Has anyone here ever had neighbors that, while you knew someone lived in that house, you never actually saw them?
Now granted some people are just quiet and some are just downright antisocial but I still find it odd how some people never seem to set foot outside their homes.
I lived in a house for 7 years and never once did I see anyone in the house behind mine even though the grass was mowed.
As for us, we’ve also made an attempt to at least say hi to our neighbors but we dont push ourselves.
I was doing my laundry the other day, in the laundry room of an apartment complex. A neighbor came by and asked who I was.
It’s an eight unit building, two floors, all outdoors (balcony entrances) and I’ve lived here for thirteen years.
(And…I didn’t know who she was, either…)
I’d like to think that we’re all very respectful of each other’s privacy, but I’m afraid the real reason is that nobody ever talks to anybody around here.
Well thats true and unfortunately its often only when something really bad happens that neighbors seek each other out.
ObWaits: We’ve all had one of these neighbors.
Dammit, Amateur Barbarian beat me to it.
I used to share a flat in a fairly upscale block of about 25-30 apartments (not sure how three students ended up with this flat - sheer dumb luck and an absentee landlord…). In the five years I lived there, I think we met neighbours four times. Total. We could hear them doing their thing in the other apartments, but we never actually saw them. It was very weird - all these long empty dimly lit corridors.
I’ve seen the people across the street maybe twice in ten years. It’s weird.
I’m pretty sure I am one of those neighbors. I can’t say no one has ever seen me - the fellow who lives in the house kitty corner to me leaves and comes home around the same time as each other so we often wave, but other than that we don’t see a lot of people. One side of our backyard is fenced in. The other side opens directly onto the club we rent from. So the neighbor on that side is kind of far away, and his yard and his fence is on my side, so his house is even further.
The old lady who used to live across the street was basically homebound so she didn’t come out very often.
I don’t spend a lot of time in my yard because we have a lot of mosquitos.
So I bet people don’t really see us that often. We don’t mean to be standoffish, but I am uncomfortable knowing my neighbors too well. I don’t really get people who are close friends with their neighbors…these are people you literally can’t get away from. I’d rather they not know all my secrets.
Now that was…different. Very spooky. Thanks for sharing.
I am the mysterious neighbor.
I had already lived here several months and when I walked out the front door (something I seldom do preferring to use the back) my neighbor did a double take.
Even the town sent me a notice saying I had to pay a vacant house tax.
Yeah, for a while I was the mystery neighbor. I was renting a place as a temporary situation while I house hunted. I purposely avoided my neighbors, and was “home” only to sleep every so often. My social life was active and I often slept elsewhere. People talked.
One night I was at a bar 40 miles away. I bought a woman a drink, she smiled and thanked me. We started chatting. She was recently seperated and this was her first night out. She went far from home because her marital situation was still secret. I was there because the owner was a buddy.
Turned out we lived 200 yards apart. Her jaw dropped when she realized I was “the creepy neighbor”. Longstoryshort, we’ve lived together for ten years now.
S/he who Waits is lost.
Waits does many of these “spoken jazz” pieces. Here’s two more of different (ish) slants.
And my Tom Waits acid test, kind of a halfway between his spoken and sung material. Full screen, crank it up and let me know if you survive.
And one more for the agnostics. And OWS, who should have listened.
/ hijack
I lived in a four-plex in a sketchy neighborhood of Milwaukee when I first moved into the area.
I knew all of my fellow occupants except the two guys across the hall. I’d seen them maybe twice in six months, and there was never any noise to indicate anyone was even living there.
One day I happened to be walking out my door when they were walking into theirs and I got a peek inside the apartment, it was packed from floor to ceiling with what appeared to be thousand of boxes of brand new shoes!
The houses on our street are offset so that each is halfway between two on the opposite side. Our “left-hand” across-the-street neighbor spends almost every waking moment in his garage, possibly tinkering with his boat or ATV. Never seems to go to work. We’ve lived across from him since 2008. Last year, I spoke to him for the first time in all that time (he came over to help the painters we’d hired to remove an old satellite dish, and I wanted to thank him.)
When my husband retired he was taking his daily walk down the block when one of the neighbors stopped to talk to him. She asked him how long he had been living on the block. I guess she thought he was a new neighbor. We’ve been living here for 10 years. 
we had renter neighbors we called “The circus people” because they looked like a family of carnies. they rarely left the house but when they did they would always look suspicious when doing so. They would give you the stink eye if you said “hello” on the way to the mailbox. they had this little yappy dog they would kick periodically when it was acting up, one of the younger guys looked like a white Danny Trejo. They all spoke some eastern European language. it was like something out of a Bergman film.
Back in the days when computers had big, heavy monitors, there used to be a guy who lived in the apartment building across from mine. At least three times I observed him loading up his van with more than a dozen computers at a time. I was thinking he must repair them and deliver them somewhere.
Then one day, I watched as a handyman replaced the door to his apartment, including replacing the framework around the door. The guy wasn’t around and I never saw him after that. Always made me wonder if he’d been stealing and fencing the computers until the cops came and raided the place.
I never saw him otherwise, much less bring all those computers into his apartment. There’s a big parking garage under that building, the entrance of which opens onto the street, out of my sight. He must have brought them in one or two at time through the garage but thought it would be easier to load a bunch at once into his van when parked on the alley, which is on the same level as his apartment.
I became acquainted with the managers a year or two later. Sure wish now that I’d asked them about this guy.
Growing up, there was a house that was one house behind and to the side of ours.
Despite not having solid fences, we never saw them. They had a backyard (above-ground) pool and a swingset, as well as toys in the yard, but I don’t think I ever remember seeing them. I was just a kid (and later a teenager), so I didn’t know much about them, but I’d heard that they owned some dry-cleaning company.
Then, one night, their house caught ablaze and burned down. My family was busy hosing down our roof to prevent embers from setting fire to our wooden shingles, so, while there was a crowd gathered in the front of their house, we were too busy in our backyard. There was some talk about how this family was going to rebuild and move on from the tragedy.
We later found out that it was an insurance scam. Apparently, the family owed a lot of money, and so they put a bunch of the chemicals from their family business in the garage, took out some of their valued possessions (but not so many as to raise suspicion [or so they thought]), and set the materials ablaze.
IIRC, their official story was that they were out of town on vacation when the fire started. Unfortunately, they were able to track credit card activity, or some other witnesses, to confirm that they had been a few miles down the road during their out-of-state vacation.
My building is 8 units and I talk to everyone above me, but not so much to the people below (2 units). One below has been there forever I know but he barely acknowledges when I say hi. Not unfriendly, just weird. Still, knowing more than half my neighbors is more unusual than knowing none.
Owning a dog seems to make it more likely that you know your neighbors. Either something to talk about, or more opportunities to stop being a shut-in.
I find dogs to be the #2 icebreaker. #1 is children.
There’s a house just up the lane from us (really nice house, too - if I could afford it I’d put an offer in) that’s been up for sale ever since we moved in four years ago. In that time, several different ‘for sale’ boards have been in place, so it’s been through several different agents.
We just have no idea if there is anyone living there or not - I’ve never seen any cars around (it’s a rural area, so cars are kind of a necessity) and most of the time there’s no lights or any kind of life.
But I do see lights on and every now and then the bins are left out for collection.
So either it’s been through a few different owners that move out again fairly quickly (maybe it’s haunted? Cursed? I dunno), it’s had the same owners but they’re hardly ever there, or it’s been empty all this time except for an occasional caretaker/cleaner. After four years, I still have no idea.