Neighbours, experiences and general chat

I'm letting off steam by talking about my neighbours.  Others are welcome to join with their problems/experiencesHugging

I know some of us have big problems dealing with our neighbours. There is a recent thread about serious harassment.

I and my family have always had problems with our neighbours.  Often it's our fault, sometimes it's the eccentric/nutty neighbours with their peculiar habits.  An additional problem was language.  Both my parents were WWIi refugees from eastern Europe, and they never learnt to speak adequate English.  Much of their behaviour was trying to disguise that fact because they were secretly ashamed of it.

At present I live in a first floor flat and I get the feeling my neighbours are shunning me.  No surprise.  I'm anti social, I talk to myself and take photographs from my windows of the local wildlife.

Previously I lived with my parents in house with a large garden. And They had more mental health issues than me.  On that Street we were shunned by the normal residents Relieved

One neighbour who I never spoke with used to hide as I walked past.  At that time I was either studying or working away from home and came home once a week or two weeks.  As I walked past his house,  I noticed a quick swift movement as he hid behind a tree or went round the side of his house.  I finally found out the reason for this on the day of his funeral!!!!

Another neighbour who I will call Mrs K was an eccentric,. Spoke my mother's language and at one time used to visit us up to 4 times a day.  On her way to church, on her way home.  On her way to the shops, on her way home.  She was always stressed out, in a bad mood and depressing.  Short conversations were complaining about her next door neighbour (FOR TWENTY YEARS) what time he comes in at night, knocking nails, moving furniture, his drunken tenants, his gardening, him sitting outside his house enjoying the sunshine.  My mother joked, " if he farts in his own house, she will come round here and complain about it".  Other news she always have us from her daily church visits.  Were, who's died and when's the funeral.

I avoided her as much as possible.  Eventually she fell out with my mother over trivia and didn't visit or speak to her again for ten years, until they both past away in the same month.

Then we had a Mrs M.  Very different from Mrs K.  This woman became a pest.  Started of very well.  She was very sociable and smiling and first time I spoke to her she told me. 'your family is not very popular on this street' that was an understatement.

Physically she was very healthy.  But mentally unstable,. She started coming round every day and complaining that people wouldn't talk to her, were shunning her etc.  Whenever I was doing something in the garden or external house maintenance, she came round with a big smile, round face, hypnotic voice and very very strong eye contact .  And started a conversation that just wouldn't end.  Often about families, their health, holidays, relationships, who married to who, have they brothers and sisters, children, school. Work, etc etc etc.  And this repetitive conversation would go on for well over an hour and then she came round a day or two later and repeated the whole boring conversation all over again and again and again.

No wonder people were avoiding her.  Mrs K used to cross the road whenever she saw her in the distance.

When I moved out into a flat, she just kept on phoning me in a bad temper with the same conversation and always complaining that I don't phone her often enough.  Until I changed my phone number.

End of rant for now.  Need breakfast.

Parents
  • I miss my old Street and the characters, just as I was starting to get to know the people I had to move when the house was sold.

    Another sad, very sad story.  To understand then one needs to know more background. 

    We lived on the corner of a main Street and a cul dear sac, which had  a couple of blocks of flats at the end.

    We moved there in 1979 and two of the regular passers by were a couple who we saw almost every day.  I never spoke to them but knew they lived in the flats.  I learnt from Mrs M ( who knew everything about everybody). That they both worked part time in the same pub.  They were always walking together for around thirty years.

    Around 2010 the lady died, Mrs M said it was stomach cancer.  The partner went to pieces.  Previously he was smartly dressed, quiet and always walking with her.  Now he was walking around the street all day totally intoxicated, dishevelled, crying openly and looking twenty years older.  This went on for around a month.  Then we never saw him again.  Don't know what happened to him.

    But I will always remember the shock at seeing him age 20 years in days.

  • Yeah, I miss my old street as well and although my mum and dad still live there most of the previous neighbours, who were there when I was growing up, have now left the street.  We had one older lady who was very proper indeed, called Miss J. She used to have a gentleman caller, a GP, and we found out years later, he was her lover! Shocking news! Lol! 

  • This naturally brings me to another neighbour.

    The moral of this story is that dirt sticks.

    For this to make sense, one has to understand that I am anti-social and reclusive and I discover gossip long after other people.

    Mrs A lived between Mrs M and Mr P.  She passed away peacefully aged 94 in 2014.  I think in all these years I only spoke to her twice.  However Mrs M, who hated her invited me to her funeral.

    At the funeral I sat with the neighbours and the gossip about her shocked even me.  Whatever happened with not speaking ill of the dead ?

    It turns out that she was widowed in 1975 and the neighbours at that time suspected that she may have murdered her husband, how she had mysterious gentleman callers, and nobody was aware of her husband being ill.  none of the 1975 neighbours were around now, but the rumours started then and were past down to  newcomers who moved in in later years.  I heard all this for the first time,  in whispers at the back of the church at her funeral.  I'm still shocked at these people's behaviour.

Reply
  • This naturally brings me to another neighbour.

    The moral of this story is that dirt sticks.

    For this to make sense, one has to understand that I am anti-social and reclusive and I discover gossip long after other people.

    Mrs A lived between Mrs M and Mr P.  She passed away peacefully aged 94 in 2014.  I think in all these years I only spoke to her twice.  However Mrs M, who hated her invited me to her funeral.

    At the funeral I sat with the neighbours and the gossip about her shocked even me.  Whatever happened with not speaking ill of the dead ?

    It turns out that she was widowed in 1975 and the neighbours at that time suspected that she may have murdered her husband, how she had mysterious gentleman callers, and nobody was aware of her husband being ill.  none of the 1975 neighbours were around now, but the rumours started then and were past down to  newcomers who moved in in later years.  I heard all this for the first time,  in whispers at the back of the church at her funeral.  I'm still shocked at these people's behaviour.

Children