Nice People Thread No. 15, a Cyber Summer

Pyxis

Pastures, just wondering how you are, and whether you've heard anything from anyone?

I hope you managed to sleep ok.

ivyleaf

Pyxis wrote: »

Half of my street is one way, and the other half is two way.

The other day I was coming out of my house just as two cyclists were slowly riding by, abreast, and chatting as they went.

They passed my house and instead of turning left or right, gaily continued to cycle, still abreast, the wrong way up the one-way part.

I get so mad when cyclists blatantly flout the road rules like that.

We sometimes get drivers reversing in the wrong direction down the one-way street near us, as if it's all right to go the "wrong" way as long as your vehicle is facing in the "right" direction.
As there's a very busy main road at the end of the one-way street, they are extremely unpopular when they get there and reverse out onto the main road :eek:

Oh my goodness, just seen PN's posts! Hope all is well Pastures and that you were able to sleep all right.x

vivatifosi

Sorry you've had a rough weekend Pastures. Hopefully they won't come back. Have you got a neighbour that you can call if needed?

Doozergirl

That is one of the most horrible things I've read

GDB2222

PN, I'm sorry to hear you've had a problem with the next door site. The posts have all been deleted, but I hope you're ok now.

By the way, is there an appraisal form I can fill in for the Chilterns? 'Could be even better if....' and then I'd tick the box for less mud. The snowdrops are good!

Jazee

Viva, will delete this post too if you want, but even before reading the link I knew what this referred to as I lived there too. Remember in the early days as we lived close to where he lived, that everyone was going out and checking in bins and sheds. Was awful.

Pyxis

It's very difficult to be aware of what goes on behind closed doors.

Unless you know occupants of neighbouring houses very well, you might never even enter their house.

Unless you hear noises, screams, etc coming from a house, why should you even suspect anything? Even if you do hear screams, your first thought is that it's kids mucking about or just families having a ruck. (Ok, if the screams go on day after day, you might suspect something, but that doesn't happen very often if at all!)

Even if a neighbour is a bit 'odd' or unresponsive to everyday niceties, it doesn't mean that they are a mad axe murderer. The latter is probably more likely to be the normal, cheery bank manager who always says hello and comments on the weather as he strolls past your house to the train station.

Takes that docudrama that was on a few days ago, about the woman who arranged for her own daughter to be 'kidnapped' so that she could get the fund money that the public were donating. Even her relatives and close friends didn't twig for a while. What chance would a resident who didn't know her have of suspecting anything?

Many years ago, I temporarily lived in a street where I got to know the residents in the two nearest houses. In the third house was a single guy. We all met socially occasionally at each other's houses, and we all offered to mind each other's kids, the single guy included, who had the children in one day to look at some old models of battleships or something. That was the only time.........

........Because of my circumstances, I and the children were very busy and were away a lot, so it never happened again.
A few years later, the single guy was arrested and convicted of sex offences against young boys. He apparently liked to target single mothers and worked with Cubs. I hadn't had a clue. It never occurred to me at all. I think we had all had a lucky escape.

ivyleaf

When DD1 and her partner moved into their first flat, they kept hearing a child screaming in the flat below theirs. They were discussing calling social services when there was a knock at their door and it was the man who lived in the flat below, looking very upset.

"I'm really sorry about the noise," he said. "It's our son, he's got very bad eczema and has to have cream put on all over, and he screams because it hurts so much."

On a brighter theme, many thanks to whoever mentioned the free weekend on Ancestry - I discovered my maternal grandmother was born at the coastguard station at Dingle in Ireland!
When I told my brother, he commented he'd suspected she must have been born in Ireland - he remembered her telling him they'd had to climb a cliff path to get to school "and the Sinn Feiners used to throw stones at us!"

SingleSue

We used to worry that someone would call in the authorities because of youngest's screaming.

At that point, it was his only form of communication as he was a non verbal autistic and like a baby, screaming was his way of saying he was cold/hot/needed a drink etc and just like a baby, it was always a process of elimination.

Thankfully, we had understanding neighbours but I think it was a huge relief to all our ears when I finally managed (after many years of speech therapy) to get him to start verbalising (his first two word sentence was when he was almost 6 and drumroll.....it was "juice please" complete with throwing his cup at me)

Pyxis

SingleSue wrote: »

We used to worry that someone would call in the authorities because of youngest's screaming.

At that point, it was his only form of communication as he was a non verbal autistic and like a baby, screaming was his way of saying he was cold/hot/needed a drink etc and just like a baby, it was always a process of elimination.

Thankfully, we had understanding neighbours but I think it was a huge relief to all our ears when I finally managed (after many years of speech therapy) to get him to start verbalising (his first two word sentence was when he was almost 6 and drumroll.....it was "juice please" complete with throwing his cup at me)

Well, at least he said please! :rotfl:

Seriously, though, it really pays to discuss with neighbours what the problems are. It nips possible confrontations in the bud, stops them worrying or getting angry, and could even lead to offers of help.

It's the same with parties. It makes sense to let people know that there will be noise on a particular evening, especially if you tell them why, i.e. an anniversary, graduation, special birthday etc, and people generally don't mind, especially if you can give them a rough finishing time. Even just a note through a few doors.
Everyone can put up with noise if they know it's going to end at a certain time, especially if they know why. It's the not knowing that is a pain.
Beats me why so many people don't do that.