No one knows their neighbors any more

I live rural in the foothills of the Adirondack mountains. Its in a very large by area town with under a 1,000 year around people.

I have a few acres behind me and the lake in front. Other than the summer and especially the 3 holiday weekends things are quite and relaxed. Winters can be quite nasty up here but the peace and tranquility is top notch.

My year around neighbors are good decent people. My one is also a serious shooter with his own range also and his hobby is building cars.:D He is about 200 yards away. Has plenty of good tools and of course we all get along quite well. My other full time neighbor about 200 yards in the other direction works full time at a large independent building supply store!
 
Maybe I am nosey or just Bold............

but I try to get the names and phone numbers of my neighbors as a safety and alert thing if needed incase of fire or trespassing.

I do agree the days of...........
"can I barrow a cup of sugar" ? are gone, with most people, today.
 
We built our current house in 1989 and the closest neighbor was about 200 yds. across the road. Their dog would get our paper so I had a paper box placed beside our mailbox and then the dog would get it out of the box. I complained too the neighbor and I was told told they had too let their dog out at night. I didn't see any reason to talk too them after that but in a little while the dog quit getting my paper. They finally moved and my new neighbor is very nice. I hope they don't ever move. Larry
 
In my area of the Burb of the Burgh lots are all one acre and up. Right now can't see any of the neighbor's houses...... do to trees,bushes (rose of Sharon) and ferns.

County and Twp parks within walking distance and a nature preserve.... all assure a large deer population. Few horse farms within a mile to the east on a back gravel road..

Friendly with 3 of 4 adjacent neighbors........ 4th family is more than a little strange..... thankfully 200 yds away through unkept woods.... so no contact in the last year!!!!!!
 
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A few years back I ran for local office in a little city that I had lived in all of my life, I knew the place had some problems, but what I didn't know until I was unfortunately elected were the number of crazy people. Many of whom I was related to or had known all my life. Not to mention the crooks and grifters.

I moved.
 
My wife and I are likely considered the quiet couple with the German cars. That's the limit of "need to know" for my neighbors as far as I am concerned.
 
My neighbor is the most inconsiderate A-hole I've ever dealt with.


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Personally, I don't know my neighbors now and I don't want to meet or know them down the road. As far as I'm concerned, neighbors are like ex-wives, a major pain in the you know what that are best to avoid.
 
I know my next door neighbor, it's my oldest daughter and her family. Only been hear fifty years so I haven't had time to meet many others.
 
Our neighborhood consists of five lots on a dead end private dirt road. There are three families on the road and we own all five lots, so no more neighbors. Everyone is on a first name basis, all our dogs have free run, visit on holidays, cook for each other when we're sick, share plowing and maintaining our road, that kind of stuff. We feel really fortunate since we moved out of PRNJ to get away from it all. Perfect, no but as close as it gets.
 
It was kind of wild down here when I first moved here. I could smell the meth cooking, especially at night. One of my neighbors inherited a house from his grandmother and it looked like the drive through at McDonalds except most of the vehicles had loud mufflers. He got popped for the second time four years ago and is still in prison. The old lady in a trailer directly across the road from me died about the time her son was getting out of prison after ten years for rape of a child. He moved in the trailer and starting cooking meth and had all kinds of undesirable characters in and out. I watched him until I knew he was screwing up (his daughter had left some small children with him while he was cooking meth) and called his parole officer and he got sent back to prison. While he was in prison a drunk drove his F 150 through the trailer. What's left of it is still across the road with a large tree on top of it. Mr. Meth Cook Child Molester died of an overdose a few months ago. What these two clowns apparently didn't know was I was watching their every move and I know what to watch for. Kind of like a neighborhood watch on steroids. It took a little while. Child molester is dead, and Grannies' little meth cook lost her/his house to his defense lawyer. A few more of the neighbors no longer live here. Some are in prison and a few succumbed to late night car wrecks, suicide, or overdoses. Darwinism at its finest. It's pretty quiet around here now. The neighbors that are left are good people. We visit, swap produce, and watch out for each other.
 
After living in the parsonage across the road from the church building I was a little leery of moving to town after retirement. We had our house built in a brand new cul-de-sac in the small college town where I was on faculty for 15 years. (Small church pastors typically don't make enough money to only have one job)

The outcome was better than we could have asked. The neighbors on one side are a young couple with two small kids that are hard working and clean living. The couple on the other side are young without children yet.

Diagonally across is a young couple that the husband went to school with our youngest son. The house directly across from us has changed hands three times in five years and I haven't met the new family yet. Mostly we are the "retired preacher and wife" that everyone waves and speaks and kind of looks out for. It's nice.

Of course all of this idyllic sounding scenario is in a small college town in Texas. Not everything is full on Leave It to Beaver, of course. The block over is an older neighborhood where many of the houses have become rentals due to proximity to the campus. Shortly after moving in, there was a drug bust at the house whose yard backs up to ours and the SWAT team came into our back yard to cover the back of that house during the raid. Fortunately things have quieted down back there since then.

So far, the adjustment has been blessedly easy after not having neighbors within shouting distance.
 
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