That’s odd because most real estate agents when they get a new listing, go around to neighbors and give them their card.
There is a moderately upscale development not far from where I live, where I sometimes run, or walk the dog. We refer to it as Neutron Bomb Estates because something appears to have wiped out the resident population. At least, you hardly ever see anyone outside their house.
There was a couple in their 30s who lived a couple doors down from us. We didn’t have much contact with them but the woman was friendly and once brought us banana bread. Then she vanished from sight. Soon afterward, her husband started cultivating an oblong garden near the house (he’d never shown any perceptible interest in gardening before). Hmmm…:eek:
Who did they think was going to receive the mail? 
I’ve told the story of the neighbor, an older guy, who had a very nice house a long diagonal from me. There were trades there doing improvements to the interior and back yard at least three times a year, and from what I ever saw through his gate, and front door when we did things like trick or treating, it was a very fine place.
So of course he lived in the front yard, with his little dog, about ten hours a day. Seven days a week. Every day that wasn’t completely miserable weather (and this was Northern California, meaning there were about ten miserable days a year - not counting heat, which didn’t seem to bother him).
For at least ten years, and he was still there when we left. Kind of a pissy old bastard, got along only with the other 2-3 elder households on that end of the street. Even the older guy who lived right across from me, next to this guy, thought he was a jerk - and this was a guy who never said an unkind word about anything or anyone.
I never have figured out the why of that situation, unless the wife was a complete shrew, which didn’t seem to be the case. (And no, he didn’t smoke.)
ETA: And in case I wasn’t clear, he did next to nothing all day. Just sat there, moved his chair from spot to spot, played with the dog a little. Never read. Never did any hobby thing. Very occasionally did some light yard work. But mostly just… sat there, like a lawn jockey.
Maybe he just preferred being out in the sunshine?
This one dates from 1985 to now. The one family up the street apparently had a daughter who moved out a couple years back; her we never saw at all. I don’t know that any of us knew she had been born. And the mother we see maybe once every couple years. “Dad” just maybe every couple months going to or from his car. No one in the block (and this is a close inner-city block) knows anything about them after 30 years and even their name is a guess.
Another neighbor was more well known but ------- strange. He didn’t like yard work so he defoliated his back yard. He never put out any garbage in over 15 years but when he passed away we saw that his house was basically clean and uncluttered. After his death we learned that the woman who was his “wife” when he moved in was not his “wife of record” and when “introduced as his wife” left about a year into his residence here she was replaced with a succession of younger ladies (he was 60s, they were 20s) who were sometimes introduced as cousins. His house is still on the market after a couple years and we all wonder if the next owners are going to find a collection of dead hookers buried somewhere along with his trash.
I lived in one of those. McMansions on 1/2 acre lots. Most houses had either no kids or just one still in H.S. but about to graduate and move out for college.
I walked / ran / biked in the neighborhood regularly. Except at drive-to/from-work time you never saw cars driving or anyone but hired gardeners and tradesmen. Kinda scary but more sad than anything.
I have no idea.
The tax is $100/year, unless the house is a mess, then it is $500/year.
My grass is cut, there are shades in the windows.
When I asked the town why they thought nobody was living here they said because of my low utility bills.
Obviously they hadn’t seen my gas bill.
Supposedly they send somebody out to check.
One time the USPS didn’t deliver a package because the mail person said nobody lived here.
The last guy in the house next door was basically a hermit/shut-in. I hung out with him 3-4 times over the years. I used to share my beer with him and listen to his long-winded shit. Then one day we pissed each other off over something and we never spoke again.
I watched the paramedics roll him out last Christmas eve and he never came back home.
I was in graduate school and worked night shift in another city for several years. Never saw my neighbors.
For 60-70 hours a week? Okay.
Why not in his expensively landscaped and maintained back yard? It’s not like he interacted with anyone out front, barring a wave at the old woman across the street from time to time.
Mostly, it’s the doing nothing at all that ices the cupcake for me. I can see reading, listening to the radio, doing puzzles or small crafts, or something. He just… sat. Day after day. Hour after hour. And was completely normal in mental function and acuity, from what little I could tell.
He was a reasonably healthy, functional, well-off, retired guy with a nice house and private yard, who spent his life in idle, solitary confinement in his front yard.
Beats me - my grandpa always usually did front porch instead of back, IIRC. And maybe he liked to people watch. But while doing nothing all day, all week, is odd, I don’t see why it’s significantly odder to do nothing outside rather than inside.
I’ve got a neighbor like that. Across the street, maybe three houses up. She’s probably in her 40’s, and she just sits in a lawn chair just inside the open garage door, all day every day. She has an old dog that’s usually laying on the grass beside the driveway. She doesn’t interact with the dog, she doesn’t read or do puzzles, no music playing, nothing. Just . . . sitting. Every time I drive by (in decent weather), there she is. I caught her digging in the garden once. I’ve never spoken to her, so I don’t know her mental state, but the way she sits makes me think she may be an adult dependant.
I had one neighbor that I always suspected of being some kind of terrorist. He was blatantly unfriendly, extremely quiet Palistininan. Very often several times a week several men would show up and back a van up the the garage where they would transfer something. They may have just been swap meeters but they were an evil looking scary bunch.
A hoarder, maybe?
I don’t know what it is about Tom Waits and neighbors, but I still remember his “In the Neighborhood” performance.
Anyway, across the street, The couple live in the basement where there’s an apartment. I met the wife once when they moved in then didn’t see her for two years. As far as I knew she could be buried in the backyard, or fed to the dog. Now I see her like once a year. Maybe she has agoraphobia or something.
No. Very nice, mildly upscale, tidy and maintained house.
All I can figure is he really, really detested his wife.
I love that song. If you half-listen, it sounds positively Norman Rockwell-y. Listen closely, and… whoa.
I also don’t get the people who just sit on their porch all day long, staring at the world. Doing nothing. These are also usually the nosiest people in the entire neighborhood, more than happy to be in your business.
I really firmly believe sitting around doing nothing for hours on end is bad for your brain. Brain needs to be exercised. At least do some crossword puzzles, read a book, knit!
I think some idleness is good - we don’t have to be entertained or engaged or busy every moment. And sitting a daydreaming is nice. Not all day, but sometimes.
I especially think some free-play is good for kids, but that’s entirely different from idleness.
The comments here are about people who seem to spend their lives in that mode, day after day, year after year.
It was for this that my sister dumped her first really serious SO, a nice guy but prone to that robot-runs-down total idleness. She’d come home on a day she worked and he didn’t, to find he’d done nothing all day. Literally nothing. At all. Just kind of hung out in the twilight zone.