I have had some really super neighbors in my life. Right now it’s the couple across the street- I even have the guy’s phone number in my cell phone in case I’m down the street at the store or something and my car won’t start! A couple of weeks ago I loaned the woman a book, and the other night she came over to bring it back and said that she had ordered it online because she didn’t want to keep it for too long. Who does that?!
The nicest neighbors I’ve ever had were a Mormon couple that lived near me in Rok Hill, SC for five years. OMG, nicer people you could not ever meet. I was a SAHM with two babies and my husband and I only had one car, and those neighbors were wonderful to me. I still miss you, Garth and KayLynn Reed! Their kindness were many, and they never once said a word to me about religion, ever.
I currently live in a semi-detached house. The guy neighbour I share the common wall with isn’t around too much, but my overall opinion of him is low to middling.
My other neighbour, the guy I share a common driveway with, is probably the best neighbour anyone could ever want.
My neighbors are the bomb. I have a million little anecdotes I could illustrate this with, but the one I like to use is from last winter. We’d just had a major snowfall, and the streets were nearly impassable. MrWhatsit works for the post office and therefore had to go to work (neither rain, nor sleet, or dead of night, yada yada yada). He was also starting to come down with a nasty respiratory virus that day. He got home, and his crappy little commuter car got stuck out in the cul-de-sac and wouldn’t go up the driveway. MrWhatsit came inside to sit down and get a breather and also enlist my help in pushing his car up the driveway.
I want to reiterate that it was freezing cold and there was about a foot of snow on the ground.
In the time it took me to get my boots and coat on and go outside with MrWhatsit, four of our neighbors had come out with snow shovels and completely cleared off our driveway and a path to the stuck car. I was so grateful I almost cried. I told them I was really sorry that I couldn’t be more helpful with their driveways and sidewalks and they pooh-poohed me and said that I have three small children and my day will come when they’re older.
My nearest neighbor is an elementary school teacher. Her husband died about 10 years ago (well before I moved in). He did all the yard work and fix-its, so she’s not very “handy” - nor is her 20-year-old son. So when something breaks, I’m often the go-to guy.
I’ve done various jobs including some electrical work, sorting out phone wiring problems, removing an old TV antenna from the roof, and fixing their snowblower. In return, I get occasional baked goods, and whenever it snows the son removes the snow from my driveway as well as hers.
My street is good. People wave when you drive by. Crime is zero. The biggest problems are two dogs that bark more than they should, and a guy well down the street that is something of a junk collector. There’s also one house that specializes in large quantities of inflatable plastic yard decorations that vary by season (Halloween is the current theme - Thanksgiving will follow promptly on Nov 1.)
She wasn’t a neighbor, per se- we lived on the same street but almost twenty-five miles apart. But Katie gave me rides home from the high school theatre for the three years of high school that we overlapped, and when rehearsals ran past midnight, this was no end of helpful to my parents. Katie refused payment in money even years later, when she was driving me home from college. I did pay her in cookies, since that was the only thing she’d accept.
When my grandfather was hospitalized with cancer, the guy across the street from my grandparents’ house started mowing both his and their lawns. Wasn’t a family friend, didn’t really know my grandparents, but he’d heard that Grandpa was in the hospital, probably wouldn’t ever get out, and clearly this lawn needed mowing. So he mowed it. He mowed it after Grandpa died, and for the next six years that Grandma survived, he mowed it. My uncles offered him money, which he refused. Grandma baked him cookies, which he accepted.
My uncle’s neighbor ran a small dairy farm with his son just down the road from the old Ciders family place. When the son died, my uncle got up at four in the morning and went down the road to help the man milk his cows. And he kept doing it, every morning, for ten years. Had to be done, right? I’m still amazed by the generosity abundant in that community where this sort of thing happens without comment.
I was 15 and plowing snow, got the truck not just stuck but high-centered trying to clear out the bottom of our driveway. My neighbor, who had Leukemia walked over and shoveled me out. He died the next year. I think of him every time I plow snow.
The usual threats. Don’t try to run when the mongooses arrive; they’ll catch you no matter what, and if they have to chase you they’ll just be pissed off.
When our neighbors moved in directly behind us, in the house we actually built just for us in hopes of selling our house, but no one wanted our two level new home, they all wanted a ranch ( and a run on sentance) they came with three dogs.
We had one. (A most awesome dog evar.)
I told them that their front and back yard use to be my dog’s toilet for X years, so it will take a bit to retrain her…etc. They told us not to worry about it and it was ok for her to go there. I feckin’ awesome is THAT? How many people would let you have a 100 pound dog crap in their yard? ( They now have a 125 and 100 pound dog and a 10 pound dog that only poops on the cement.) Until recently, I would let their dogs out every day in the middle of the day for piddling and I needed a doggie therapy moment. ( I am the only person on our little block that isn’t afraid of the 100 # dog. Pit-Lab mix. He’s a baby with a devil’s bark and needs training.)
WE have mowing competitions to see who can mow their lawn first and then call the other one to ‘complain’ about how long their lawn is getting and the HOA is going to send a strongly worded email soon. ( We don’t have an HOA.) This goes on from the first mow of spring until the last mow in the fall.
The neighbors next to them have been taking my kids to and from school since school started this year and I am working full time for the first time since having kids. They use to let our dog into their house when she would nose up to the window to see what was going on and then feed her. They would watch her if we went away for a couple of days and when she was watch us pack, would just take herself down to their house before we could even ask them to watch her.
We’ve all babysat for each other.
We make a big effort to plow the private drive and their driveways when we get a big snow.
We swap baby - kid clothes, books and stuff back and forth.
We actually don’t see each other all that much, but they are awesome.
The funny thing is is the one family on the block that has the most kids, that contribute ZERO to the neighborhood is my husband’s sister. The neighbors complain about 'how they are never home." and a couple of behavior issues with two of the kids ( bossiness and fighting, nothing too weird.) and my SIL whines that she ‘always home’ ( they never are. Even in the summer. She’s delusional.)