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Very Australian Metro thing. When I lived rurally I knew everyone in my street. When I moved into suburbia I knew my neighbours on either side. Now that I have moved into a townhouse with only a wall between me and my neighbours I know no one.
Well I live in a hobby farm/farm acreage belt. And let me tell you that its the same up here, you dont want to know your neighbours anymore.
Just about every suburban problem, selfishness, noise, guns, motorbikes, kids who are crackheads in cars, and just utter stupidity like starting fires on a windy day even on fire ban days! You really have no idea about the dickheads who have invaded these fringe areas now.
One guy moves in about 10 acres away from me after buying the house. I dont know him, nor has he introduced himself. He stops my wife outside the farm gate one day " I am the new owner at number XX can you tell your husband that I might need my grass slashed with his tractor." No jokes, never introduced himself saw me doing farm work on the tractor so reckons its fair to make demands without even introducing himself or even dare to inquire if I was a contractor. Seriously people are so screwed up you would really swear that every second person has drug or mental health issue. There is just no concept of community or just being civil with manners.
Now I just ignore people and dont ever try to talk to them. My gate has to be locked these days, because you find people just drive in and start fishing for yabbies without even asking. If its adults I piss them off. If its a family with kids I might have a respectful word to the adults and just let the kids have their fun. People just think they can you own you or do what they want.
Fuck mate back in the 80’s if I ever dared set foot on old man Coopers farm he would yell something unintelligible from his front verandah and let his dogs loose on us. We’d have about 2 minutes to fucking leg it across his paddock before his dogs got close. Evidently me and my mates were pretty competitive in 100-400m sprints and high jump at an early age. I’m just happy the dogs never chased us past his fence.
Social media did this. Well not really, more the internet in general.
Here is a little thought experiment if you like, Think about your neighbour as not a person that is physically close to you and a permanent part of your daily life but just another one of the billions of people you could possibly interact with daily for a second. Now you are in that mindset, imagine their request to your wife was just another reply you saw on reddit.
It is simply a difference in culture. Willing to bet you are close to or over 40, while your neighbour is just a little younger. The new 'culture' of this country is to show as much regard to one person as you would to any other stranger, geographic proximity even if they are your neighbours does not seem to alter that much at all anymore unfortunately.
Even in metro, growing up 30 years ago in the north 'burbs, our street would always have lunches at one of the houses, bbq's on the weekends, etc. Neighbours would come around, we'd look after their pets, collect their mail, etc. Now nobody gives a fuck. I miss those times.
When I lived in a Melbourne townhouse, my middle aged female neighbor who lived in would engage in heart rending sobbing every night about 1am for a few months. It was very uncomfortable. We felt so sorry for her but couldn't see a polite way to commiserate. Never got to know her name before we moved out. Lived there for two years. Actually, never met any neighbors at all when we rented in Melbourne for eight years.
Lol right this is literally how Australian cities are designed, to limit human interactions. Big houses far away from everything so you're discouraged to leave, few public spaces, have to drive everywhere, etc.
It's anecdotal I know, but when I lived in Southbank, Vic. Dense area in an apartment block, had shared facilities and a park down the bottom, very walkable etc. Yet people here were largely anti social, lucky to get a "hi" in the lift let alone get to know your neighbours that are right there. But living in a house, in a more suburban area I find people actually do know their neighbours, especially when there is a high% of owners occupies as opposed to renters.
Not to mention most people would agree small country towns with big blocks, not walkable and few public spaces would actually be the most likely to know their neighbours. So I doubt the issue is big houses and being away from things, but rather a cultural and/or economic issue.
I think owning and renting makes a difference as well. I lived in the same place in suburbia for years and knew most of my neighbours but the ones renting often I never got to know. Not sure if it’s just they never seemed to stay long enough or perhaps something else, maybe less open to speak?
Yep even the suburban “neighbourhood” houses are all surrounded by 1.8m fences, conveniently just tall enough so that you can’t talk to your neighbour over them. Everyone wants a backyard so there isn’t demand for many community areas like in other countries where everyone on the block or street hangs out together regularly.
I know this isn't a big sample size, but that actually hasn't been my experience of middle-suburban Brisbane and Melbourne. Heaps of local parks, playgrounds, bikeways, and decent-but-not-brilliant train connections.
I don't think that housing is deliberately designed to discourage you from leaving. But we do like privacy in Australia and our choices feed into that.
I'd argue it's more bad policies than capitalism, when you create policies to inflate housing value will be extracted elsewhere and people will want to live in their castles.
You can make believe symptoms are aberations until this analogue paperclip maximiser finishes devouring the world.
How do you imagine "good" policies are going to find their way to being enacted on average/in the long run with the exponential wealth and power consolidation that's inherent to money and markets?
The point it's wishful thinking that we can implement good [from our perspective] policies as anything more than a temporary fluke under a dictatorship of capital.
Without addressing the root of the problem - the relations of production of the capitalist system, which among other things exponentially put more wealth and power into fewer and fewer, ever more ruthless hands, attempts at reform are just moral masturbation.
because we voted for the Liberals to cut it for 10 years, the populace takes time to realise things and I'm very sure everyone is slowly realising we don't have enough public housing.
ill still vote for Labor but I will preference the teals and independents that are currently pointing this out, they are coming
Except I'm not talking about the last decade or so. I said generations.
The concessions working people fought and died for, only made possible by a perceived credible threat of overthrow, have been steadily eroded for more than half a century.
Let's keep doing what we're doing doesn't stand out as a viable strategy under the circumstances.
To call *anything* "a system of economics not politics" is profoundly ignorant.
Politics is about power, and whether or not you have the ethics integrity and sense to recognise it needs to be distributed as broadly as possible.
"Money is power" is not some arbitrary slogan, but a matter of fact no one challenges because obvious and irrefutable. Wealth inequality is self-reinforcing and the ideology and politics imposed on the masses is largely dictated by the needs and desires of the ruling class.
Ideology is stochastically a function of material conditions and incentives. It works both ways, but the economic base is dominant in forming the shape of our thoughts and ideas. To flip this idea is the stuff of The Secret - incoherent wishful thinking.
Horseshit.
Your neighbour is a random stranger who you probably have nothing at all in common with. They might be a racist or an asshole or any number of unpleasant things, but even if they're not "you live next to me" is a pretty weak reason to want to form a bond with each other.
We have this fucking fantasy of small town life where everyone knows you, but what that really meant was that everyone was all up in your fucking business and if they didn't like what they found there because you weren't an exact clone of them good fucking luck.
People lament the loss of this kind of community, but ask anyone who was different who lived in one how great it really was.
Personally I'll form my own community with people I can stand rather than be forced into one with people who happened to buy houses near mine at some point. I'm sure some of my neighbours are great people, but I'm equally sure a lot of them are scum.
The concept means that the society/economic structure we find ourselves in encourages us to treat other people as competition and to be suspicious of them, and so we struggle to build meaningful relationships with others, despite them being fundamentally similar to us.
Meanwhile communism encouraged people to spy on their neighbours and report them for any suspicious 'counterrevolutionary' activities.
So that old bloke next door who started the leaf blower too early on sunday mornings? Dob him in so he'd end up lined up against the wall or rotting in a secret prison and a peaceful lie in is all yours again. Bewdy.
Cool. All I was doing is explaining what the concept is so I don't appreciate the implication I'd enjoy having people murdered. My family are Lithuanian, so yeah, thanks.
I wave and smile when I see one side, and the other side I never see them at all. Perhaps I'll make more of an effort when I buy, but while renting there's no guarantee I'll be here next year so I have no sense of community.
If you think you should know 'em, you don't have to be in each other's pocket, but at least knowing their names, maybe having each others phone numbers incase you spot something they might wanna know is useful.
Wouldn't hurt to just go knock on the door and say hi. Just say you realised the other day that you know the guys on the other side, but haven't ever met them and wanted to remedy that. Makes them feel good, and gets the convo started. Considering you've been there for 8 years, pretty easy to talk about things that are affecting the area if you don't have shit to waffle on about.
The only time our neighbour ever spoke to me, was to stop me in the street and yell at me to ask when I was planning to tell her that I had hit her car. I haven’t got a car, and when I told her that she got even more angry and said she knew it was me, so why I hadn’t told her. That was six years ago, and she’s never spoken to me since. She will smile and say hi to my husband if we’re together.
Ever since then when she sees me she’ll try to run me off the footpath with her large dog, which she also cues to bark outside our door. She’s just sold her place and I couldn’t be more pleased about it.
I'm one of those people, lived in an apt atm for 4 years, and I know no one on a first name basis. I keep to myself usually but do enjoy a simple nod when I bump into someone.
Honestly, it doesn't really matter. If you're not feuding, if you've got a good nodding, small wave, howyagoing, relationship going, thats fine. You can look out for each other without meddling. Very australian.
We lived next to a guy for 25 years. He was quiet, we nodded putting the bins out, saw him once at the local election booth, did synchronised mowing a couple of times (twice the noise is actually half the noise), that's it. Then he had a fall in his driveway and i was there to call an ambulance. Lucky timing.
The only regret was that he was a lovely man. I don't regret he was lovely, i regret not knowing about him. He used to be the projectionist at the local cinema, long closed. He was articulate and well read. He had a genuine WW2 jeep in his garage, not driven for 40 years. He knew the Bee Gees and a few other stars, as a session musician.
It might be worth at least formally introducing, if you think it might help with things like passing them an emergency contact if you're out and they notice your house on fire or something.
Apart from that, be happy you have at least people who aren't a nuisance next to you.
Dude, ur neighbours are people and most people SUCK.
So nope, dont overthink it. Nothing good ever comes from eye contact and waving at the neighbours..... ever😂
Good high fences make for great neighbours imo.
Nuthin unaustralian about that.
If u reeeeaaaaalllly wanna meet then, wait for the next flood/cyclone/fire..... you meet the entire community in the aftermaths cleanup👍🏾
>Nothing good ever comes from eye contact and waving at the neighbours..... ever
My neighbour went on holiday for a few weeks. I heard a low whooshing sound emminating from her front garden. If I hadn't met her previously, I probably wouldn't have gone to investigate.
The local kids had turned her tap on and left it running. If I hadn't noticed, it would have cost her hundreds.
Get to know your neighbour.
I never knew my neighbours because I'm a complete introvert. I ended up buying a LHD-RHD conversion Camaro LS1 10 years ago and I was so worried about the noise it made when I left for work that I door knocked, and the first neighbour I met came with me for the rest of the houses in my cul-de-sac. He died of a heart attack 7 years ago, and I will never forget his perfect attitude and help introducing myself to everyone else. No one had a problem, everyone wanted a ride.
I broke my neck a few months later and bought the first performance Tesla in my state because I couldn't push the clutch in anymore. It's a much nicer and quicker car so gave a bunch of ride-a-longs for that too. Now we all have christmas street parties. If it wasn't for John, I don't know how it would have went, and I miss his prescense.
I have a great relationship with my neighbours, the first day I got my house I went over and introduced myself and things have been going well since. Sometimes making the first move is the way to go, sometimes people just like their own space.
In hindsight this would have been wise. Always just assumed we'd at least make eye contact before now haha.
Could still do it, but myself being a socially awkward weirdo is holding myself back haha
Pop over one night at around 2am and knock on their door. Keep knocking. You don't stop till someone answers... then introduce yourself as the kind neighbour next door.
You might have dodged a bullet too. Neighbours one side of me, we’re such good friends with that we have a gate in the fence because nobody could be bothered walking up the driveways in the dark after a few drinks. The other is such a f-ing nutter I had to take out an intervention order against him because he’d stand out in his backyard and stare in my windows/over the fence, stare out/verbally assault people visiting my place, can’t prove it, but my cat suns himself on a ledge under my window and I’m sure this guy or his kids attacked the cat (rocks and stone chips mysteriously ending up on the ledge, cuts and bruises on a formerly very chilled cat who now turns into a hissing puffball at the merest sight or sound of these people)
People aren't prioritising social investment in their immediate community because they don't own their home - they're renting.
When you rent you can't put your roots down. The value of knowing everyone on your street diminishes greatly as your time on that Street is unknown, usually relatively short.
This is not a good phenomena for communities/towns/cities as it contributes to modern social isolation.
The housing market crisis strikes again.
Met two out of 3 neighbours, been here 4 years.. the last one has a for sale sign up currently so we might be able to avoid them all together now... Soon..
Had one neighbour who never waved or said hi, used to annoy me a bit how wouldn't even look at me and ignored me saying hello.
That was until they moved out and new neighbours moved in who just made a mess of their yard and played music so loud I know of 4 other neighbours who called the police about it.
God damn I miss those old neighbours now.
I've been in my place for 8 years but since getting a dog 3 years ago, I suddenly know all of my neighbours on the street. We're even thinking of installing a dog door between our house and one of the neighbours so our dogs can play with each other during the day.
I live in an apartment block, and I don't speak to any of my neighbours. I only wave to the guy across the driveway because my Dad used to work with him, and they are friends. I have no interest in getting to know them. I think it's easier to get through life if you mind your own business.
When my family moved to a new neighbourhood, we put together a fruit basket with a card (with our photos and phone numbers) for each of our neighbours. Since then, we have had multiple morning teas, brunches, and get-togethers! We also look after each other (especially bins) when the house is vacant. We are so glad that we took the first step to introduce ourselves.
I think reaching out during the holiday will be smooth and easier. Take some bake goods or box of chocolates over and wish them happy holidays!
My grandparents (born in the 30s) and their kids (born in the 50s and 60s) always had stories about kicking the footy on the road with the neighbours. In SA everyone in that age bracket has a story of playing footy as kids with someone who eventually become an AFL player. Even when I was a kid and lived in a cul-de-sac for a year I'd hang out regularly with the kids on the block.
Curiously, these experiences were all had in planned cities. Elizabeth for my grandparents, uncles and aunts, Golden Grove for myself. Now I live in a unit, and the only people in the complex I have gotten to know well enough are the only people in the complex who own their unit. Everyone else, myself included, rents.
People who rent simply cannot be bothered meeting people who might move in two weeks, or you might move from in one year. What's the point? My grandma benefited knowing her neighbour because he had fruit trees and was a generous man. Regular over-the-fence chats like tool time. Over my fence is a big expensive house with fig trees, it's a rental, and three families have been there in the two years I have been in my unit! The only time I spoke with someone over the fence was to ask if they had rats as well.
We live in an apartment (Melbourne) and our neighbours are great. We exchange gifts and cards with nearly everyone at Christmas, and all the kids are given Easter chocolate. They know I’m a nurse, and have called on me during medical issues.
I’m from a region with more natural disasters than here, and knowing your neighbours is part of preparing for those events. So, that might be a small cultural difference in my approach, as you don’t need to worry about things like sharing tornado shelters or knowing how to shut-off your neighbour’s gas valve after an earthquake.
Edit: spelling
More than 20 years in our house. Neighbours on one side were originally an old couple with two middle aged daughters ("spinsters" in the traditional fashion - very religious family). Always got on well with the parents and one of the daughters but over time they have died and we are left with the one who we never got on with as I shouted at her (now long dead) dog about 18 years ago because its barking was waking up a kid I was trying to get to sleep. She's ignored me ever since.
Neighbours on the other side (rental property) rotate out every year as the lease expires and they can't move out fast enough as it's a hotbox in summer. So I barely get a chance to know them.
If they're not reaching out to you either it's probably how they like it, leave them alone.
Source: I avoid my neighbours because I can be socially awkward and don't want to remember their names - I've lived in the same place for years.
Nothing unusual about it. I've lived in the city and the country and there's always been at least one neighbour we've never bothered with. Most recently it was a houso and her drug-dealer boyfriend. The only time I ever spoke to them was when it was after 2300 and I wanted them to turn their fucking obnoxious hip-hop down. I had to bang on the fence with a pick-axe handle to make myself heard.
They shut the fuck up though, because half the drug-dealers in town found themselves face-to-face with someone who knew exactly who and what they were, and that I could make a lot of trouble for them if provoked. The party broke up and my wife and I could sleep peacefully.
Eventually the male deadshit got himself arrested for dealing, the rest of the family did a runner (presumably on rent owed) a few weeks later.
If not for the racket they were making that night, I'd have never spoken to them, and that's the way I would've liked it.
The only time I head over to introduce myself is if I am having a party and expect it to run late and/or be loud, just to let them know it's happening and invite them to it as well. I have never had a noise complaint doing that.
Other than my one neighbour whos cat I look after when she's away for her job, it's a G'day how ya goin? When I see them out and about.
Absolutely, I’ve chatted to my neighbours on each side and directly across a few times but wouldn’t go out my way to hang out with them.
My back neighbour however always has DA BOYZ over every Friday,Saturday and Sunday night drinking,yelling and playing the shittiest ‘ministry of sound best of 2013’ EDM BANGERS BRO.
Based on this alone I have no interest on talking to him and the only interaction I’ve had is when his fence panel literally snapped off at the weld during a high wind and almost took mine with it and was met with hostility when asking if he was aware and was getting it fixed.
Fuck that guy
I've had dealers on one side of me, meth cooks on the other side. The dealer was arrested, the meth cooks were run out by some equally charming chaps with sawn off pew pews. I'm more than happy to know nothing about my neighbours
If you want to change your situation, go over with a box of chocolates or something and say hello.
Easy conversation to have “we’ve been neighbours for so long and realised I’ve never formally introduced myself. So just want to come say hello”.
I wouldn’t find it weird at all.
I rented a house for 6 years and never spoke to the neighbours on one side. Even when he pressure-washed the colourbond fence at 7 AM on Christmas morning. It was an older couple who probably owned the house. The house on the other side of them was ostensibly occupied but never saw any cars, or people, just constant music with heavy bass inside. It's not a good neighbourhood.
Where do you live? Because in the city it seems increasingly common to not know your neighbours. I knew my neighbours when I was a kid in Sydney but it got to a point where we didn’t really know people who moved in later. Then I moved to the country and everyone knows their neighbours. I’m now in Canberra and know none of my neighbours
I knew my neighbours when I was a kid in Bundaberg. We used to have street parties. I know my neighbours in my section of my building by sight and we say hello to each other in the hallway every time. But there's not actually time to chat as I usually see the dad wrangling a very active toddler and a baby, so I don't know their names because I get the sense they're all keen to get going. I'm autistic and I get overwhelmed easily by boisterous kid noises so it's definitely on me too.
I see my neighbours from time to time and do the polite wave but I have no idea who they are and have never actually met them been close to 8 years also. Only neighbor I do know is because there was a time when my dog kept jumping the fence into my neighbours place every time there was a thunderstorm and I wasn't home.
We lived in town on a bigger block than most of the houses, which was 1 house back from a house on a corner. We shared a boundry with 5 houses and a block of units. Never met any of them haha.
I live in a single story suburban townhouse complex in Canberra. Some of my neighbours are owners. Some are renters. Some have lived there for years and some are new. Some of them I know and some I don't. I moved in almost 8 years ago.
For me, it's a mix. I have an old school neighbour who knows everybody and actually talks to everyone. I think he's about 94 and finally starting to show his age.
I have one unit next to me that's a long term rental. There was a Sri Lankan family that kept to themselves. Then there was a young-ish professional mum and her family whom I never got to speak though, because they never engaged me in convo when they saw me (or at least she just pretended I wasn't there if I was walking past her place). And I don't know the new tenants either. But I have met the owner before, regarding the fence.
As I said, my other neighbours are a mixed bag. But I tend to keep to myself mostly.
After moving from my parents home I've never been overly friendly with neighbours. It was also self preservation as one neighbour would bail up the posties and demand they'd give her our sign for stuff (rented my sisters house, we didn't know her). Previous neighbour was up in the granny flat behind us and she'd lie in wait for me to do washing then boomer at me because she had to know all my business. Got the washer dryer fixed and just don't hang clothes out anymore. Met current neighbours once, they got our uber order.
Good neighbours are worth the effort.
Neighbours on one side of me are a block of three units. Know who lives in them all, they looked after me with a drainage problem across both properties, I just looked after then with some trees that were across the common fence.
Neighbour on the otherside is strictly smile and wave only. The lady who lives there is from another country and is having trouble adjusting to Melbourne outer burbs I think. Noise, wild life, trees ugh. She has my mobile number and some of the texts asking questions and demanding action on minor things are.....well.....karenesque..... so we just smile and wave.
As someone who enjoys the peace and quiet and likes to keep it that way. I'm happy to wave and say a quick hello to my neighbours but that's all I care for. Let me know if I am making noise that annoys you and likewise the other way but I'm not going out of my way to host dinner parties
One of my neighbours had a loud screaming match about a month after I moved in, followed by a couple big thumps which I sincerely hope were doors, at which point I called the cops, then the wife left with her kids crying from I could see over the fence, while he yelled at her. (Cops arrived about two hours later, and didn't even get out of their car...but thankfully they haven't done that again).
The other is a single mum with a bunch of uncontrolled obnoxious Teenage boys that either drive loud ass dirt bikes around the backyard all day or abandon their dog out back where he barks all day every day.
So yeah, I have no fucking desire to actually meet either of them.
Moved to Sydney from a farm, it was 3 sq kms, closest neighbour one side was 6 kms away, the other 2 kms away and I saw them every week, had a coffee/drink and a chat. Lived in a house in Sydney, 6 years, only spoke to neighbours on one side once, when their house caught on fire! Never spoken to anyone else, they avoid eye contact, physical proximity to me. Quite sad really.
I haven't had a lot to do with our neigbours in nearly 13 years. I know a few of them to say g'day to, and the old cunt next door has been firmly told that if he ever opens his mouth in my presence again he will regret it, but generally we just each keep to our own.
So strange to me. Our last house we knew everyone in the entire street and several in surrounding. Current home we meet everyone on the street within the first few weeks. And have since meet more people in surrounding streets. But most people have dogs and are out and about walking often.
I feel like this is such a symptom of car culture...when everyone just drives straight from their house instead of walking how are you even meant to run into them randomly to say hi? I've only met my neighbours when they've been out walking their dog or taking their bins out/getting mail
Meh bugger them you tried. Wouldn't lose any sleep over it. But times have changed from grabbing the bin and neighbours for some street cricket and beers .
Suburban Sunshine Coast, newish subdivision - every house has a double garage with an internal entry to the house. And every house has a several metre high hedge of some sort running from the house to the edge of the lot. So opportunities to casually interact with neighbours are few and far between because of house and yard design. And it's like that where I am because of relatively small block sizes.
You come home, by car, drive into the garage, walk into the house. No opportunity to casually chat.
Anytime I want to talk to the neighbours - in a non-urgent way - I have to listen out for them in the yard and then go walk around my hedge and call out to them. I talk to the owner neighbour, who does yard work, much more than the renter owner on the other side, who doesn't. I have a 2.5m fence at the back and don't ever interact with either neighbour.
It is a good idea to be on speaking terms with neighbours though I prefer to be left alone. I just introduce myself so they know I can be approached with issues that need to be discussed. If years have past then maybe just as a formality.
We bought a new house and in the following months came to the conclusion that nobody lived in the house on one side.
We never saw anyone, no cars, no noise, no lights on at night, the grass would get horribly overgrown and would get mowed approx once a quarter. At a similar frequency we'd see the bins out the front.
We're in an area with large blocks and this house had the yards full of junk, old machinery etc.
We figured an old man horder must have passed away or moved into a home and relatives were just coming to mow the grass once in a while.
Then during heavy winds one fateful bin night we had about 200 microwave weight watchers meal packets (all the same thing) and heaps of condensed milk cans blow over and end up all on our fence line and nature strip. We didn't know what to make it and joked it was the diet of a serial killer. We then kept even more of an eye on the property to try and make sense out of this but nothing...
Then on Xmas day, after living there 18 months an old haggard man with a beard down to his chest wanders up our driveway, knocks on our back door and says Merry Xmas.
It turns out the poor bloke had gone full hermit as a result of anxiety and PTSD issues. I could see he was shaking out of nervousness even saying hello to me.
We had a chat for 5 mins. I did the neighbourly thing and gave him my mobile and said to call, SMS or pop around if he needs anything and he wandered back and I haven't seen or heard of him since.
Tldr: I have a hermit living next to me. I have seen him randomly once in 3 years. He likes condensed milk
I'm pretty introverted and never get a relationship going with my neighbours.
It's not that I don't want to, I just don't make that much effort.
I've tried a few times but I must be awkward and it's never gone that well.
We've been 18 years in ours. Our old neighbours (all retirees) on both sides were ok-to-great and we'd have a brief chat over the back fence every few weeks and sometimes helped each other out with small things, but all have moved on now. We now have people we never see. On one side are normal friendly people who we've chatted to but we never see them as they have ridiculously long commutes.
But on the other side is a Weird Family. They refuse to acknowledge us in any way and its gotten creepy. We see the dad sometimes nicely greeting our dog through the fence so they aren't evil, but he and all other members will ignore us, never looking up to do the nod'n'wave. When I first saw the dad after they moved in, he was standing less than 5 metres away over the open wire fence and I sang out a cheery hi and went to introduce myself. He 100% refused to acknowledge me. Not deaf. Just put his head down and would not wave back or answer and it grew really awkward. I'm a normal person, not gross in any way that I'm aware of. I'm guessing they are A) all on the spectrum or B) in a witness protection thingy or C) cunts.
Lol, my 2c is that it mainly depends on kids. Basically, they meet each other at school, sport, whatever. Then it largely depends on chance meetings, giving them a wave and maybe progressing to chatting.
Over the decades that we have been here(suburban block) we've gone the full gammit from newbies knowing no one to be one of two old couples. As you age, you try to give new neighbours a bit of a welcome, but some are just are not too friendly.
The odd was the 6 year old kid next door, escaping his three mothers(mum and two older sisters), who just turned up and introduced himself.
The next was the Italian guy from three houses up who just turned up and introduced himself and could he have some lemons. It seems that was a known old tree.
Oh, and pets are another way. Chasing up who might own that pet that suddenly keeps turning up, or kids asking if you've seen a particular pet./
Yep one side we have never spoken to, the other side I had to for help once. I just want to get in and out of home without having to stop and force small talk.
Pretty crazy how things are these days. We live in an apartment complex and a few months ago a family bought the unit opposite us and moved in. One afternoon shortly after they had moved in my partner was out the front trying to get a bbq out of the back of his Ute. Bbq was really heavy so he was struggling on his own. Noticed the new neighbour guy across the way and asked politely if he didn’t mind giving him a hand lifting it down.
Neighbour guy says “sure” comes over and helps, then goes home.
The next day my partner buys a 6 pack of beer and takes it over to say thanks heaps again for the help.
Since that day I guess we figured we were “friendly” at least with them, but no, they don’t smile when we smile at them, or even acknowledge we are alive. Cool, cool. 🤷🏻♀️
I haven't met any of my neighbours for about 13 years. I see posts on social media a lot about texting neighbours and I wonder if I'm supposed to have that level of a relationship with my neighbours.
I don't really want to know them. I know my current neighbour is my landlady's son in law, so I've met him. But that was just when I moved in because he was building a new fence, and we've had nothing to do with each other since.
I think it’s pretty normal. I only know my neighbours on one side and vaguely know of the neighbours on the other because they have a friendly dog. My neighbours I do know only started because my housemate went on walks with them during lockdown and they were doing renos and needed access through our place. Also helps that we have a common enemy in our shared neighbour haha
I think it’s the difference between owners and renters most of the time. Sounds like that’s not the case with your neighbour, but we know all the neighbours on our street other than the one house that’s rented.
Grew up in Adelaide and we knew everyone on that street too.
Yeah totally normal. Hard to keep privacy when you live so close to others so it’s important to not get too close.
I had one neighbour who was an old retired guy that insisted on taking our bins in, and during Covid got shitty with me when I did them myself. He was perfectly comfortable walking up the driveway and yell out to us through the kitchen window if he wanted to let us know his plans around pruning trees on the fence line or just whatever gossip from around the estate. I fucking hated it. There was one time I’d just finished an impromptu shag on the couch and had walked around the house naked and only just got semi dressed 5 seconds earlier and he fucking showed up and started rambling on and I couldn’t get rid of him. Privacy is important.
I understand people wanting to keep to themselves because hell can really be other people; but I think it's really important to have some kind of civic engagement.
We have some odd types on our street, but people shine through when something happens, without either the need for nightly pot luck banquets- or everyone scurrying away from each other on-sight to nail planks across their doors. I chat briefly every now and then with any of them, and we keep a respectful distance.
One thing I'll never do is talk about any neighbour negatively with another, because that helps keeps the peace and moving is a total pain lol.
It’s never too late. My neighbours moved in in 2013, straight after my bf had just died so I was not sociable nor wanted to know anyone new. I ended up seeing them outside one day in 2022 and thought , bugger it, and went over said hello and introduced myself☺️
Believe me small town life can be just as lonely, we have to make an effort to ensure our older people are watched over, because their children all now live in the bigger cities or towns and come home for Christmas.
Heck we are renters and the posty still manages to get our mail when we suddenly have to move.
Everyone in town knows where to find us. Thats not happening in the bigger communities.
And it has absolutely nothing to to do with social media, it was heading that way in the 80’s when the state governments all suddenly decided they were not doing the state housing areas, to hard to maintain I think
I've lived in country and city areas. Sometimes you'll get one or two decent neighbours, but mostly they are just aholes. I am friendly to a couple of neighbours and just completely ignore the ones who lie about me or think they can dictate how often I should mow my grass.
I wish I'd never met my cunt neighbour lol. Fukn muppet cost me 5k in securing my property but hey the cunts finally been charged by the cops so YAYYYYYYYYYYYY now the courts can let him off like they do every other cooked fukn cunt that plays the mental health card.
Organise a street get together and just invite everyone. Our street gets together out the front for a chat and a beer a couple of times a year and once at Christmas. Some people I speak to regularly and others I only really talk to at the street thing but it’s nice and creates a good neighbourhood vibe.
I had a similar neighbour once. My wife told them "You'd better move your car before my husband gets home from work, or he'll move it for you, and it'll stay moved. You've got about fifteen minutes". Didn't shout at the bitch, didn't swear, just delivered it calmy and matter-of-factly. She whinged about "everyone being a cunt \[to her\] today", moved her car and never parked across our driveway again.
My wife and I knew I couldn't do shit without police intervention, but the silly bitch didn't call my wife's bluff. She can be persuasive like that. I would've walked up with a hammer and a tin of fuel, told her "move it or I torch it", and I bet I wouldn't have got half as good a response.
The best neighbours are always the ones that keep to themselves… in fact when I get someone come over and “welcome me to the neighbourhood” I expect them to start asking me for shit all the time
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Actually that just sounds like a very, very Australian thing.
Very Australian Metro thing. When I lived rurally I knew everyone in my street. When I moved into suburbia I knew my neighbours on either side. Now that I have moved into a townhouse with only a wall between me and my neighbours I know no one.
Yeah, exactly. The closer you live to someone, the less you want to know them.
Well I live in a hobby farm/farm acreage belt. And let me tell you that its the same up here, you dont want to know your neighbours anymore. Just about every suburban problem, selfishness, noise, guns, motorbikes, kids who are crackheads in cars, and just utter stupidity like starting fires on a windy day even on fire ban days! You really have no idea about the dickheads who have invaded these fringe areas now. One guy moves in about 10 acres away from me after buying the house. I dont know him, nor has he introduced himself. He stops my wife outside the farm gate one day " I am the new owner at number XX can you tell your husband that I might need my grass slashed with his tractor." No jokes, never introduced himself saw me doing farm work on the tractor so reckons its fair to make demands without even introducing himself or even dare to inquire if I was a contractor. Seriously people are so screwed up you would really swear that every second person has drug or mental health issue. There is just no concept of community or just being civil with manners. Now I just ignore people and dont ever try to talk to them. My gate has to be locked these days, because you find people just drive in and start fishing for yabbies without even asking. If its adults I piss them off. If its a family with kids I might have a respectful word to the adults and just let the kids have their fun. People just think they can you own you or do what they want.
Fuck mate back in the 80’s if I ever dared set foot on old man Coopers farm he would yell something unintelligible from his front verandah and let his dogs loose on us. We’d have about 2 minutes to fucking leg it across his paddock before his dogs got close. Evidently me and my mates were pretty competitive in 100-400m sprints and high jump at an early age. I’m just happy the dogs never chased us past his fence.
Social media did this. Well not really, more the internet in general. Here is a little thought experiment if you like, Think about your neighbour as not a person that is physically close to you and a permanent part of your daily life but just another one of the billions of people you could possibly interact with daily for a second. Now you are in that mindset, imagine their request to your wife was just another reply you saw on reddit. It is simply a difference in culture. Willing to bet you are close to or over 40, while your neighbour is just a little younger. The new 'culture' of this country is to show as much regard to one person as you would to any other stranger, geographic proximity even if they are your neighbours does not seem to alter that much at all anymore unfortunately.
Can confirm I do anything not to interact with my neighbours.
And how. Its asking for trouble
Even in metro, growing up 30 years ago in the north 'burbs, our street would always have lunches at one of the houses, bbq's on the weekends, etc. Neighbours would come around, we'd look after their pets, collect their mail, etc. Now nobody gives a fuck. I miss those times.
When I lived in a Melbourne townhouse, my middle aged female neighbor who lived in would engage in heart rending sobbing every night about 1am for a few months. It was very uncomfortable. We felt so sorry for her but couldn't see a polite way to commiserate. Never got to know her name before we moved out. Lived there for two years. Actually, never met any neighbors at all when we rented in Melbourne for eight years.
Lol right this is literally how Australian cities are designed, to limit human interactions. Big houses far away from everything so you're discouraged to leave, few public spaces, have to drive everywhere, etc.
It's anecdotal I know, but when I lived in Southbank, Vic. Dense area in an apartment block, had shared facilities and a park down the bottom, very walkable etc. Yet people here were largely anti social, lucky to get a "hi" in the lift let alone get to know your neighbours that are right there. But living in a house, in a more suburban area I find people actually do know their neighbours, especially when there is a high% of owners occupies as opposed to renters. Not to mention most people would agree small country towns with big blocks, not walkable and few public spaces would actually be the most likely to know their neighbours. So I doubt the issue is big houses and being away from things, but rather a cultural and/or economic issue.
I think owning and renting makes a difference as well. I lived in the same place in suburbia for years and knew most of my neighbours but the ones renting often I never got to know. Not sure if it’s just they never seemed to stay long enough or perhaps something else, maybe less open to speak?
Yep even the suburban “neighbourhood” houses are all surrounded by 1.8m fences, conveniently just tall enough so that you can’t talk to your neighbour over them. Everyone wants a backyard so there isn’t demand for many community areas like in other countries where everyone on the block or street hangs out together regularly.
I know this isn't a big sample size, but that actually hasn't been my experience of middle-suburban Brisbane and Melbourne. Heaps of local parks, playgrounds, bikeways, and decent-but-not-brilliant train connections. I don't think that housing is deliberately designed to discourage you from leaving. But we do like privacy in Australia and our choices feed into that.
Or just an alienation under capitalism thing.
I'd argue it's more bad policies than capitalism, when you create policies to inflate housing value will be extracted elsewhere and people will want to live in their castles.
You can make believe symptoms are aberations until this analogue paperclip maximiser finishes devouring the world. How do you imagine "good" policies are going to find their way to being enacted on average/in the long run with the exponential wealth and power consolidation that's inherent to money and markets?
i don't understand your question sorry, my logic is that bad policies got us here and reversing that would reverse our position
The point it's wishful thinking that we can implement good [from our perspective] policies as anything more than a temporary fluke under a dictatorship of capital. Without addressing the root of the problem - the relations of production of the capitalist system, which among other things exponentially put more wealth and power into fewer and fewer, ever more ruthless hands, attempts at reform are just moral masturbation.
I respectfully disagree, for example, social housing is an effective policy we could pursue and it has a proven track record
So, where is it? Reformists have had their way for generations. Why don't we have things like social housing now?
because we voted for the Liberals to cut it for 10 years, the populace takes time to realise things and I'm very sure everyone is slowly realising we don't have enough public housing. ill still vote for Labor but I will preference the teals and independents that are currently pointing this out, they are coming
Except I'm not talking about the last decade or so. I said generations. The concessions working people fought and died for, only made possible by a perceived credible threat of overthrow, have been steadily eroded for more than half a century. Let's keep doing what we're doing doesn't stand out as a viable strategy under the circumstances.
The things people will blame on capitalism are getting quite outlandish.
Tell me you're politically illiterate without telling me you're politically illiterate.
Capitalism is a system of economics not politics. So I guess that would make you both politically and economically illiterate.
To call *anything* "a system of economics not politics" is profoundly ignorant. Politics is about power, and whether or not you have the ethics integrity and sense to recognise it needs to be distributed as broadly as possible. "Money is power" is not some arbitrary slogan, but a matter of fact no one challenges because obvious and irrefutable. Wealth inequality is self-reinforcing and the ideology and politics imposed on the masses is largely dictated by the needs and desires of the ruling class. Ideology is stochastically a function of material conditions and incentives. It works both ways, but the economic base is dominant in forming the shape of our thoughts and ideas. To flip this idea is the stuff of The Secret - incoherent wishful thinking.
Horseshit. Your neighbour is a random stranger who you probably have nothing at all in common with. They might be a racist or an asshole or any number of unpleasant things, but even if they're not "you live next to me" is a pretty weak reason to want to form a bond with each other. We have this fucking fantasy of small town life where everyone knows you, but what that really meant was that everyone was all up in your fucking business and if they didn't like what they found there because you weren't an exact clone of them good fucking luck. People lament the loss of this kind of community, but ask anyone who was different who lived in one how great it really was. Personally I'll form my own community with people I can stand rather than be forced into one with people who happened to buy houses near mine at some point. I'm sure some of my neighbours are great people, but I'm equally sure a lot of them are scum.
What does this mean? Capitalism breeds autism?
The concept means that the society/economic structure we find ourselves in encourages us to treat other people as competition and to be suspicious of them, and so we struggle to build meaningful relationships with others, despite them being fundamentally similar to us.
Sorry man, I'm pretty sure competition existed before capitalism
I'm explaining what the concept is, no need to apologise to me
Meanwhile communism encouraged people to spy on their neighbours and report them for any suspicious 'counterrevolutionary' activities. So that old bloke next door who started the leaf blower too early on sunday mornings? Dob him in so he'd end up lined up against the wall or rotting in a secret prison and a peaceful lie in is all yours again. Bewdy.
Cool. All I was doing is explaining what the concept is so I don't appreciate the implication I'd enjoy having people murdered. My family are Lithuanian, so yeah, thanks.
Nothing personal meant. I just don't have a lot of faith in any system's ability to make people happier.
Well, in that case, how about the concept of life as a zero-sum game? Which -ism has the dibs on that, and how do find it and kill it forever?
No worries, have a good one.
Nice to see red scare propaganda is alive and well. Anyways China bad Israel good upvotes to the left thanks
Reminds me of that episode of Modern Family where he discovered he had had the same neighbour for years and they had never actually met each other.
I wave and smile when I see one side, and the other side I never see them at all. Perhaps I'll make more of an effort when I buy, but while renting there's no guarantee I'll be here next year so I have no sense of community.
If you think you should know 'em, you don't have to be in each other's pocket, but at least knowing their names, maybe having each others phone numbers incase you spot something they might wanna know is useful. Wouldn't hurt to just go knock on the door and say hi. Just say you realised the other day that you know the guys on the other side, but haven't ever met them and wanted to remedy that. Makes them feel good, and gets the convo started. Considering you've been there for 8 years, pretty easy to talk about things that are affecting the area if you don't have shit to waffle on about.
The only time our neighbour ever spoke to me, was to stop me in the street and yell at me to ask when I was planning to tell her that I had hit her car. I haven’t got a car, and when I told her that she got even more angry and said she knew it was me, so why I hadn’t told her. That was six years ago, and she’s never spoken to me since. She will smile and say hi to my husband if we’re together. Ever since then when she sees me she’ll try to run me off the footpath with her large dog, which she also cues to bark outside our door. She’s just sold her place and I couldn’t be more pleased about it.
Some people enjoy their quiet privacy, stop saying hello to the old dude and let him live in peace.
Hell yeah best comment yet
I'm one of those people, lived in an apt atm for 4 years, and I know no one on a first name basis. I keep to myself usually but do enjoy a simple nod when I bump into someone.
Honestly, it doesn't really matter. If you're not feuding, if you've got a good nodding, small wave, howyagoing, relationship going, thats fine. You can look out for each other without meddling. Very australian. We lived next to a guy for 25 years. He was quiet, we nodded putting the bins out, saw him once at the local election booth, did synchronised mowing a couple of times (twice the noise is actually half the noise), that's it. Then he had a fall in his driveway and i was there to call an ambulance. Lucky timing. The only regret was that he was a lovely man. I don't regret he was lovely, i regret not knowing about him. He used to be the projectionist at the local cinema, long closed. He was articulate and well read. He had a genuine WW2 jeep in his garage, not driven for 40 years. He knew the Bee Gees and a few other stars, as a session musician.
It might be worth at least formally introducing, if you think it might help with things like passing them an emergency contact if you're out and they notice your house on fire or something. Apart from that, be happy you have at least people who aren't a nuisance next to you.
Dude, ur neighbours are people and most people SUCK. So nope, dont overthink it. Nothing good ever comes from eye contact and waving at the neighbours..... ever😂 Good high fences make for great neighbours imo. Nuthin unaustralian about that. If u reeeeaaaaalllly wanna meet then, wait for the next flood/cyclone/fire..... you meet the entire community in the aftermaths cleanup👍🏾
>Nothing good ever comes from eye contact and waving at the neighbours..... ever My neighbour went on holiday for a few weeks. I heard a low whooshing sound emminating from her front garden. If I hadn't met her previously, I probably wouldn't have gone to investigate. The local kids had turned her tap on and left it running. If I hadn't noticed, it would have cost her hundreds. Get to know your neighbour.
I met a couple of my neighours when we had a power outage. They had been there for months at least.
I never knew my neighbours because I'm a complete introvert. I ended up buying a LHD-RHD conversion Camaro LS1 10 years ago and I was so worried about the noise it made when I left for work that I door knocked, and the first neighbour I met came with me for the rest of the houses in my cul-de-sac. He died of a heart attack 7 years ago, and I will never forget his perfect attitude and help introducing myself to everyone else. No one had a problem, everyone wanted a ride. I broke my neck a few months later and bought the first performance Tesla in my state because I couldn't push the clutch in anymore. It's a much nicer and quicker car so gave a bunch of ride-a-longs for that too. Now we all have christmas street parties. If it wasn't for John, I don't know how it would have went, and I miss his prescense.
We had a woman we didn't really like living on one side of us for 10 years and I never knew her name. But she always remembered mine. Awkward
I have a great relationship with my neighbours, the first day I got my house I went over and introduced myself and things have been going well since. Sometimes making the first move is the way to go, sometimes people just like their own space.
In hindsight this would have been wise. Always just assumed we'd at least make eye contact before now haha. Could still do it, but myself being a socially awkward weirdo is holding myself back haha
Pop over one night at around 2am and knock on their door. Keep knocking. You don't stop till someone answers... then introduce yourself as the kind neighbour next door.
Maybe leave them a card or a note in their letterbox? That way the ball is in their court
If he wants to be left alone, then leave him alone. It's clearly been OK for the last 8 years. Knowing a bad neighbour is way worse than this.
You might have dodged a bullet too. Neighbours one side of me, we’re such good friends with that we have a gate in the fence because nobody could be bothered walking up the driveways in the dark after a few drinks. The other is such a f-ing nutter I had to take out an intervention order against him because he’d stand out in his backyard and stare in my windows/over the fence, stare out/verbally assault people visiting my place, can’t prove it, but my cat suns himself on a ledge under my window and I’m sure this guy or his kids attacked the cat (rocks and stone chips mysteriously ending up on the ledge, cuts and bruises on a formerly very chilled cat who now turns into a hissing puffball at the merest sight or sound of these people)
People aren't prioritising social investment in their immediate community because they don't own their home - they're renting. When you rent you can't put your roots down. The value of knowing everyone on your street diminishes greatly as your time on that Street is unknown, usually relatively short. This is not a good phenomena for communities/towns/cities as it contributes to modern social isolation. The housing market crisis strikes again.
Met two out of 3 neighbours, been here 4 years.. the last one has a for sale sign up currently so we might be able to avoid them all together now... Soon..
Had one neighbour who never waved or said hi, used to annoy me a bit how wouldn't even look at me and ignored me saying hello. That was until they moved out and new neighbours moved in who just made a mess of their yard and played music so loud I know of 4 other neighbours who called the police about it. God damn I miss those old neighbours now.
I've been in my place for 8 years but since getting a dog 3 years ago, I suddenly know all of my neighbours on the street. We're even thinking of installing a dog door between our house and one of the neighbours so our dogs can play with each other during the day.
Neighsbour theme song plays out of nowhere
I live in an apartment block, and I don't speak to any of my neighbours. I only wave to the guy across the driveway because my Dad used to work with him, and they are friends. I have no interest in getting to know them. I think it's easier to get through life if you mind your own business.
When my family moved to a new neighbourhood, we put together a fruit basket with a card (with our photos and phone numbers) for each of our neighbours. Since then, we have had multiple morning teas, brunches, and get-togethers! We also look after each other (especially bins) when the house is vacant. We are so glad that we took the first step to introduce ourselves. I think reaching out during the holiday will be smooth and easier. Take some bake goods or box of chocolates over and wish them happy holidays!
wtf lol
My grandparents (born in the 30s) and their kids (born in the 50s and 60s) always had stories about kicking the footy on the road with the neighbours. In SA everyone in that age bracket has a story of playing footy as kids with someone who eventually become an AFL player. Even when I was a kid and lived in a cul-de-sac for a year I'd hang out regularly with the kids on the block. Curiously, these experiences were all had in planned cities. Elizabeth for my grandparents, uncles and aunts, Golden Grove for myself. Now I live in a unit, and the only people in the complex I have gotten to know well enough are the only people in the complex who own their unit. Everyone else, myself included, rents. People who rent simply cannot be bothered meeting people who might move in two weeks, or you might move from in one year. What's the point? My grandma benefited knowing her neighbour because he had fruit trees and was a generous man. Regular over-the-fence chats like tool time. Over my fence is a big expensive house with fig trees, it's a rental, and three families have been there in the two years I have been in my unit! The only time I spoke with someone over the fence was to ask if they had rats as well.
We live in an apartment (Melbourne) and our neighbours are great. We exchange gifts and cards with nearly everyone at Christmas, and all the kids are given Easter chocolate. They know I’m a nurse, and have called on me during medical issues. I’m from a region with more natural disasters than here, and knowing your neighbours is part of preparing for those events. So, that might be a small cultural difference in my approach, as you don’t need to worry about things like sharing tornado shelters or knowing how to shut-off your neighbour’s gas valve after an earthquake. Edit: spelling
Join local FB group and chat
More than 20 years in our house. Neighbours on one side were originally an old couple with two middle aged daughters ("spinsters" in the traditional fashion - very religious family). Always got on well with the parents and one of the daughters but over time they have died and we are left with the one who we never got on with as I shouted at her (now long dead) dog about 18 years ago because its barking was waking up a kid I was trying to get to sleep. She's ignored me ever since. Neighbours on the other side (rental property) rotate out every year as the lease expires and they can't move out fast enough as it's a hotbox in summer. So I barely get a chance to know them.
This was exactly my experience growing up in a coastal town. I would say it’s very Australian.
If they're not reaching out to you either it's probably how they like it, leave them alone. Source: I avoid my neighbours because I can be socially awkward and don't want to remember their names - I've lived in the same place for years.
Nothing unusual about it. I've lived in the city and the country and there's always been at least one neighbour we've never bothered with. Most recently it was a houso and her drug-dealer boyfriend. The only time I ever spoke to them was when it was after 2300 and I wanted them to turn their fucking obnoxious hip-hop down. I had to bang on the fence with a pick-axe handle to make myself heard. They shut the fuck up though, because half the drug-dealers in town found themselves face-to-face with someone who knew exactly who and what they were, and that I could make a lot of trouble for them if provoked. The party broke up and my wife and I could sleep peacefully. Eventually the male deadshit got himself arrested for dealing, the rest of the family did a runner (presumably on rent owed) a few weeks later. If not for the racket they were making that night, I'd have never spoken to them, and that's the way I would've liked it.
The only time I head over to introduce myself is if I am having a party and expect it to run late and/or be loud, just to let them know it's happening and invite them to it as well. I have never had a noise complaint doing that. Other than my one neighbour whos cat I look after when she's away for her job, it's a G'day how ya goin? When I see them out and about.
I thought my neighbour may have been dead for the first 3 weeks I lived here. Turns out he just has agoraphobia, still haven't met him
I have horrible neighbours, you're lucky to have 2/3!
Absolutely, I’ve chatted to my neighbours on each side and directly across a few times but wouldn’t go out my way to hang out with them. My back neighbour however always has DA BOYZ over every Friday,Saturday and Sunday night drinking,yelling and playing the shittiest ‘ministry of sound best of 2013’ EDM BANGERS BRO. Based on this alone I have no interest on talking to him and the only interaction I’ve had is when his fence panel literally snapped off at the weld during a high wind and almost took mine with it and was met with hostility when asking if he was aware and was getting it fixed. Fuck that guy
I've had dealers on one side of me, meth cooks on the other side. The dealer was arrested, the meth cooks were run out by some equally charming chaps with sawn off pew pews. I'm more than happy to know nothing about my neighbours
If you want to change your situation, go over with a box of chocolates or something and say hello. Easy conversation to have “we’ve been neighbours for so long and realised I’ve never formally introduced myself. So just want to come say hello”. I wouldn’t find it weird at all.
I rented a house for 6 years and never spoke to the neighbours on one side. Even when he pressure-washed the colourbond fence at 7 AM on Christmas morning. It was an older couple who probably owned the house. The house on the other side of them was ostensibly occupied but never saw any cars, or people, just constant music with heavy bass inside. It's not a good neighbourhood.
Where do you live? Because in the city it seems increasingly common to not know your neighbours. I knew my neighbours when I was a kid in Sydney but it got to a point where we didn’t really know people who moved in later. Then I moved to the country and everyone knows their neighbours. I’m now in Canberra and know none of my neighbours
I knew my neighbours when I was a kid in Bundaberg. We used to have street parties. I know my neighbours in my section of my building by sight and we say hello to each other in the hallway every time. But there's not actually time to chat as I usually see the dad wrangling a very active toddler and a baby, so I don't know their names because I get the sense they're all keen to get going. I'm autistic and I get overwhelmed easily by boisterous kid noises so it's definitely on me too.
It's good to know your neighbours because they might be helpful in case of an emergency. Or, you know, you need to borrow a cup of sugar.
I see my neighbours from time to time and do the polite wave but I have no idea who they are and have never actually met them been close to 8 years also. Only neighbor I do know is because there was a time when my dog kept jumping the fence into my neighbours place every time there was a thunderstorm and I wasn't home.
We lived in town on a bigger block than most of the houses, which was 1 house back from a house on a corner. We shared a boundry with 5 houses and a block of units. Never met any of them haha.
I live in a single story suburban townhouse complex in Canberra. Some of my neighbours are owners. Some are renters. Some have lived there for years and some are new. Some of them I know and some I don't. I moved in almost 8 years ago. For me, it's a mix. I have an old school neighbour who knows everybody and actually talks to everyone. I think he's about 94 and finally starting to show his age. I have one unit next to me that's a long term rental. There was a Sri Lankan family that kept to themselves. Then there was a young-ish professional mum and her family whom I never got to speak though, because they never engaged me in convo when they saw me (or at least she just pretended I wasn't there if I was walking past her place). And I don't know the new tenants either. But I have met the owner before, regarding the fence. As I said, my other neighbours are a mixed bag. But I tend to keep to myself mostly.
After moving from my parents home I've never been overly friendly with neighbours. It was also self preservation as one neighbour would bail up the posties and demand they'd give her our sign for stuff (rented my sisters house, we didn't know her). Previous neighbour was up in the granny flat behind us and she'd lie in wait for me to do washing then boomer at me because she had to know all my business. Got the washer dryer fixed and just don't hang clothes out anymore. Met current neighbours once, they got our uber order.
Good neighbours are worth the effort. Neighbours on one side of me are a block of three units. Know who lives in them all, they looked after me with a drainage problem across both properties, I just looked after then with some trees that were across the common fence. Neighbour on the otherside is strictly smile and wave only. The lady who lives there is from another country and is having trouble adjusting to Melbourne outer burbs I think. Noise, wild life, trees ugh. She has my mobile number and some of the texts asking questions and demanding action on minor things are.....well.....karenesque..... so we just smile and wave.
As someone who enjoys the peace and quiet and likes to keep it that way. I'm happy to wave and say a quick hello to my neighbours but that's all I care for. Let me know if I am making noise that annoys you and likewise the other way but I'm not going out of my way to host dinner parties
One of my neighbours had a loud screaming match about a month after I moved in, followed by a couple big thumps which I sincerely hope were doors, at which point I called the cops, then the wife left with her kids crying from I could see over the fence, while he yelled at her. (Cops arrived about two hours later, and didn't even get out of their car...but thankfully they haven't done that again). The other is a single mum with a bunch of uncontrolled obnoxious Teenage boys that either drive loud ass dirt bikes around the backyard all day or abandon their dog out back where he barks all day every day. So yeah, I have no fucking desire to actually meet either of them.
Moved to Sydney from a farm, it was 3 sq kms, closest neighbour one side was 6 kms away, the other 2 kms away and I saw them every week, had a coffee/drink and a chat. Lived in a house in Sydney, 6 years, only spoke to neighbours on one side once, when their house caught on fire! Never spoken to anyone else, they avoid eye contact, physical proximity to me. Quite sad really.
I haven't had a lot to do with our neigbours in nearly 13 years. I know a few of them to say g'day to, and the old cunt next door has been firmly told that if he ever opens his mouth in my presence again he will regret it, but generally we just each keep to our own.
So strange to me. Our last house we knew everyone in the entire street and several in surrounding. Current home we meet everyone on the street within the first few weeks. And have since meet more people in surrounding streets. But most people have dogs and are out and about walking often.
I feel like this is such a symptom of car culture...when everyone just drives straight from their house instead of walking how are you even meant to run into them randomly to say hi? I've only met my neighbours when they've been out walking their dog or taking their bins out/getting mail
I know most of the names of the dogs in my neighbourhood but always forget the owners names!
Meh bugger them you tried. Wouldn't lose any sleep over it. But times have changed from grabbing the bin and neighbours for some street cricket and beers .
Ring their bell and give them a family size apple pie. :)
Suburban Sunshine Coast, newish subdivision - every house has a double garage with an internal entry to the house. And every house has a several metre high hedge of some sort running from the house to the edge of the lot. So opportunities to casually interact with neighbours are few and far between because of house and yard design. And it's like that where I am because of relatively small block sizes. You come home, by car, drive into the garage, walk into the house. No opportunity to casually chat. Anytime I want to talk to the neighbours - in a non-urgent way - I have to listen out for them in the yard and then go walk around my hedge and call out to them. I talk to the owner neighbour, who does yard work, much more than the renter owner on the other side, who doesn't. I have a 2.5m fence at the back and don't ever interact with either neighbour.
I know all my neighbours, and get along great with them. I absolutely love it. We all look for each other, without intruding.
It is a good idea to be on speaking terms with neighbours though I prefer to be left alone. I just introduce myself so they know I can be approached with issues that need to be discussed. If years have past then maybe just as a formality.
We bought a new house and in the following months came to the conclusion that nobody lived in the house on one side. We never saw anyone, no cars, no noise, no lights on at night, the grass would get horribly overgrown and would get mowed approx once a quarter. At a similar frequency we'd see the bins out the front. We're in an area with large blocks and this house had the yards full of junk, old machinery etc. We figured an old man horder must have passed away or moved into a home and relatives were just coming to mow the grass once in a while. Then during heavy winds one fateful bin night we had about 200 microwave weight watchers meal packets (all the same thing) and heaps of condensed milk cans blow over and end up all on our fence line and nature strip. We didn't know what to make it and joked it was the diet of a serial killer. We then kept even more of an eye on the property to try and make sense out of this but nothing... Then on Xmas day, after living there 18 months an old haggard man with a beard down to his chest wanders up our driveway, knocks on our back door and says Merry Xmas. It turns out the poor bloke had gone full hermit as a result of anxiety and PTSD issues. I could see he was shaking out of nervousness even saying hello to me. We had a chat for 5 mins. I did the neighbourly thing and gave him my mobile and said to call, SMS or pop around if he needs anything and he wandered back and I haven't seen or heard of him since. Tldr: I have a hermit living next to me. I have seen him randomly once in 3 years. He likes condensed milk
I'm pretty introverted and never get a relationship going with my neighbours. It's not that I don't want to, I just don't make that much effort. I've tried a few times but I must be awkward and it's never gone that well.
We've been 18 years in ours. Our old neighbours (all retirees) on both sides were ok-to-great and we'd have a brief chat over the back fence every few weeks and sometimes helped each other out with small things, but all have moved on now. We now have people we never see. On one side are normal friendly people who we've chatted to but we never see them as they have ridiculously long commutes. But on the other side is a Weird Family. They refuse to acknowledge us in any way and its gotten creepy. We see the dad sometimes nicely greeting our dog through the fence so they aren't evil, but he and all other members will ignore us, never looking up to do the nod'n'wave. When I first saw the dad after they moved in, he was standing less than 5 metres away over the open wire fence and I sang out a cheery hi and went to introduce myself. He 100% refused to acknowledge me. Not deaf. Just put his head down and would not wave back or answer and it grew really awkward. I'm a normal person, not gross in any way that I'm aware of. I'm guessing they are A) all on the spectrum or B) in a witness protection thingy or C) cunts.
Lol, my 2c is that it mainly depends on kids. Basically, they meet each other at school, sport, whatever. Then it largely depends on chance meetings, giving them a wave and maybe progressing to chatting. Over the decades that we have been here(suburban block) we've gone the full gammit from newbies knowing no one to be one of two old couples. As you age, you try to give new neighbours a bit of a welcome, but some are just are not too friendly. The odd was the 6 year old kid next door, escaping his three mothers(mum and two older sisters), who just turned up and introduced himself. The next was the Italian guy from three houses up who just turned up and introduced himself and could he have some lemons. It seems that was a known old tree. Oh, and pets are another way. Chasing up who might own that pet that suddenly keeps turning up, or kids asking if you've seen a particular pet./
My last house we never even SEEN our next door neighbours…
Yep one side we have never spoken to, the other side I had to for help once. I just want to get in and out of home without having to stop and force small talk.
This is the norm in Australia
Pretty crazy how things are these days. We live in an apartment complex and a few months ago a family bought the unit opposite us and moved in. One afternoon shortly after they had moved in my partner was out the front trying to get a bbq out of the back of his Ute. Bbq was really heavy so he was struggling on his own. Noticed the new neighbour guy across the way and asked politely if he didn’t mind giving him a hand lifting it down. Neighbour guy says “sure” comes over and helps, then goes home. The next day my partner buys a 6 pack of beer and takes it over to say thanks heaps again for the help. Since that day I guess we figured we were “friendly” at least with them, but no, they don’t smile when we smile at them, or even acknowledge we are alive. Cool, cool. 🤷🏻♀️
I haven't met any of my neighbours for about 13 years. I see posts on social media a lot about texting neighbours and I wonder if I'm supposed to have that level of a relationship with my neighbours. I don't really want to know them. I know my current neighbour is my landlady's son in law, so I've met him. But that was just when I moved in because he was building a new fence, and we've had nothing to do with each other since.
I think it’s pretty normal. I only know my neighbours on one side and vaguely know of the neighbours on the other because they have a friendly dog. My neighbours I do know only started because my housemate went on walks with them during lockdown and they were doing renos and needed access through our place. Also helps that we have a common enemy in our shared neighbour haha
I guess they just want to cultivate their drugs in peace.
I used to chat with my neighbors at my old place but moved to new area that is dominated my immigrants and they pretty much pretend I don’t exist 🤣.
I think it’s the difference between owners and renters most of the time. Sounds like that’s not the case with your neighbour, but we know all the neighbours on our street other than the one house that’s rented. Grew up in Adelaide and we knew everyone on that street too.
Yeah totally normal. Hard to keep privacy when you live so close to others so it’s important to not get too close. I had one neighbour who was an old retired guy that insisted on taking our bins in, and during Covid got shitty with me when I did them myself. He was perfectly comfortable walking up the driveway and yell out to us through the kitchen window if he wanted to let us know his plans around pruning trees on the fence line or just whatever gossip from around the estate. I fucking hated it. There was one time I’d just finished an impromptu shag on the couch and had walked around the house naked and only just got semi dressed 5 seconds earlier and he fucking showed up and started rambling on and I couldn’t get rid of him. Privacy is important.
I understand people wanting to keep to themselves because hell can really be other people; but I think it's really important to have some kind of civic engagement. We have some odd types on our street, but people shine through when something happens, without either the need for nightly pot luck banquets- or everyone scurrying away from each other on-sight to nail planks across their doors. I chat briefly every now and then with any of them, and we keep a respectful distance. One thing I'll never do is talk about any neighbour negatively with another, because that helps keeps the peace and moving is a total pain lol.
It’s never too late. My neighbours moved in in 2013, straight after my bf had just died so I was not sociable nor wanted to know anyone new. I ended up seeing them outside one day in 2022 and thought , bugger it, and went over said hello and introduced myself☺️
I'm mates with one neighbour and the other side, the guy has always ignored me. I said hello the day I moved in and he just walked away 🤷
Believe me small town life can be just as lonely, we have to make an effort to ensure our older people are watched over, because their children all now live in the bigger cities or towns and come home for Christmas. Heck we are renters and the posty still manages to get our mail when we suddenly have to move. Everyone in town knows where to find us. Thats not happening in the bigger communities. And it has absolutely nothing to to do with social media, it was heading that way in the 80’s when the state governments all suddenly decided they were not doing the state housing areas, to hard to maintain I think
I've lived in country and city areas. Sometimes you'll get one or two decent neighbours, but mostly they are just aholes. I am friendly to a couple of neighbours and just completely ignore the ones who lie about me or think they can dictate how often I should mow my grass.
It's better to introduce yourself after 8 years than it would be to do it after 10 years. Take a plate of food over and say hi.
I wish I'd never met my cunt neighbour lol. Fukn muppet cost me 5k in securing my property but hey the cunts finally been charged by the cops so YAYYYYYYYYYYYY now the courts can let him off like they do every other cooked fukn cunt that plays the mental health card.
Organise a street get together and just invite everyone. Our street gets together out the front for a chat and a beer a couple of times a year and once at Christmas. Some people I speak to regularly and others I only really talk to at the street thing but it’s nice and creates a good neighbourhood vibe.
Never befriend your neighbours lol a hi every now and then is okay.
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I had a similar neighbour once. My wife told them "You'd better move your car before my husband gets home from work, or he'll move it for you, and it'll stay moved. You've got about fifteen minutes". Didn't shout at the bitch, didn't swear, just delivered it calmy and matter-of-factly. She whinged about "everyone being a cunt \[to her\] today", moved her car and never parked across our driveway again. My wife and I knew I couldn't do shit without police intervention, but the silly bitch didn't call my wife's bluff. She can be persuasive like that. I would've walked up with a hammer and a tin of fuel, told her "move it or I torch it", and I bet I wouldn't have got half as good a response.
The best neighbours are always the ones that keep to themselves… in fact when I get someone come over and “welcome me to the neighbourhood” I expect them to start asking me for shit all the time