apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The same thing was happening here in SLC. We walked to our regular Sunday brunch spot, and on our meandering walk back we found everyone out and about -- dogs, cats, neighbors, and songbirds. It felt like the city was waking up.

While we were planning out the space for some raised garden beds, a new neighbor came to introduce herself and ask if she could pick some lilacs from her side of the fence when they bloom. It felt nice to be reminded that the strangers behind those doors don't bite. :-)

I helped my neighbor get his bike out of my half of the building where it was stored, and loaned him my pump (boy do those tires get flat in 4 months!).

However, the basement neighbors acted "neighborly" by being out in the yard after 11pm and talking loudly. Next time there will be an angry throwing open of the window and bitching out of those who apparently don't have to work in the morning. Rude!

uh, speaking of being neighborly... maybe start with a polite request, instead of an "angry... bitching out"? You're heading down a no-win path if you can't at least start with a polite request. And they'll think you're the one that's "Rude!"

There definitely was a feeling of everyone coming out of hibernation.

Saturday, at work, a neighborly store owner was celebrating on our patio with some friends and after 5 bottles of champagne they continued to celebrate in the street. After asking them to get out of the street I was brushed away with a, "yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever." Not very neighborly.

I hope to meet some friendly neighbors around my apartment this summer.

It's funny that you post this - this past weekend, I was walking my two chihuahuas in what is supposedly a friendly neighborhood in Alexandria City, VA (Del Ray), just outside of DC. I came across another person in the neighborhood (lives on the same street) walking his small dog, and I said hi. He looked at me with total distain, and walked off. I was, like, ooookay.

My neighbors in my former DC 'hood (Columbia Heights) were much more friendlier - much more of a family atmosphere where I hung out regularly with persons of all ages (e.g., people who have lived in their houses across generations), races, and income levels who lived on my street. (The move to Northern VA was a compromise location between myself and my partner).

I always leave cookies or treats or whatever for one of my neighbors whenever I make some, but NOT for the jerks who live directly below me. If they weren't such horrible neighbors in general - loud noise, bags of dirty diapers in the hallway) they'd get cookies too.

Sometimes on really hot days when i'm working at home, I bring a box of popsicles back from shopping for the kids who play on the street right below my window, but I wonder how much longer I can do that with the way the world is getting so protective ... you can't even be nice to kids without people wondering suspiciously why. That makes me really sad.

How exactly am I being rude by trying to sleep on a Sunday night, erica? Common courtesy dictates that in a public space after dark, one keep it down. I apologize for having learned manners.

In Southern California, I see my neighbors all the time since the weather's fairly nice. It especially helps that I'm out and about walking our dog a lot. While my neighbors might not remember me, they always remember our French bulldog!

sadly, i'm in a situation where i am currently trying to get one of my neighbors evicted...she's HORRIBLE (loooong story-- I've been dealing with it for a year)

but luckily one of my best friends lives on the other side of me, so that kindof makes up for it.

"sadly, i'm in a situation where i am currently trying to get one of my neighbors evicted...she's HORRIBLE (loooong story-- I've been dealing with it for a year)"

I wonder how she thinks of her neighbors?

There are exceptions, but living outside your house here in Phoenix is pretty rare. People have the art of cocooning down. They wake up in their houses, climb into their cars in their garages, drive off to work, come home and pull straight into their garages, and so on. Lawns are usually desert landscaped with thick aggregate, so they're not exactly friendly for a game of horseshoes, and in many neighborhoods, houses aren't even fronted by sidewalks. Things are a little different in my condo complex, though it's funny to see that almost all of us have patio furniture, but few of us actually sit out and use it. I'm glad I at least know the names of most of my neighbors and can say hello to them.

We live in a rural community where most people really value their privacy. It's great that most of our neighbors are rarely seen or heard.

However, we recently installed a fence around the front yard and, for some reason, people want to come in now! We're in the market for a big "No Trespassing KEEP OUT!!" sign to discourage unwanted visitors. Some people just need to be reminded that private property is PRIVATE.

I used to have wonderful neighbors that lived in the garden level apartment. When I would return home from work they would sitting outside and always ask me to join them for wine. There were many nights that is was well past 10:00 by the time I actually made it upstairs to my place.

I moved and still have some great neighbors, but it isn't the same.

An Australian launched something called "Neighbour day." It simply encourages people to "Say G'day to your neighbours."

http://www.neighbourday.org/

I have only met two of my neighbours in my Rental house area. One came over while we were moving in to lend a hand, another came over the day after we moved in to say a quick HI. We soon discovered that no one else was really worth meeting. Lol. Sad to say. Rowdy teenagers (I'm 20 ha ha ha) who throw a party almost every 2 nights, live two houses down on both sides of us. We don't have an across the street. Aparently where we live, a drugged up couple with 4 young children who were disasters on legs used to live. The only reason the neighbours introduced themselves was because they were glad to have a nice quiet couple move in!!! Glad to see we're good neighbours!!

Our neighbors are nice, they all say hi and smile. They all walk and jog by and still stop to say hello. People from all generations live in our area, the lady next door is 80 and very active still. She goes all over the neighborhood saying hello to people. Anytime she sees us working in the yard, she brings over a garden tool that we never heard of that ends up working 100 times better than what we were originally using! Some new people just moved in behind us, I really hope they are nice too.

'I apologize for having learned manners.'

We've clearly learned different kinds of 'manners' if the first time you let a neighbor know you have a problem with their behavior, it's with angry 'bitching out'. And aside from whether it's polite or not, it's just unlikely to get you the result you want!

I've been living in my building for 3 years and I'm finally getting to know my neighbors because of our little backyard garden. The couple upstairs has taken the initiative to get it set up and organize the other tenants who want to plant. I live in a building with some cool people I'd love to get to know, but I admit that without their making the effort I probably wouldn't have known how.

Im in NYC and its taken me both conversations and notes to evoke even basic human behavior from my supposedly well educated yet truly piggish illegally subletting neighbors downstairs. So far they have more or less learned to not leave garbage in the tiny shared hallway landing and not simply toss all the mail onto the inside steps after removing just theirs, but actually take 3 seconds and sort it as I have sorted theirs for years! Someday maybe they'll even sweep the shared steps. Well a girl can dream, at least. And yes, honey works better than vinegar. If you have cool neighbors, count yourself blessed.

We are so so lucky and blessed in our neighborhood. We know pretty much everyone on our street. We live in a new subdivision and it helps that there are only 50 houses instead of 300 like you see normally in others. I think it also helped that most of us moved around same period and since we are all new, we wanted to get to know each other. I'm normally shy but my husband is one of those very gregarious, make friends with everyone type of person so we just started introducing ourselves to our neighbors. When the weather's nice (even when it's not) we've been out working on our yard and we have neighbors bringing us beer! We threw a 4th of July and Labor Day bonfire party last year and now we are "obligated" to have one every year. :) We've gone to our neighbors' Christmas parties, birthday parties, invited to dinner and cocktails, etc. We haven't had this busy social life since college days. We love living here and we've made some wonderful friends.

Yesterday Mike and I had the extendable ladder out to clean our second story windows. Since we had the ladder up we decided to clean our neighbor's windows for them. We howled with laughter wondering what they would say when they came into the room . . . what the . . . ???

We're waiting to see if they ask us about it. I guess this makes us Windex Fairies.