JFF: Celebrating the Great Neighbors

Sigh. You gave me hope for neighbors. My neighbors take my tomatoes off my plants, break my clothesline, and in general attract the attention of both the police and human services. It's nice to know there are good neighbors out there!!

Aw, you make me miss our awesome neighbors. For the first 10 years of my oldest girl's life we lived in a traditional neighborhood, sidewalks, big fenced backyards and lawns.

We bonded with the coolest family ever. Four girls under the age of 6 were built in best friends for my girls, just two doors down. They remember riding bikes, running in the sprinkler, sidewalk chalk, art "shows" and plays, entering the town's rodeo parade every year with the most awesome homemade "floats", 4th of July, BBQ's and picnics. We had a house full of fun and laughter. Something was always going on, so much fun!

We now live in a big beautiful house in a great town but large wooded lots and no sidewalks make for people keeping to themselves. I don't think anyone has knocked on my door uninvited for three years!

We are going to pick up those "little" girls tomorrow for a sleep over. The oldest just turned 15 but they are still our sweet friends who feel like family. Our two families are from VERY different worlds and we likely would never have bonded but for living so close. Being neighbors all those years made us friends for life.

Well right now I am in the hospital. Was pretty sick. Finally turned the corner today. My daughter works in another hospital and will be spending the night due to the blizzard. She will fill in for those that could not get in. That leaves my husband home alone to shovel. He is an active guy but I do worry about the shoveling, especially if I am not there. My neighbor came and plowed our driveway and said he will do it again tomorrow. I am so grateful to him and I can rest.

I was critically ill when my kids were young. Without the support of my neighbors and community, don't know how we would have survived. So in 2000 to celebrate 25 years of marriage, we threw a huge thank you party for everyone involved. We had over 200 people and in our thank you speech, I remembered and acknowledged what each one did for us. It was the best party ever. Think DJ stayed until 2am because we were having so much fun. Nothing like good neighbors.

We have a great neighborhood. We have a roster of people's names & email addresses, and we use it to welcome new neighbors and introduce them to others (especially those who have kids of babysitting age). We have an annual Labor Day cookout on one of the cul-de-sacs - everyone brings grill meat and drinks for themselves and a dish to share with neighbors. We try to mix it up so 1/4 bring appetizers, 1/4 desserts, 1/4 side dishes and 1/4 supplies like grills, plates, napkins, cutlery & condiments plus trash and recycling bins, and of course name tags. Half the people help with set up and bring tables, half do clean-up and take care of the trash. It works out great. We use grills and lawn chairs to block off the cul-de-sac, which then becomes a giant, no-traffic play area for the kids and their bikes and trikes and frisbees.

We've organized meal chains and chore crews for neighbors who are ill using the Lotsa Helping Hands free website. People pitch in to help the single mom snow blow her driveway during one of our blizzards, and just today people who had an extra bay in their garage called neighbors whose teenager or college kid has a 3rd car and said "Park inside at my place so you don't have to dig out."

We have neighborhood yard sales, splitting the cost of ads and bringing in more traffic for all the sellers. People collect either other's mail & newspapers and put out trash cans during vacations - which makes those homes looked "lived in" and therefore not a target for burglars. We walk each other's pets - I think my son had keys to about 10 hours during middle school and high school. And he turned that into a business to put on his college applications. Other kids took over his "clients" when it was their turn. And, of course, we are all on each other's emergency lists for the schools and we grab each other's kids off the bus if someone's delayed.

Recently, one of the moms on our street participated in a mini-triathlon. Neighbors surreptitiously had a sign-making party the day before, and when she got up on the morning of the event and headed down her driveway, she was greeted by signs stuck in about 4 or 5 yards wishing her good luck.

It's really just a great place to live.

I have the best neighbours. I entered them in the "Great Canadian Neighbour" contest on a local radio show and they won a prize. He is a wine maker and if I buy the wine kit he makes it for me. They grow an amazing veggie garden and if we water it while they go on vacation we get all the veggies we can pick, and they still give us steak and wine to thank us. They have us over for dinner on a regular basis, and often drop treats like home made sushi, fresh baked breads, pies and cookies, wine and homemade beer off at my door. Last year when my washing machine broke I did laundry at their house for two weeks. They've watched the kids on many occasions, rescued me when my car broke down, they have lent us all kinds of tools and appliances. They have organized bbq's for new families moving into the neighbourhood. They are like parents to us and grandparents to our kids. They are amazing. I could never repay them for all that they do!

my last neighbor became my forever friend and someone we plan on retiring in the same place with. she was my 'beer' buddy though none of us are big drinkers, she is someone when i would have enough of kiddos and hubby on a weekend or weeknight i'd go sit for a few minutes and laugh.
miss her so much. miss her sarcasm and her sense of humor and her stories and everything.

Oh good, another question to answer, another reason to procrastinate!

Our next door neighbor boy is great. He comes over to take care of our cat when we are gone. He even tries to play with her. But she's a grumpy grouchy girl and just hisses and runs away. So glad the neighbor doesn't take it personally and is still willing to pet sit for us. We pay him with cash and Legos, since we usually stop by the Lego store when we travel to Portland or Los Angeles. The neighbor doesn't care about the cash but looks forward to the legos.

I miss my old neighborhood. We had a babysitting coop. Which was great for exchanging free child care. But even better, we organized block parties, petitioned (and won) a neighborhood park from the City Council, and left the kids home with the dads at least once a month for a mom's night out.

My neighbor across the street frequently does small things like warning us when we might actually have a freeze so we can wrap our exposed outdoor pipes or when one of our sprinklers goes ballistic or taking care of our trash cans if we are away on garbage pick-up day.

But one Sunday, my husband's parents came down to watch the kids as my husband and I both had hockey games to play in at conflicting times in different rinks. I left before my husband. When my husband left, they were all playing outside in the backyard. And out of habit, he locked the sliding glass door when he closed it and took off.

When it started to get dark and cool down, the grandparents decided to come inside....only to find they had been locked out. They went to our neighbor's house who tried to call and text us, but we were both on ice making it difficult to hear or carry our phones.

The neighbors do not have any kids so they aren't really kid people. But they took the kids inside with grandma and played games with them while grandpa drove to the rink where my husband was, tracked him down, and were told where the hide-a-key was. Grandpa then called back and my neighbor retrieved the key for them so they could get back inside.

I felt terrible when I finally got back to my phone and had lots of messages, even though I wasn't the one that locked them out. (Note: grandma had been told on multiple occasions in the past where the hide-a-key was, but didn't remember that until they were told again.)

One of our neighbors has a pool.
Their kids are grown and they don't even use the pool themselves.
MANY times, when we were having play dates with like 4-6 other kids, the neighbor would pop his head over our fence and invite the kids over to play in the pool. They are nice normal good neighbors.
And of course, me or my Husband would go along to supervise.
And they also let my kids "borrow" their cute dog, to play with in our yard. (we don't have a dog).

I don't have great neighbors, but I do have a sweet lady in my neighborhood who walks her dog daily and is so sweet to my kids. She is constantly complementing me on how well behaved, smart and sweet my kiddos are. She says I am the best mom and it is so flattering but I don't know what to say other than thank you....

Reading all of these makes me so jealous. My neighbor broke the concrete on our fence post, called the cops on us for taking a picture of the fence, broke our sprinkler, lets their dog bark and wake us up at 2am, woke up my kids when they backed a boat into their yard at 11:30pm bumping their house screeching the tires and scraping their side of the fence, spread rumors and lies about us, lied about us under oath in court and they've only been here two years. We've lost a number of "friends" because of them but I don't want "friends" like that anyway. On the other side, the guy just told my husband when they moved in, they hoped we would move out. We only had only lived here 6 months when they moved in so there was no chance of that. Its wonderful you all have such nice neighbors

My husband once started to back out of the garage with the door down. The garage door was pushed off the tracks, the panels bent all to heck. I thought we'd need a new door, but our neighbor to the right came over with some tools and advice and the two of them got it fixed it in a couple of hours.

The neighbor to the left brought his chainsaw over after a storm and helped take care of the tree branches that were too big to move.

A neighbor behind us will use his mega snowblower in the alley in front of our garage so that the snowplow doesn't push it back onto the slab.