Neighbourhood Watch: What have you seen lately?

[CrazyCatLady]

With lockdown, many of us have spent an unusual amount of time, trapped between the four walls we call 'home' and subsequently, more time only a brick wall away from our beloved next door neighbours. Perhaps that regular 8am screaming from the Teether next door that you would have normally been able to escape to go to work, has become the background noise to your whole day. Maybe, the rabble of next doors parties & night time exercise classes that you used to have to listen to (but never get an invite to) have been replaced with gurgling screams and cries of loneliness.

So, my questions to you- what stories do you have about your neighbours from lockdown? What have you seen or heard that you weren't supposed to? Any Rear Window experiences over the past year or so?

 

[Billy2Sheds]

I saw her at no 48 bringing her milk in whilst wearing a dressing gown... The Hussy.

I could see her ankles..

 

[MillieW]

Oddly, I've seen less and less of my nearest neighbours despite working at home. They are hibernating more lately. There is, however, a family opposite who have spent more time stopping to chat because they've been self isolating for a long time. Same can't be said for their kids, one of whom thought it was great fun to throw himself out of the upstairs bedroom into a small put-me-up swimming pool below the window. Luckily the only thing that broke was the silence, with the mother screaming at him and chasing him around the street for the next 20 minutes.

Fortunately for us, we're all in semi's and far enough away from each other not to hear the "alright butt?" banter that usually counts as foreplay in these parts.

 

[megs233]

I watched a beautiful Bride going off to her delayed wedding [Sunday 25th July] she planned it 3 years ago, was to be last year , The scaled down invites meant we as her neighbours was not allowed to attend. But was lovely to finally see her in this wonderful dress she kept hidden for 2 years.

 

[TwoWhalesInAPool]

Not as 'lovely' a story as Megs above but, I'm usually filming my neighbours, at 3am, in the dark, while I'm alone and using night vision cameras. Is this the sort of info. you want or should I stick to posting those vids on pornhub?

 

[CrazyCatLady]

Not as 'lovely' a story as Megs above but, I'm usually filming my neighbours, at 3am, in the dark, while I'm alone and using night vision cameras. Is this the sort of info. you want or should I stick to posting those vids on pornhub?

I would recommend sticking to porn hub. You have a more specific audience. Reaches the right kind of people, if you know what I mean.
I wonder why your neighbours haven't figured out about that bright invention called 'curtains' or the equally blinding one- blinds. If not, perhaps they like it. They know you're sitting there being all voyeuristic and are loving it.

Wait, hold on a minute- you aren't the neighbour they trust with a key, are you?
Ooh errr, missus!

 

[CrazyCatLady]

I saw her at no 48 bringing her milk in whilst wearing a dressing gown... The Hussy.

I could see her ankles..

Well, I never! The lengths some people will go to, to bring in their milk! On the doorstep in her dressing gown- honestly! I don't know what it is with these youngsters. It was never like that in the 1800's, I can tell ya! The women had class back then!

 

[CrazyCatLady]

Oddly, I've seen less and less of my nearest neighbours despite working at home. They are hibernating more lately. There is, however, a family opposite who have spent more time stopping to chat because they've been self isolating for a long time. Same can't be said for their kids, one of whom thought it was great fun to throw himself out of the upstairs bedroom into a small put-me-up swimming pool below the window. Luckily the only thing that broke was the silence, with the mother screaming at him and chasing him around the street for the next 20 minutes.

Fortunately for us, we're all in semi's and far enough away from each other not to hear the "alright butt?" banter that usually counts as foreplay in these parts.

Lol. Ouch, but funny re: the pool incident. Oh the joy of children and them not having a clue about risks and their poor mother's anxiety levels.

The past year or so, I think there has been mini-revelations going on around the country where their neighbours are concerned. Where they may have only been familiar faces passing by in the past, they've become regular every day chats or hello's, when we've been isolated from everyone else.

I miss being in a semi. Spent my teenage and young adults in one and loved that I could play my music as loud as I liked and only had one neighbour to complain. Been in terraces or flats for the past 20 years and believe me, no matter how old it is or how thick the brickwork is, you can still hear quite a bit.

 

[CrazyCatLady]

I watched a beautiful Bride going off to her delayed wedding [Sunday 25th July] she planned it 3 years ago, was to be last year , The scaled down invites meant we as her neighbours was not allowed to attend. But was lovely to finally see her in this wonderful dress she kept hidden for 2 years.

That's definitely a sight to bring a smile to one's face Did you all have a bit of a cheer and a clap?

 

[TwoWhalesInAPool]

A short while ago I saw a woman (wearing a tee-shirt and shorts) place two cats into a wheelie bin.

The back of the t-shirt had a logo that said something like JoJo(something)3(something).

She was quite a distance away, difficult to make it all out.

I've rescued the cats.

 

[CrazyCatLady]

Ok, well, I moved during lockdown and part of the reason I moved was because of my last neighbours 'activities'.

Within a week of lockdown started, their smoke alarm began going off. Every half an hour, beep beep rang through the upstairs back end of my house. At first, I was convinced it was my smoke alarm. Changed the batteries in the one upstairs, but after another full night of the beeping, changed the one downstairs too. Yet it continued. I checked every draw upstairs for the plug in smoke alarm from my old property, as we had only moved in to that house the previous year and I still had a few bits in random places. But nope- not mine.

Nights went on with this incessant beeping, every half an hour, but every time I knocked on next door, I wouldn't get an answer. Then on the first Clap for Carers, I got hold of them- asked if it was their alarm. It turned out it was and they had been 'ignoring' it. I was puzzled as to how. They had a young baby and seeing as it was loud enough to disturb me every half an hour at night, how the hell was their kid sleeping through it? They were strange- claimed they didn't know how to change the battery, then said it was connected to the electrics.

Over the course of the next couple of months, things got stranger. There was a constant hum coming from the wall that joined our properties, the smell of burning occasionally coming through the kitchen wall at 3am and from around 11pm throughout the night, their house and garden was a buzz of activity. People coming and going, and they were not particularly quiet.
Then one night, around 1am, the woman decided she was going to smash glass for a good half an hour, before sweeping it up and dumping it with a load of cardboard out the front. Their curtains were always closed and the only time you saw them was when they were leaning in to cars to talk to their friends. Then I noticed that the light in their backroom was always on and man- was it bright! I'd be out on my patio during the early hours and it was as if it was midday. I certainly didn't need a patio light.

When I complained about the buzzing through the walls (by the time I complained, I hadn't slept for a full night for nearly 5 weeks), they gave me a Special Brownie to help me sleep....

Click, click......

Now, I'm no prude and I'm definitely not a stranger to Mary Jane, but after realising what was going on, I went a little psycho. I hadn't slept or eaten properly for weeks, due to their poorly structured grow room and lack of respect from their guests, so I went all Sherlock Holmes to prove my theory. And low and behold, early hours one morning and through a gap in the open upstairs window, I witnessed a wall of leafy green illuminations.
But as I say, my neighbours exuded a confidence. Confidence that no one was clued up enough to realise what they were doing, however, I grew up with all that stuff. From the point of the 'smoke' alarms, I was joking that they were growing weed, as I knew it was a sign (the alarm was a heat sensor- not a smoke alarm), but didn't immediately believe it as they have a baby. And that confidence meant that they often had telling conversations out in the street, even having a conversation about tampering with the electric meter.
Then there were the arguments. Nearly every day, she would be screaming at him or the baby.

I arranged to move soon after. While I have no qualm with green, I do with having to listen to it grow and listen to Mrs Galindo shouting the odds.

Where I am now, I have a young man that likes being naked in front of an un-curtained window. He also likes to use the bathroom with full knowledge that the back neighbours can see through the not-so-opaque window. According to him, we are not supposed to look and are supposed to consciously avoid his house falling in our eyeline, because to be an absolute twat is his right and we have no right to expect decency. Or for him to get nets/blinds/sticky stuff that goes on the window.