I Think I Know Some Of My Neighbors, But Not All

Husbando and I moved into our house probably a little over six years ago.

I ended up buying my childhood home from my father.  He lives with us, we get along pretty well, things are pretty normal, I guess.

So while I know Kathy, my next door neighbor, and Mr Burke across the street, and Christian and his family opposite the alley... I can't say I know any of my other neighbors. I've met Andy next door once before he moved in (he wanted to ask about the neighborhood and how it was with kids, he has young boys).  I've never met the lady across the street, but Husbando did her a solid when a dude was rifling through her car once.  I did have a couple of nice conversations with the lady two houses down (They're either Russian or Ukranian, I never did ask - seemed kinda rude) and she gave me a bag of tomatoes once from her garden.  I was going to give her the blackberries this year from our bushes (since Husbando can't have seeds anymore) but the poison ivy claimed them this year. And I'm on "friendly wave" turns with a few neighbors who walk their dogs.

But I guess that's not all together normal. According to a new study, over half of us don't trust our neighbors. And more than a quarter don't even know who they are. The survey also found that only 34% try to welcome new neighbors, one in ten are suspicious when people move in  and 14% are less trusting of people from "outside their communities."

In my childhood here in Sedalia, we knew the people next door, we knew the people in the house next to that and we knew the people across the street. Mrs Defenbach would keep us line (she would totally tattle to our Mom if we were doing something we weren't supposed to be)! Mr Robinson would let me know if he saw my cat.  So I thought to myself, why don't I know my neighbors? My mother probably would have gone over and introduced herself, but I think we're in a different time.  I think if I knocked on my neighbor's door, I'd be bothering them.  And, they might think, "Who's that freak at my door, are they coming to steal my cookies?"  They might be right, you never know.

So I wanted to ask you guys about it - do you know your neighbors?  Do you know them just by name, or do you know them pretty well?  Do you even know their names?   Do you want to know?  Tell me about it.

Neighborly yours,

Behka