Ben in California says he got this notice in the mail a few days ago, though he’s not sure if the rest of the neighborhood got it, too. “These folks have lived there for about six months, but I’ve never talked to them. I guess now I know why.”
related: A not-so-subtle clue that your co-worker isn’t interested in small talk
102 responses so far ↓
#1
Serenity
Wow, with attitudes like that, it wouldn’t surprise me if the “enough” friends they have equal zero. Hopefully no one ever tries to break into their home, or anything like that, since their neighbors will probably be not inclined to do anything to help (or should I say, hopefully someone DOES try to break in?).
Nov 21, 2012 at 3:58 pm rating: 60
#2
JingoPoe
We live at 123 Whogivesaratsbackside
1) We have no desire to be your friends
2) If the only parking spot available is in front of your property, that is where we shall park
3) We have no desire to get along with you
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:04 pm rating: 85
#3
Jolly
loooool@ “Don’t park in front of our property!” Oh, you mean the area that sits right in front of the property you do own? That little bit of land that you don’t own and don’t control? Right. Eat it.
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:06 pm rating: 110
#4
redheadwglasses
I would park in front of their house as often as possible. I hate this notion that people think they own the street in front of their house.
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:07 pm rating: 83
#5
greg house md
Um, last time I checked, the street was public property, so who the hell are they to tell anyone where to park? Ben needs to get ahold of the other neighbors who got this and park all their cars in front of that house…and maybe tp the house while they’re at it.
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:10 pm rating: 30
#6
Audient
If I didn’t have a dog, I’d get one. Maybe just borrow one. Till they finally move out.
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:18 pm rating: 18
#7
Stacey
Jesus. I sure hope you don’t end up getting robbed, and all of your stranger neighbours don’t assume that since they’re allowed to park in front of your property they’re one of your many, many friends.
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:21 pm rating: 22
#8
Rachel
they’re totally gonna get TP’d
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:48 pm rating: 3
#9
shwo!
But the court order says I HAVE to introduce myself to the neighbors…
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:52 pm rating: 103
#10
shwo!
In this one case, Comic Sans might have been an improvement.
Nov 21, 2012 at 4:52 pm rating: 42
#11
raichu
My word, what assholes.
Nov 21, 2012 at 7:08 pm rating: 19
#12
oi
I vote all the other residents get together and send out following reply such that they get that in mail every day for 3 months.
Re: 1. Nice try but reverse psychology won’t work.
Re: 2. Right!
Re:3. This time, however, reverse psychology will work!
Nov 21, 2012 at 8:20 pm rating: 18
#13
Ben
The font is my favorite part!
Nov 21, 2012 at 8:24 pm rating: 8
#14
Ely North
It’s nice that they specified their address, so that now everyone knows exactly which house to throw eggs at.
Nov 21, 2012 at 9:23 pm rating: 28
#15
Henry
This is a great idea for when someone I don’t like moves. Send out copies of this note to the neighbors in the new neighborhood, with my enemy’s house number on it. The enemies of my enemy are my friends.
Nov 21, 2012 at 9:33 pm rating: 19
#16
Ali Longworth
I suppose that putting an “Open House – Saturaday 8:00 a.m – 2:00 p.m.”sign on their lawn some Friday night would be going too far?
Nov 21, 2012 at 10:42 pm rating: 26
#17
Rebecca
Is there any remote chance that this note was written not by the residents in question, but by a third party attempting to turn the neighborhood against them?
Nov 21, 2012 at 11:21 pm rating: 16
#18
Jen
Oh god, this sounds like my neighbourhood. We are the obvious ‘rental house’ on my street and because of this we have had arguments with pretty much every surrounding neighbour regarding the parking (well, my roommates have; I don’t drive).
Maybe if all these homeowners stopped hoarding so much crap in their garages (which EVERY house on this street has), they could use them for their intended purpose and stop whining about having to walk an extra 12 feet to their car in the morning.
Nov 22, 2012 at 12:11 am rating: 33
#19
Lenny!
I don’t know about anybody else, but I appreciate this kind of gesture as yes, I don’t want to get to know my neighbors. Makes it easier when I call the police on their ass when they blast their music til the crack o’ dawn or when the local news comes to ask me about my lovely incarcerated neighbor and I get to say “well he was a quiet one, usually kept to himself…”
Nov 22, 2012 at 12:25 am rating: 20
#20
Sergey Kyle
Ah, people like the dwellers in 413 E. H St, thinking their clique/bubble’s all that matters and attempting to disregard anyone else. Keep it Klassy, y’all.
Nov 22, 2012 at 5:53 am rating: 6
#21
Rattus
Font and parking aside, these are my kind of neighbours.
Nov 22, 2012 at 7:57 am rating: 7
#22
Purr Monster
Where I live, in New York State, the government owns the land between the sidewalk and the road, or, in the case of no sidewalk, about a foot. So no, you can’t tell people where to park.
I live in the residential part of a city. We had a neighbor move in who took every dog owner to court over “barking.” IMO, if you don’t want to hear barking, or animals, move to the country where the houses are miles apart.
Zheesh, who needs enemies with neighbors like these?
Nov 22, 2012 at 10:52 am rating: 18
#23
yolanda
Oh yeah, he’s just lost the spot out front. it’s kind of understood around here to leave the spot by someone’s gate open for them if there’s other places to park. It’s just courtesy in a neighborhood where many homes have no driveway and only a small old garage in the back lane if anything. We help each other out shovelling snow, this f’tard wouldn’t get that benefit either unless he warmed up a little with the folks next door! Best way I found to get my neighbors to leave me be was a solid wood fence inside a thick thorny hedge, with solid doors and locking doorknobs at the gates. My garden wall works like a charm. when I step outside my walls I can afford the muscle effort required to act friendly.
Nov 22, 2012 at 1:03 pm rating: 8
#24
NonnyMus
How kind of them to let the neighborhood know they’re sociopaths.
Nov 22, 2012 at 2:43 pm rating: 30
#25
Jen
I don’t know much about parking etiquette in the US, but I’m on team notewriter with the first point. Neighbours are safest kept at a distance, the less interaction with them, the better.
Nov 22, 2012 at 5:55 pm rating: 4
#26
Looper
Personally, I’m on team notewriter (though the parking thing is more of a courtesy and not a right so whatever there). I’m not so sure why people get *SO* angry about being told “Look, just pre-emptively here, I don’t really want to be friends so you can stop trying”. To me, this isn’t rude, it’s just saying things how it is (it’s not like the notewriter insulted anybody). I’ve never understood people who get angry over things like this. To me, getting angry over being basically told “sorry you’re annoying” smacks of someone who attributes too much importance to themselves. I’ve noticed a lot of people in today’s world have a “hey! LISTEN!” vibe about them when I’m really not interested…
Not saying I would send out a note, but I certainly hold all of these points dear to my heart. Leave me alone, and keep your dogs away from me, and we will get along splendidly. Not everyone has the ability to live out in the boonies (hey limited jobs!), and not everyone who wants some solace wants to give up modern conveniences like buses and trains either.
Really, if they don’t like to speak to other people, writing a note makes the most sense. They get to stop people from talking to them without having to talk themselves. Perfection to them. Guess not to others.
Nov 23, 2012 at 11:11 am rating: 6
#27
t-rex
What if it wasn’t the residents there that sent the note but a pissed off neighbor to the next door of them?
Think about it, 6 months after the fact, issue over parking, the passive-aggressive tenor of the note. It sounds like to me that they pissed off one of the neighbor’s and this is retaliation.
Nov 23, 2012 at 1:18 pm rating: 4
#28
Ben
The only people that harass you in this neighborhood are mormons and vacuum salesmen. If anything, most people here, like most places I’ve lived, are socially awkward and try to avoid having to say hi, let alone stop by for small talk. If they wanted to be left alone, this was the wrong choice of action. There’s a few old punks around, and we sure enjoy a good life-affirming prank. You try, ya know? You do what you can.
They’ve got a long driveway and a garage. I certainly don’t park in front of their house…I’m the one with the last wide part of the street in front, so people park there to go to the houses further down. Whatever! Sometimes it’s irritating when it’s a motorhome or something, but I get over it, because I can park on the side if I have to, even though it’s muddy. But then guess what I do…I ask the person when I see them to leave a space for me! Talking to people like they’re reasonable usually works! If something’s bothering you, just fucking say it! Isn’t that the whole point of why this site is hilarious?
I will ask them if they sent the letter when I can. I agree that it could be someone else, although I kind of doubt it.
Incidentally, I would say they’re more scrapbookers than drug dealers. Scrapbooking robots, perhaps. Perhaps aliens, perhaps the heralds of the zombie apocalypse…who can really know?
Nov 23, 2012 at 8:03 pm rating: 17
#29
havingfitz
Dear Neighbors:
Last night my dog started barking loudly. I got up to shush him and noticed your house was on fire. I didn’t think you’d appreciate me stopping by to let you know, so I just called the fire department. I made sure to tell them NOT to park directly outside your house.
Happy Holidays!
Nov 24, 2012 at 10:40 am rating: 16
#30
Kirby
They sound like asses. I would personally show up to their house with a new Jello mold every day.
That said, I kind of get their “please don’t park in front of my house” thing. In my neighborhood, lots of driveway space and two-/three-car garages are standard, yet some people still choose to park in the road, or in front of someone else’s house. It gets a bit frustrating when those cars block the one-lane roads in the neighborhood and force you to drive on the sidewalk or median.
Nov 26, 2012 at 2:01 am rating: 2
#31
ninjaduck
I think they need someone to talk to.
Nov 27, 2012 at 10:11 am rating: 2
#32
Brian
This isn’t a sign on their property. They went out of their way to interact with other people, specifically to tell those people they don’t want to interact with them.
Writing it off is mere introversion (and I too am an introvert, people exhaust me, and when I get home from work I just want to be left alone), doesn’t fly.
Now I’m more prone to find it as an over response to a specific neighbor. I work two jobs, and have exceptionally limited time to do my “chores” around the house. So when I’m out there raking leaves, and my busybody neighbor decides she wants to chat (ie gossip) for 20 minutes, it leaves me with a choice of being ‘rude’, (as she ignores my polite attempts to get back to work), or losing as much time as she feels entitled to.
That said, most of my neighbors understand the 60 second rule (if you run into a neighbor outside, you have no more than 60 seconds of pleasantries before you’re overstaying your welcome). It allows me to know my neighbors and to be on a friendly plane with them, without having to give up too much time.
And it works. When my neighbor’s snow thrower wouldn’t start last year, I took a half hour to do their driveway. He then helped me out when I needed a jump one morning. Even with this, I know his name, his wife’s name, and the color of their house; and nothing else.
It’s the perfect mix of socialization and privacy.
Nov 27, 2012 at 12:59 pm rating: 7
#33
Roger
I have to believe that the best way of being on the receiving end of this note would be to stop by and ask for directions, what the weather will be like in the near future, etc.
Nice blog you have here.
Dec 9, 2012 at 5:41 pm rating: 0
#34
L
No matter what caused it, the note-writer certainly does seem to lack basic knowledge of human nature – specifically, our inherent contrariness. For every five neighbours who see that note and decide to dismiss the writers as anti-social, there’s probably going be one, like Kirby and others, who will go out of their way to present them with neighbourly jello.
While I am definitely introverted (I hate small-talk, and I will go to silly extremes to avoid it), there is a line between being introverted and being rude. There is even a difference between being brusque and efficient in your social interactions to keep them short, and being a dismissive asshole (although of course YMMV).
Anyone with sense will realise that being this rude will just make people pay extra attention to you – and furthermore, they will know exactly what gets under your skin.
In my opinion, if someone is as dense as to leave a note like this, they are just asking for it. I’m not saying it’s RIGHT – I’m saying it’s simply human nature.
Dec 14, 2012 at 9:50 pm rating: 2
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