I was just wondering how most dopers feel about neighbors.
I am not all that into neighbors. I say hi and hope they want no further conversation. Yesterday I got caught by a neighbor and he said he would like to have me over for a drink ‘sometime’. I hope that sometime never comes. I need to come up with something clever just incase.
Depends on the neighbor. I’ve had some I loathed, some I feared, and some who became good friends. The majority are just sort of there. I try not to disturb them with things like late-night noise and expect the same courtesy in return, which is usually apparently not that big a problem.
I’ve lived in the same walk-up apartment building for 8 years, and I have no idea which of the people who I pass on the stairwell live here. So no, I’m not much of a neighbors person.
I’m mostly indifferent, I won’t bother you if you don’t bother me. I’ve certainly been on speaking terms with most of my shared-wall neighbors since it’s impossible not to run into them coming and going. I’ve never had neighbors with whom we shared company inside each others apartments just hanging out or something. I’ve pet-sitted a couple times at my old building but that was the extent of it there. One place where I only lived for a year, we would meet outside after dark on Sundays when it was nice, build a fire, drink and shoot the shit, but I didn’t ever go inside anyone’s place. I kinda miss that, it was nice.
I was nervous when I moved into my current building, after realizing the big four-bedroom units were pretty much all Loyola students. I’ve been pleasantly surprised, aside from some not knowing how laundry rooms work, they’re very well behaved. I even found a couple guys cleaning the courtyard one Sunday morning after cups and beer cans had been strewn around the night before, though the party itself wasn’t crazy.
My only “bad” neighbors I can think of were this old couple who turned out to be mostly drunk and possibly demented, in the apartment directly below mine. The building manager who showed me the place initially told me there was just a nice older woman who lived there, but turned out her boyfriend had moved in shortly before I did. Things did not go well, and with active communication with the management office plus a couple police calls after several months, her lease was not renewed and the building has been peaceful ever since. I just renewed my fourth lease here.
When I was a kid, the neighbors were almost like extended family. All mothers felt free to yell at all kids who were misbehaving, and you knew word would get to your mom if you were bad. Not that it was a problem for me, being the goody-goody that I was… 
I don’t recall having neighbors over to dinner, mostly because our houses were small and the dining rooms barely accommodated the residents, but we often had cook-outs together. I do recall my folks going to the neighbors’ houses for “a drink” or an evening of socializing without the kids
But as I think of it now, since I’ve been out on my own, I’ve hardly ever gotten to know any neighbors we’ve had.
In my first apartment, my only encounter with my neighbor was when he took my bike because he needed to run to the store. I just heard a noise, and when I went out, the bike was gone. When he brought it back, I moved it into my living room, and that was that. I don’t think I ever saw him again.
I lived in 3 different apartments when in college, and I never got to know any neighbors, but then again, if I wasn’t in class, I was vegging alone.
In my first house, I was sorta friendly with the old lady across the alley. She was very friendly but very chatty. I’d take her the overproduction from my veggie patch in the summer, but since I was working full time, I really didn’t see her all that much. And I have no idea about any of the other neighbors - I don’t recall ever seeing them, altho someone among them used to come in my yard and steal my tulips.
Of the various places my husband and I lived, in 5 of them, including here, we really didn’t know any neighbors beyond a nodding acquaintance. I think the closest to a friendship we developed was the year we lived on or sailboat - there were a couple of retired widowers in 2 nearby slips who we got to know. And the last place we lived before here, we knew the names of the 4 closest neighbors, but we never socialized with any of them.
Where we live now, the lots are 3 acres or more, so houses are spread pretty far apart. When we’ve walked our dog, we rarely see anyone out and about, altho we do occasionally see other people walking their dogs when we’re working in the yard. A few years back, I had a conversation with the man whose yard abuts ours in the back - he was a real flake, telling me that the illegal aliens who lived next to me (the woman was Puerto Rican, and I’m pretty sure she was a grandmother raising her granddaughter) were sneaking thru my yard at night. 
Then he bemoaned how the neighborhood was filling with younger people (maybe because the folks who’d been living there for 30 years were all dying off??) Fortunately, I’ve not encountered him since then.
So, to answer the OP, I like my neighbors fine at a distance, but from the few passing conversations we’ve had, can’t think of any who I instantly felt bonded to, and since there’s never been any followup, I’m assuming they felt the same. I try not to annoy them, and except for the idiot who ran down our mailbox (we’re pretty sure it was a drunk teen) they’re all pretty quiet themselves, so it’s a good place to live.
My parent’s live between two psychos. No really. Psychos. The people on one side have stolen the other neighbour’s cat and taken it to be put down. I mean: they trespassed into their garden, stole their cat and had it killed. :eek:
The other side has been told by a judge to stop bringing ridiculous suits against my parents for things like “putting in a new window with a view of their garden”, when it turns out the window has been there longer than their house. To get back at my parents for being right all the time, they recently built a jetty over my parents’ part of the river.
I mean psychos. Batshit crazies on both sides.
Luckily my neighbours are awesome sauce. We have drinks parties, dinner, games nights. We pop over to borrow stuff like eggs or the electric drill, have each other’s keys ICOE. We are currently bunny sitting for them. Doesn’t get much better than bunny sitting.
I’m nervous about them because we all own our houses in this neighborhood, so if we started to be friends and then had a major falling out we’d have to put on our big-girl pants and make up instead of… you know… moving.
My husband has lived in this house for 13 years now, though, and is friendly acquaintances with lots of them, so I’m friendly acquaintances with lots of them too. The ones next door are particularly determined to be friends and had us over for Easter dinner yesterday. It was nice.
I live at the end of a cul de sac, so there are maybe five other houses/families whom I would consider to be my neighbors. We’ve lived in this house for 6+ years, and there is one family whom we’ve never met face to face; we wave at each other when we drive by, but I still don’t know their names. A second family also keeps to themselves; we didn’t really meet them until last summer when another neighbor down the street held a dinner party. They’re very nice folks, good-hearted people with a smile and a great sense of humor - I just never have occasion to talk to them.
Three of the other families all have kids, and during the warmer months the kids from one or more of those houses tend to be outside playing in the cul de sac, often with parents; the parents typically end up chatting with one another. I have no kids. I’m occasionally outside doing yardwork or washing a car, but I feel a bit out of place, like I’m not part of their club, so I don’t go out of my way to chat them up.
I have skipped out on any number of obvious opportunities for casual socialization, e.g. wandering over to chat about yardwork and such. On on occasion my next-door neighbor came over to borrow a ladder to get his kid’s frisbee off of their roof. As I was bringing the ladder back home, he was trying to chat me up, asking me where I went to school, etc. I cheerfully answered his questions, but I didn’t really do anything to hold up my end of the conversation, as for example by asking him the same questions. It didn’t occur to me until later on that he was trying to get to know/bond with his reclusive neighbor, and that this would have been a fine opportunity for me to get to know him and his wife a little better. :smack:
I feel weird asking any of my neighbors to keep an eye on our house while we’re on vacation. They’re all nice enough, and I’m sure they’re trustworthy, it’s just that I don’t feel like I know them well enough to impose on them like that.
I suppose after time it snowballs a bit. I feel like they must see me as the creepy neighbor who keeps to himself, which makes me more reluctant to go out there and be sociable.
I always tell people, we don’t have to be friends, but let’s try to be neighbors.
I’m friendly with most of our neighbors, as crazy as they are, but we don’t really hang out or anything. I try to maintain a relationship to where we look out for each other.
I don’t need to know my neighbors. I stay at a distance, with polite friendliness. I’m sure we also seem like the creepy neighbors. Oh well.
Assume a wide-eyed, unblinking stare and say “I REQUIRE NO FLUIDS” in your best monotone. Then pivot on one foot and march off stiffly.
I really do like 2 out of 3 of my neighbors. They’re great people. Friendly, and CLEAN.
Then there’s the third neighbor.
#3 has turned his yard into something that looks like a cross between a trash pit, and a junkyard. It’s appalling. Frightening, even. He says he’s going to use it all, and it going to put it all in his house that he’s living in.
No. I don’t see that happening. It’s been almost 3 years. Nothing has changed. I’m pretty sure he’s a hoarder. He just can’t let go of that crap, and just keeps adding to it.
He’s so bad, that there are stuffed animals out there. In piles, on some old lawn chairs. Exposed to the elements. There are stacks/piles of appliances, air conditioners, metal, wood, televisions, bits and chunks of stuff that we can’t figure out what they are/were, etc. It’s a REAL mess!
We smile, we wave, we chat once in a while.
I’m from L.A. I don’t do neighbours.
The SO and I lived in the Antelope Valley during our teen and early-adult years. We knew all of our neighbours then. She still likes meeting neighbours, but after 17 years in L.A. proper, I’m no longer in the habit.
Don’t know them, or care to. The man next door keeps getting pets, small dogs and cats. Then he lets them run loose, and we have coyotes, YOU ASSHOLE. So he comes over to see it I know where they are. “Nope, I guess the coyotes got them.”
Next door is a woman who keeps kicking out her meth-head 32 yr. old son, then he breaks in, then we’re surrounded by cops, then she takes him back-repeat.
This is what I know of them, and it’s already too much.
Honest to god, there’s a Section 8 apartment building across the street, and we never have a lick of trouble from them.
And it’s not a poor neighborhood!!
I’ve lived in the same house, with the same neighbors, for over 10 years, and I’m ok with our level of friendliness, which is to say hello, maybe talk about the weather, I pet their dog, and we say seeya later. I’ve let them borrow stuff a couple times. Once, one of them fixed a minor car problem for me. Friendly, but not friends.
What irritates me is that all my surrounding neighbors(left, right, and behind) are actually all friends with each other, and are good for congregating in my next door neighbor’s yard and getting drunk and obnoxious, then fanning out so all three houses have some level of partying going on, with conversations being yelled back and forth between all three(the houses in my neighborhood are very close to each other). Surround sound!
Unnecessary noise is a complaint of mine. I have had neighbors rent their places out for weddings. People talking over a microphone and amplified music. It is something that can drive me crazy. (short trip)
We have one neighbor about 1/4 mile down the road. We will help each other out with somethings, especially during vacations. Other than that we have each other over for dinner about every 3 months. So really, they are more like friends. Anyway, I would be fine with no neighbors at all.
I don’t like to have neighbors. I know I’m possibly missing out on great neighbors but I’d rather have no neighbors than psycho neighbors, or even good neighbors that are too intrusive.
ETA: If you write the word neighbors too much it starts looking weird.
That oughta do it. 
Especially since you keep forgetting the “u”. 
Put me in the “wave as they drive by, but don’t know them” camp. The house next door to us was vacant for about a year, and we got so spoiled - I’d prefer no neighbours at all, but that’s not likely to happen, living in a city. Our neighbours are all pretty good, except Dickface across the street who likes to park his van beside our house, then spray snow all over the sidewalk my husband just shovelled. He’s lucky he didn’t get a shovel upside the head that day!