...are you too busy or too insulated/isolated to know what's occurring on a daily basis in your immediate neighbourhood? Are you involved in local activities or even close interaction with your neighbours.? For the most part all my neighbours are middle class elderly who lived here before I came along...( I've lived here for over 30 years)...There are no children living close by..but the neighbours do have their grandchildren over sometimes. I know my neighbours to pass a few words if I see them, and my very next door neighbour altho' now recently diagnosed with alzheimers has always been the one to pass on the gossip of what's occurring with all the other neighbours etc.. ..other than that apart from one neighbour across the road who is around about my age and we use to pal up together when the kids were small, I'm only on a pleasant nodding (good morning ) acquaintance with most of the others.. The fact that I work , and they are all retired means I don;t get involved in much neighbourhood goings on.. I've just looked out of the window 10 minutes ago..and saw a hearse with a coffin being loaded into it, and realised with shock that it's my neighbour 3 doors up. They are a couple who have been here over 50 years, a very smart well to do couple but they kept themselves to themselves and I don't think anyone knew them very well except that she is/was an artist..and no information about him whatsoever However it's shocked me to see the coffin go in because I have no idea which one of them has died...is it her or him? They always seemed to be so well albeit she has a cane , and I see him most mornings going out in his car..(they are both at a guess around 80)..but of course I had no idea either of them was unwell...and I feel sad about that, even tho' I barely knew them, yet I seemed to have 'known' them for all these decades!! Due to the fact that so many of my neighbours are elderly..over 80 and 90 years old, death is something that could be expected at any time with any of them and potentially quite quickly one after the other..and the whole neighbourhood could change in a blink of an eye, when houses get sold to younger families and then we'll become the elders... Anyway..I think my question is really...are you involved with your neighbours or your neighbourhood activities, do you know what's going on around you ?
The only neighbor we had much contact with since moving here in 2007 have both died. Our house sits 1/8 mile from the road and our nearest neighbor. The neighbors across the road are our age but I seldom see them. I see people in town; walmart, the bank, the feed store, etc. much more often than I see my neighbors.
Our street is a cul de sac (dead-end road) with only 4 houses that includes ours. Residents here are not sociable like us so we seldom see each other except in the market or in the church. But fortunately one neighbor whom we call Ate Flor is updated with the happenings that when something important comes up, she would give us a call. As of late, there's not much happening here, no robberies, no accidents, so far, so goo.
I live in a large subdivision in the good part of town. , not bragging but it's the truth. The further north you go here the better it is. Its a mixed neighborhood with mostly younger families so I really don't get involved with them. And older couple across the street are the only ones I really talk to and only to tell her when I'm leaving so she can keep an eye on my house. Which involves picking up flyers that have been left in my driveway or porch. A sure sign nobody is home is a months worth of flyers.
I keep to myself. Occasionally I talk to the guy down the hall from me. He knows all about everyone in my building.
I like the fellow who lives next door to me. He's bought both of my books. I'm an appalling mercenary.
Most of the people in our apartment complex we don't know. But, we pretty much know all of the people that live in our building. We've lived in this complex since Jan '09 and have seen a young ladies daughter grow up 8 years to age of 11 now. Out of 200 apartments in the complex, when there is a function in the Club House, not to many people go. We go, but we are sort of "social butterflies" when it comes to some kind of gathering in the Club House. From our living room window, we can see whatever traffic drives by, including Fire & Rescue. When we see the "rotary" red/blue bar on, we wonder who is headed to the ER. If it's someone in our building, we ask about the person. As far as community stuff, not involved in anything. We do watch the local news, but it can be so depressing due to the amount of crime in parts of the city. Very little crime in our area, but we do pay a higher price in rent for that.
"Keeping to myself" definitely sounds like my BIL. We aren't like that, but he is. Heck, I don't think he knows anyone in the building he's been living in for years.........and, doubt if he cares to.
I've had the same neighbors, for the most part, going on 40 years. .. Live on a dead-end street with 14 homes. Know everything about most of them ... their names, ages, life history, where they work/worked, their shopping habits, their favorite sports team, what their beliefs are, watched their children grow from school age to college and leave home.. When they drive out of their driveway ... I know where they are going .. ... that's a pretty accurate picture!
My next door neighbors are my son & DIL so, obviously, I know them. This is a rural area so I don't have that many near by neighbors. There are some country neighbors whom I have known for forty years. I don't see them often but if I needed something, I know they would help me any way they can. I would do the same for them. One neighbor down the road breaks up and tills my garden for me every spring.
I keep to myself. On occasion, I'll talk to the guy down the hall. He knows all about everyone in the build Yep, that's me. I've been here 15 years and only know a handful of the 100+ people here. People come and go all the time.
When I was married and lived in the house, I only knew 3 neighbors, two not very well, but well enough to assist one another in an emergency. It was a country kind of neighborhood. Here in my condo community there are a lot of people, but I still know only 4. The people next door I know the most and she keeps me up to date on the others. She knows everything.
I have the phone numbers of the neighbors on either side of me and the older couple across the way but that's about it. After my husband died and while my ex lived here the neighborhood always put on quite a fireworks show and I would go out and watch that but since my ex left, I'm usually not here for the 4th of July or any holiday for that matter. I'm just happy I'm surrounded by dog owners because they don't complain about Pickles incessant barking.
Hmmm... I guess I could say I'm isolated by choice. The neighbors who *aren't* like that have their business spread all over the neighborhood. I used to be the baby of the neighborhood, too... everyone was elderly on my street. Now I'm not the baby any longer... a neighbor died and a younger guy (a little younger than I am, I mean, not a kid or anything) moved in. I like that just fine because he's in law enforcement and so is his German Shepherd. I do know what's going on, though, because of the emergency calls I'm able to monitor online. I usually know an ambulance is coming for my one neighbor before it even arrives. I also know what happened, and I know that if blood is involved, HazMat will be arriving as well. One of the old dudes in the neighborhood has been caught peeking in windows more than once, so being "isolated by choice" is not a shyness thing... it's the better choice when weirdos lurk.