This weekend, I went to a leaving party for some friends on the other side of town. I was shocked when I realised that most of the street was there too – my friends knew all of their neighbours.

I don’t know any of my neighbours. Not one. There’s an old guy I say hello to in the morning when I go to post a letter or catch a train, but that’s it.

It was nice meeting all of these people, from different walks of life, who initially have nothing in common other than the street they live on.

It’s a strange way to strike up a friendship but there’s a lot to be said for a community. A place where you know your home is being looked out for whilst you’re on holiday, or if something bad happens, people will rally around.

Do solid communities have lower crime rates? I’m not sure, but I do think Neighbourhood Watch must make a difference – as a deterrent if nothing else.

And there’s something about knowing your neighbours, and saying hello to people on your way home from work, that makes the area feel like home, and that’s important.

Of course, neighbourly relations can be tricky – just check out our Love thy neighbour post. Until you’re firm friends, everything is uncertain friendliness and your lives only need cross if it suits you.

This means that while a cup of tea and some cake is one thing, when you decide you want to put a huge cherry tree in your garden and your neighbour doesn’t like it, you might find that your friendship becomes very sour very quickly.

Remember, massive garden plans can be stopped by angry neighbours – it’s always worth having a chat with them first. You don’t want to be halfway through building a summer house before your neighbour complains that you’ll be blocking all of their sun. And they do have a right to object if you’re trying to turn your house into Kew Gardens.

And make sure you don’t fib – tell them the extent of your plans. If something is going to disrupt their lives for three weeks, don’t insist things will be back to normal after the weekend. That will just cause bad feeling.

There’s a lot to be said for keeping your neighbours onside. Little things can often get blown out of all proportion into full scale rows in the street. No one wants that.

And if, like me, you don’t know your neighbours? Well, it’s not the end of the world and we can’t get on with everyone, but I’m beginning to think that just maybe it would brighten my day if I started saying hello to the people on my street.

Do you get on with your neighbours? Tell us in the comments box below!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.