Do you have any funny neighbours or...

[Jeannine]

is it just me.

All my life I have lived somewhere were I had a couple of funny neighbours, I had the old Italian man who used to come round in the dawn hours and steal my dandelions, we used to watch him from the window, furtively looking sideways as he fought to get the root out. He could have had the lot for me and a cuppa to go with them but he wanted to do it discreetly.

I had another one who went fishing every day in a man made lake, he never caught anything buy continued to do it despite all the locals teeling him there were no fish in there it had never been stocked but he insisted that neither was the sea and he was confident he woulf catch something when he found the right place.

At one time we lived next door to a farm, the owner was very strange, never married, always wore the same clothes but what was really odd was the way he was with some of his sheep, he had favourites and would would take one in to his house for the weekend sometimes,

Then there was Sid, who was married to a Slav lady , she restricted his food and when she went off to her WI meeting he used to come to our house, always had a reason, but always ate enough to keep him going for a week, he was terrified of her. He was OK, he brought me a newborn pig one Christmas day as a gift, we kept in the Aga for a few hours as it looked a bit croaky,called it Peanuts.

Then there was the farmhand from up the road who fancied me, he had never had a date in his life, he asked me out though.... to see the abattoir he worked part time in, very proud he was.

I have one now, odd sort of bloke, lives down the road a piece and sleeps in his car, he has a nice home,a  nice wife and family but he is very protective of his new car. It is quite scary if you come home late from something and you walk by, he sits up and nods.

We have the goose house.. this lady has three pet geese, not exactly the thing for a town semi but she loves them, trouble is there is nowhere for her kids to play now as her back garden is like a  skid patch.

I have another neighbour, lovely lady, but she is so careful with food. Her husband and her share a sausage for dinner, if she boils an egg she eats the yolk and he eats the white.

If I go back all my life I can think of one every where I have been,,is it just me
or do you have some strange neighbours too.

XX Jeannine

[Jeannine]

[aromatic]

 ;D ;D ;D Fortunately we are blessed with fantastic neighbours..... we are all great friends..... don't live in each others houses, but are their for each other when needed.... do have get together occasionally, especially summer barbeque's and they usually turn out to be a lot of fun!! Also have a tradition of having a get together at Christmas time which is lovely.
Must admit to knowing a few strange people though and my Mum has had a few strange neighbours...  nosy net curtain lifters as we fondly call them.... One chap called Walter used to collect wood and had loads of it stacked in his garden/shed/house a real fire hazard!!!! But reckon your 'funny' neighbours take some beating!! It certainly was a great read!

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

can we assume that all those strange neighbours you had jeannine were actually - ahem - Americans?  :D

[lorna]

or Canadians??
We have always been lucky with neighbours and have had some good times with them. Next door neighbours are a bit dodgy.....my daughter and Grandson!!!! Only kidding of course. We had an old couple living opposite who adored Joshua, Charlie and I used to laugh.Arthur would come out in to the front garden complete with all tools and wheelbarrow. He used to chat to everyone, men, ladies, children and often he would be out there for 2 hours but no gardening done. Just used to put all the tools in the wheelbarrow and take them back to the shed.

[asbean]

We have a couple up the road who, a few years ago, must have filled out those lifestyle questionnaires, you know the ones, those that generate loads of jumk mail.  They both did it, one each, but they BOTH filled out their house number as mine, not theirs.  Don't ask me why, but they did.  So no prizes for guessing who got loads and loads of junk mail - addressed to them at my house.  When I tackled them about it they said everyone gets junk mail, and I was harrassing them for asking!  It took a couple of years to reduce it to a trickle, I had to contact the mail preference service (very odd, they'd never had a query like that before), I've got a standard letter on my computer that I send to the sender of the letter telling them to delete my name from their mailing list and why.  I write their house number on the envelope - in red marker pen, very large, so they are in no doubt as to where it went first.

Now I only get a couple a month, which is a great improvement.  But the funny thing was, some time ago he wrote off his car, and I started getting a deluge of letters from insurance companies - addressed to him at my house number!

[Jeannine]

No, actually only the Italian dandelion nicker who was Canadian and the optimistic fisherman who was from the US. The others were all before I went over there apart from the Goose House and the man in the car, these two are my neighbours now !!. Lovely folks though XX Jeannine

[posie]

ROFL! I love the sheep one!

My neighbour is very odd.  He's barricaded his back door up, so he can't get into his garden - which naturally is a mile high with weeds.  He puts his house alarm on, closes his front door, rattles it 4 times, turns his car alarm on then off then on again, drives around the block, comes back and checks his front door again.  And he is obsessed with his Nissan "sports" car.  It's ancient, it's falling apart and quite honestly he looks like a muppet driving it with top down and dance music blaring.  He quite often of a Sunday morning decides that something isn't noisy enough on it, takes it apart and then the swearing begins..........so he starts shouting and cursing at the car and then a woman's voice responds..........yep, it's the car, given a female voice, by him and for the next few hours they argue back and forth whilst he tries to put it back together, at which point, I've given up all hope of sleep and turn up the tv!

[morton]

If I go back all my life I can think of one every where I have been,,is it just me
or do you have some strange neighbours too.

Wouldn't be the same Jeannine if everybody was normal like us lot.
Both my neighbours are ok but they both have an oddball neighbour I'm pleased to say.

[Jeannine]

Well I ma as nutty as a fruit cake and very proud of the fact!!

Posie...priceless. Beats all my odd lot XX Jeannine

[manicscousers]

does someone who cleans his car tyres with a toothbrush count as a nutty neighbour ?  ;D

[morton]

does someone who cleans his car tyres with a toothbrush count as a nutty neighbour ?  ;D

Only if he cleans his teeth afterwards.

[grawrc]

OMG manics a few years back I went into the kitchen to find my FiL cleaning an oily old cog with MY TOOTHBRUSH!!!!!! >:( >:( >:(

At that time I had an upstairs and a downstairs toothbrush so that if someone else was in the bathroom during the morning rush I could always get my teeth brushed before I went to work.

Needless to say I now have my second toothbrush in my handbag!!!

Do you know he never even apologised? Seemed to find it funny the old b******! Just wait till I use his for cleaning the loo! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[manicscousers]

nasty old besom..lose his false teeth  ;D
this man washes the gutters towards our house, we share a grid on our side, he spurts water and muck all over my windows so, no, he's not funny, just annoying  :)

[Carol]

I have a strange but sad lady across the road.  When she moved in 4 years ago or more she put up bars on her windows plus 2 sets of curtains, pair in front of bars and pair behind.  She has lights all over her house and garden.  She does not answer her door to anyone.  If folk are collecting for charity she gets the envelope through her box at the gate and leaves the money taped to her gate.  She put her house up for sale last year except no one could see the house because she wouldnt answer the door.  She then decides to cover up the For Sale sign with Black plastic. The house is still on the market.  Nowt as strange as folk.

:D

[lorna]

Agree Carol nowt as strange as folk. We had a young woman move in opposite, she has a young daughter (about 10years old). Her curtains/windows are never opened.
Her garden is a mess, she told another neighbour she suffers with hay fever (apparently 12 months a year). About 6 months ago there was a 1/4 page article in our local where she was complaining about people harassing her at school because she is a lesbian, complete with her photograph. Nobody  in the street knew her choice of living, why draw attention to herself. None of our business. I do feel sorry for the little girl who has to live in a home where no day light is allowed. 

[betula]

I used to live in a small block of flats and I certainly saw lots of life there.

I had an elderly lady who had some mental health problems and I had to make all her phone calls.She hardly ever knocked the door but would stand on the path outside staring in till I went out to her.She was really sweet.

The couple upstairs were both big drinkers.My neighbour had water pouring through the ceiling.We kept knocking the door and calling.Finally a voice said she had fallen and jammed herself next to the washing machine.She had been running a bath.Her husband was in the bedroom but we could get no reply.We called the fire brigade and they put a ladder up to the bedroom window and the fireman kept knocking the window and could see him on the bed.He thought he was dead.Finally he woke up and answered the door stark naked.Spent half the night helping my neighbour clean his flat.

An elderly lady upstairs ,very educated never went out,apart from shopping once a week.We spoke on the phone.

I could go on................

Sometimes I miss that place.Strange but true.

When we left a lot of people came out and waved us off and I drove away in tears.

I live in a much nicer place now but I will never regret living there. :)

[sheddie]

The guys next door to me are really nice, but spend their entire time in the kitchen for some reason. Their house is quite nicely done out, but they are all in the kitchen from around 6am to midnight - just smoking and drinking tea!

The guy opposite hasn't opened his curtains for around 15 years. He went a bot odd when his wfie left him - he's still only in his forties, but the curtains have stayed shut ever since (bit like Willy Wonka?)...He's hasn't been in the back garden (which ajoins ours) or even opended the back door - in fact he probably couldn't open it by now as a huge elderberry has grown out of the path and has covered the door - its quite sad really.

I agree that's there's nowt so queer as folk - Little Britian could probably get another series out of this lot!... ;D

[robkb]

Two guys who used to live two doors away from us never went outside their back door (garden was a bomb-site) but seemed to spend all their time playing the piano - was very nice to listen to when I was in the garden, as they were very good!

On a much sadder note, we had a 'harmless nutter' who lived down the road from me when I was a kid. He'd water his garden until it was a bog, sit behind his curtains flicking V signs at the world and ride up and down the road on his bike shouting profanities. Everybody mostly let him get on with it. One morning he went round my mate's house and beat my mate's mum to death with a fire poker. Never did find out why - but has coloured my way of looking at some people ever since.

Cheers,
Rob.