also currently have Bovis as one of our neighbours 😥

Nice couple one side - very helpful, he cuts the hedge for us, told me to go to A&E the other day when I was still umming and erring...

Other side is typical miserable old Yorkshire f*****. His main sport, apart from ignoring my wife when he passes her in the street, is to shout at his sick wife whenever he's not in the pub.

I've had my place on the coast now for 21yrs, it's in a quiet cul-de-sac. I've 6 houses around me and all have been chatty enough but quiet enough to keep themselves to themselves. They all have kids and I've seen them grow up as they all play outside on the grass together, been a joy really TBH.

All apart from one year when I had a new neighbour next door...Young lad bought the place, clearly couldn't afford it on his own so got his mate in to share. During that year we had umpteen friday nights of after pub close outs and parties and what not. I was away for most of that year working but when I got home I just wanted to crash out.. couldn't because of the noise. Anyway after about 6mths of this I got fed up of asking them to quieten it down and one Sat eve during a 2am party I got the hose out and squirted it over the fence at them. Then stood there with it right in one of their mates faces whilst he was having a go at me. I stood my ground. It ended badly and the police were called, luckily my other neighbour was a policewoman who worked shifts a lot and she'd had a word with them a good few times too.. Anywhoo, it quietened down after that until one weekend when their alarm went off whilst they were away, I called the police who called the firebrigade who filled the box up with expanding foam. They came home to some rather angry neighbours and one by one we kinda ganged up on him and his wonky mate.
He sold up in the end, his wonky mate moved in over the road for a while but got bored soon enough. We exchanged sideways glances for a couple of months after that. The place got sold on again to Scottish couple who were nice, now theres a nice young family there and it's great to hear laughing kids enjoying themselves. Its the only place since the houses were built thats had more than one owner/family in, all the others have the original owners in them.

....

A suburb of Chatham.
One side old, deaf and very nosy/bored, but he make this noise when he clears his throat that sounds exactly like Beavis, I struggle to keep a straight face when he does it in person.

Other side have young kids and make a bit of noise but are very pleasant.

Mine are great, they put up with sometimes a lot of noise (have mates over at the weekend for pre drinks and such if I'm off plus I have a drum kit) - I don't push it too far though! They fixed and painted my fence when it was blown down in the wind and would only accept the money just to cover the materials despite me offering on top of that! Pretty lucky and I'm glad they don't seem to mind my loud music and stuff. Well I hope not anyway... I told them when I first moved in to let me know if I was too loud rather than them suffering in silence!

Isn't it great - all the positive replies. I'm a firm believer that on the whole we live in a great land of friendly people. It's the stirring by the media of writing negative news that makes people think there are heaps of 'bad' people out there...

[quote=edenvalleyboy ]Isn't it great - all the positive replies. I'm a firm believer that on the whole we live in a great land of friendly people. It's the stirring by the media of writing negative news that makes people think there are heaps of 'bad' people out there...

I reckon most people are actually quite nice. The thing to bear in mind about anything you see or read in the media is that things which happen every day don't make the news.

Murdered old boys hedge with trimmer this arvo and he gave me a bottle of champers as a thank you! 😀

5 times an hour seems a bit much. Do you get nights off?

I live right on the village green (no road in between) and my allotment is alongside the green. People in this town are incredibly friendly and laid back as are my neighbours. A friend (brewer, inventor of JHB beer, musician) is moving in the other side of the green. I average about 5 'hellos' between my spot and the square about 150 paces away. There's always people to chat with at the pub. Problem is various surveys have put the county at no.1 and the town at no.6 in the country on various criteria and I shouldn't like to see the weekend cottagers move in. Good neighbourhoods make you happier, healthier, live longer and sadly for all sorts of reasons they are becoming rarer. Going by encouraging comments on here they do still exist (but need to be worked at). I'm off today for a second day serving at the beer festival in the next town, morris dancing on Sunday and Feast committee meeting soon. I shall be leaving bags of vegetables on doors and fences before going on holiday. Happy daze.

mostly retired people around us (quiet road in Farnborough, Bromley) the old boy next door (we're semi-detached) is fantastic.
We've got a shared lawn across both properties, the day we moved in he knocked on the door and said 'Hi, I'm George from next door, and I'll do the lawn, OK'
5 years down the line and he is still cutting our front lawn ;o)
We help him out, and he does the same - to the extent that he was happy for us to remove the joint chimney stack on our house so we could do a loft conversion.

The guy the other side is a bit weird - he's been there 3 years and actively avoids us. My wife used to think he was just shy, but now thinks he is bloody rude. I'm convinced he is in the witness protection program or similar.

Most of the rest around here are pretty friendly/chatty.
I don't particularly like the chavvy woman who's garden backs onto ours - mostly because I've heard her in the garden on her mobile, loudly complaining about how noisy my kids are!