Meeting the Neighbors

[MikeW]

We live in an older neighborhood (older for the area we live).
We moved in in the '90s, our first home purchase.
When looking at the house, as neighbors drove by they waved at us.
As we were unloading when we moved in, neighbors came by to say hi.

Small homes for the area, most about 1200 sq feet, we added on 1800 sq feet. Most of the newer neighborhoods in our area are 2500 to 5000 sq foot homes on tiny lots in HOA.

Neighbors on either side of us moved in when it was built in the '70s
Woman next door lost her husband a few years ago. She is good friends with the couple on the other side of us, so they take care of her. We help out as well, take in her trash cans on trash day, etc.

Across the street they used the same contractor as us, and went to 2500 sq feet. We go out every few months with this couple.

Up the street the families throw yearly parties on Jul 4. We close the block off and BBQ play volleyball etc.

Kitty corner from us the neighbor with the boat and takes Bonny out fishing. I work in his computer for him so he can play FFL.

Everybody waves and says hi.

Many times we could have moved to "nicer" neighborhoods, bigger home, etc. But the people in those neighborhoods seemed to be inside their large homes all day, having the gardners come over, going shopping, strict HOA rules. We've been worried that our neighborhood was always on the edge of going the wrong direction, other blocks with 3 or 4 families in a 1200 sq foot home; but it never seems to go there.
In the end we like our neighbors on our street so we stayed, added on and continue to fix up our home.

Karen, sounds like you found a good neighborhood.

[MikeW]

That's wierd
I just posted to this thread.
The forum threads, show my name as posted.
Nothing posted.

Edit:
Now that I posted this, my original post shows up, on page 2.
There was no page 2 to click on after I posted the above post.
Computers and software are only as good as the humans the created them.

[kathy.web]

Karen, I'm glad that you got away from the noise and such. Your new neighborhood sounds great and your neighbors sound promising!

We have 2 other houses on our street, with our house sitting on 5 acres at the dead end. The closest neighbor to us is an old man with an adult son that doesn't work, a yard full o junk and no running water. If that house is ever for sale, we'll buy it and bulldoze it. The other house has a pomeranian that is in love with us and our dogs. She gets out and comes to visit and looks in the door at us for hours. The only time I see these neighbors is when I take their dog home after they've been calling and calling her.

[Rissask]

Wow...you have entered into the realm of gossipy Stepford wives, neighbourhood football drinkfests, and multilevel marketing parties...welcome to suburbia hell.



Only kidding , I live in such a 'hell' myself (town of 5,000, ten minutes from a city of 200,000).

For the most part, we like it, the quiet, the waving and friendly hellos, the neighbours helping one another out (shoveling driveways or mowing lawns when people are gone on vacation, I even feed my neighbour kids' rabbits in their backyard hutch), stuff like that. Everyone on our street is good, no nutters, thankfully.

But sometimes I miss the anonymity of living in the city....at times, people can be a bit too nosy/intrusive in a small town.

And strange sometimes too.
When we moved into our house 5 years ago, a couple of families on our street (who party together every weekend, 'garage drinkers', you know) thought we needed taking under their wing and kept inviting us to come on over, etc.

We went a couple of times, to be nice- but we already lived in this town and had our own group of friends, and these people weren't really people we wanted to hang with all the time- so we stopped going, but were still nice about it. They got the hint and stopped asking us to join them, but got all insulted too, it was high school all over again. Now the men are fine but the women won't even wave at us in the street.

Luckily they live at the opposite far end of the street, our neighbours closer to us are great.

[abachechi]

Originally Posted by Rissask

Wow...you have entered into the realm of gossipy Stepford wives, neighbourhood football drinkfests, and multilevel marketing parties...welcome to suburbia hell.



Only kidding , I live in such a 'hell' myself (town of 5,000, ten minutes from a city of 200,000).

For the most part, we like it, the quiet, the waving and friendly hellos, the neighbours helping one another out (shoveling driveways or mowing lawns when people are gone on vacation, I even feed my neighbour kids' rabbits in their backyard hutch), stuff like that. Everyone on our street is good, no nutters, thankfully.

But sometimes I miss the anonymity of living in the city....at times, people can be a bit too nosy/intrusive in a small town.

And strange sometimes too.
When we moved into our house 5 years ago, a couple of families on our street (who party together every weekend, 'garage drinkers', you know) thought we needed taking under their wing and kept inviting us to come on over, etc.

We went a couple of times, to be nice- but we already lived in this town and had our own group of friends, and these people weren't really people we wanted to hang with all the time- so we stopped going, but were still nice about it. They got the hint and stopped asking us to join them, but got all insulted too, it was high school all over again. Now the men are fine but the women won't even wave at us in the street.

Luckily they live at the opposite far end of the street, our neighbours closer to us are great.

Sometimes they can still be intrusive in the city too
We have an old lady next door that sometimes gets like that, but she's still sweet all the same. Mostly older people in our hood, or young couples without kids. Most of the people there have owned their homes for 30 or more years so they all know eachother and are very friendly. When we first moved in a neighbor shared her excess wealth of tomatoes from her garden - delish!

[Bevoz]

Moved to our new home last year and have wonderful neighbours,we to don't have side walks and live on a dead end street with a golf course in our backyard. It is so quite here and we just love it. Neighbours have a fire out on the street over the man whole cover,we live in a crescent and the fellow who starts the fire is a fireman so what are they going to say. We all sit around chit chat have a couple of drinks and laughs together. They have a neighbour hood BBQ once a year and invite many people up and down the street. This year there were 24 of us and it was a wonderful way to meet new neighbours. Most of them are retired and on our whole street we have only 6 children so it is pretty quite. Close to town so we can walk to Starbuck and all the stores what more can one ask for.

[Nerak936]

Originally Posted by kathy.web

The other house has a pomeranian that is in love with us and our dogs. She gets out and comes to visit and looks in the door at us for hours. The only time I see these neighbors is when I take their dog home after they've been calling and calling her.

Kathy... For some reason I find that pom's behavior delightfully weird and hysterically funny all at the same time!!!

I can't help but start giggling when I envision a little pom dog sitting at your door, staring in at you and Danny for hourssssss!!!

[Mark05]

We live in a "Leave it to Beaver" neighborhood. All the houses were built in late 20's to early 40's. Great neighbors and everyone cept one keeps their house and lawns well maintained. Somedays I feel like Ward Cleaver

[roni]

Originally Posted by abachechi

Sometimes they can still be intrusive in the city too
We have an old lady next door that sometimes gets like that, but she's still sweet all the same. Mostly older people in our hood, or young couples without kids. Most of the people there have owned their homes for 30 or more years so they all know eachother and are very friendly. When we first moved in a neighbor shared her excess wealth of tomatoes from her garden - delish!

A friend who lives in Victoria told us it was a place for the nearly-dead or the newlywed

[kathy.web]

Originally Posted by Nerak936

Kathy... For some reason I find that pom's behavior delightfully weird and hysterically funny all at the same time!!!

I can't help but start giggling when I envision a little pom dog sitting at your door, staring in at you and Danny for hourssssss!!!

It IS funny! I didn't know her name so I called her Punkin because she's orange, then later found out her name is Pepper. Now Danny calls her Pepperoni. She loves us so much, she'd rather be looking at us through the door than go home when she's called. They have a black pom that doesn't suffer from the same weird behavior!

[Susangria]

Our neighborhood is relatively quiet, but it's a little on the rough side as it is considered "up-and-coming." I hope it doesn't become "down-and-going" because we want to sell this house at some point whenever it is we decide we're done with Atlanta.
It would not be a mistatement or bragging to say we have the nicest house on the street. It's just simply the cases that our house is the only two story house, and it was built in this century (it's 3 years old). The other homes are from the 1950's, and are in various states of repair. Or disrepair as the case may be.
At any rate, we moved into this neighborhood knowing a few neighbors already, but our next door neighbors and street-mates are quite an interesting bunch. At the end of the street is an apartment building with Latino families. I love them because they'll blast musica latina in their car in the middle of the afternoon on the weekend (I say love in all sincerity, plus it's also not at night or annoying, ever). There are a lot of families in these apartments, and last weekend, we saw the children in these families play hide-and-go-seek. Some chases involved the use of the street, but that's okay, because the only people that drive on this road are actually living on it, it's that far back in the neighborhood.
Our next door neighbors on each side are kind of... interesting. The people on the right are renters, and the people to the right of them are related to them, also renting. Some guy owns both houses, and they're supposed to be torn down within the next year and sold to builders. There seem to be several people living in the house next to us, and it's hard to tell if they're all related or just friends. Our neighbors to the left are kind of hermitish, and they are Collectors of Things. "What Things?" you might ask? ANY Thing. Chairs, bags, Papa John's delivery car topper, a drawer from a dresser, a mirror, maybe some cleaning instruments, just general "stuff." It all gets deposited in the back yard, the side yard, around the trash cans. I don't know where it all comes from, but sometimes they clean it up. They had 10 lawn mowers in their back yard when we moved in, but those are now gone. They have three dogs, two of which serve as noisy lawn ornaments that are tethered to their spots outside. The third dog seems to be their child. He gets to be walked on the leash, lives in the house, carried around lovingly. The people in the house also seem to be multigenerational and we've talked before but have yet to exchange names.
Last weekend, Josef and I worked in our yard. While we were out, we heard the musica latina, the children playing, etc. We were also approached by a lady asking for gas money. She offered to barter some "real nice Pantene shampoo" in exchange for some money. She seemed to be accustomed to making such a transaction. Luckily Josef was able to help her out and she left. She, too, seemed to be part of the group in the house to the right, but we didn't exchange names and she mentioned that someone we'd never heard up was sick with pneumonia and that's why she didn't have any money, because she had spent it on prescriptions for him.
So, it's a very interesting place we have here! There's more to tell, and Josef has shared before on other threads, but this "reply" is getting lengthy! Don't you want to come visit and see our neighborhood for yourself??

[Seakony]

Hmmmm.. I will be in Atlanta tomorrow.

[Susangria]

Oh, yeah? Need a place to stay? We have plans tomorrow night in the wonderful city of Decatur, but, seriously, let me know if you need a place to stay!

[MWC]

It took a while to get used to the "everybody waves" thing in our little town (population 2000, give or take) ...
but you'll know you're in a really small town when you can identify people by the cars as they go driving by. So many times I be motoring down the state highway, skip some cars (hmmmph, out-of-towners), but wave madly at others. Greg still hasn't gotten the hang of it.

[Rissask]

Originally Posted by MWC

It took a while to get used to the "everybody waves" thing in our little town (population 2000, give or take) ...
but you'll know you're in a really small town when you can identify people by the cars as they go driving by. So many times I be motoring down the state highway, skip some cars (hmmmph, out-of-towners), but wave madly at others. Greg still hasn't gotten the hang of it.

What I find funny about the waving thing is when we are in a different small town, we'll be driving down the street and someone will pass us- and wave, and you think hmmm, obviously someone from around here has the same vehicle as we do. And we wave back.


We live on a busier street, and quite often I will be outside working in my flower beds, and someone will drive by and honk. By the time I straighten up to see who it was, they're gone.