Beyond the polite “Hey, how’s it going”. Close enough to hang out at each other’s apartment, maybe even ask them to water your plants or feed your pet while you’re away.
My last apartment (~2020) was at less than 30% occupancy and I was the only person living on my floor. Yay housing crisis.
My apartment before that was in an older Orthodox Jewish Ukrainian community that was very hostile to outsiders, and particular my interracial relationship. The head door guard was especially. There was one other guy with a dog who was super nice and friendly we’d talk a bunch especially while walking. He was feeling as unwelcome as we were and they drove him out a few months before we got driven out.
Now, as a homeowner I’ve exchanged misdelivered packages with my neighbours and done trick or treating but I don’t really know their names but i recognize their faces. There was one guy that was a creep to the femmes of our building but he’s moved out thankfully, but it kinda spoilt the first impressions a bit.
Eh, kinda. Not really friends though, more like I have a few neighbours who I’m comfortable having as barely acquaintances.
There’s the lady across the hall who occasionally brings my parcels/post up and I do the same for her.
Protein shake bro, who lives next door and has a loud blender. I’ve not actually met him but am deeply comforted by his shake making regularity.
The chubby Brazilians, the couple who sometimes take parcels for me when couriers insist on banging on the wrong door, and I’ve done the same for them too a few times.
The lady with the inverse door number to mine, we swapped numbers at one point but only ever text about recieving each others Amazon parcels. She stole my pasta maker during the pandemic though, so I lost her number. I see her on her balcony sometimes and used to hope she texted me so I could be like “no pasta maker. who dis?” but alas.
Aside from this (and tbh actually, including one or two) there’s a lot of crackheads, mentally disturbed, and domestically violent in my building, so it’s not really somewhere I’m comfortable being known by or inviting neighbours into my flat.
For a moment I thought you meant you swapped the numbers on your doors as some kind of weird prank.
You could write a sitcom about all your neighbours
“she took my pasta maker, Jerry!”
Why bother? I will be moving in a year because the rent will go up.
Usually just greet or have short smalltalks and be on my way, but it’s nice to have a good relationship with 1-2 neighbors to help each other water plants, receive parcels and so on.
About five years ago a new neighbor moved in downstairs and put a note up with her number saying who she is and that she is happy to get to know her new neighbors. Unusually forward but cool, so I wrote her and we met. We became running buddies, she sometimes took care of my dog, I helped out with handiwork, or we just hung out together and talked. She moved out a year later but we are still very good friends to this day.
In my current apartment I unfortunately don’t know anyone. The only neighbor I had a good relationship with is gone and the others keep to themselves.
Why is this aimed at ~30yo in particular?
Growing up, my parents and grandparents had the same neighbours for decades, even in apartment buildings. Of course they knew and talked to each other frequently. Hanging out in each others’ apartments also happened on occasion, drinking some pálinka and listening to the radio. My dad used to go down to the ground floor to watch the evening news and story time at the superintendent’s apartment along with the other children in the building. The only person who had TV in their commie block.
This already changed a bit in the late 80s / early 90s when I was growing up. People started moving around or dying. Out of the city to live in burbs. Or just left for another country. My dad was also less jovial with people as he couldn’t stand stupid, so he often drove neighbours he disliked away.
Once I grew up, I moved into the apartment of my late grandparents. I still talked to my direct neighbour on a weekly basis, but by this time most everyone else died or moved away. Also I had to introduce my girlfriend now wife to my neighbour at least monthly due to her… seemingly selective dementia.
I’m in my forties now, and both at this and my previous apartment I’ve made sure to always say hi to neighbours. Oddly at the current place, the thirty something year old neighbours approached me first, stating they do some sort of communal hippy living here. They seemed friendly but then also moved away within a year or so.
I directed it at ~30 year olds because I’m ~30 years old and wondering if a lot of other people of the same age feel the same. It tends to be more of the elderly that try to get to know you better
Seems anecdotal!
It’s certainly hard to get to know your neighbours in a glass box in the sky.
My wife (then gf) and I moved in to the current apartment when we were ~25 (we are now almost 30). We made little notes introducing ourselves for all the neighbours, and one couple responded by bringing us a bottle of wine as a gift. We ended up friends with them, playing board games, video games, D&D, and the occasional party. We dont hang out consistently, but its nice to have friends in the building.
We used to watch GOT and go to bars with our upstairs neighbors. I don’t remember how the introduction started but once we found out we had common interests we started hanging out.
They moved out a year after that. The next upstairs neighbors let their dogs piss on their balcony (which ran down onto my deck) so they can go fly a kite.
i was friends with our neighbours for the past 2 years and it was very nice
they moved away fairly recently, i hope the new neighbours will be just as nice, i guess you never know if you will like eachother
No. I don’t talk to strangers without a reason.
My neighbor broke into my apartment while I was on vacation
So no, no I don’t.
A handful, never had bad neighbor experiences before. Many pals and some watch my pets or get packages.
Nope. I’d love some community but most people move every year or two here
- Watering plants: yes.
- Talking to each other 10+ minutes: yes.
- Chatting via a messenger: yes.
- Hang out: no.
No but I’ll talk to some in the halls. A lot of my neighbors are Arabic, south Asian, and African newcomers, and I’m almost always in the common part of the building with my dogs, and 99% of them hate dogs and run away from me, despite the fact my dogs are little and one is very elderly and uninterested in people. It’s just not their culture to own pets I guess, so none of them want to talk to me.
i didn’t talk much to the people at my last place but i’m going to make an effort now that i’ve moved. seems like a good safety net to have in case something happens.
