Our neighbors are pretty close in proximity. We’ve been blessed by having great neighbors on both sides, across the street and down around the corner. I think it’s mostly a matter of luck, though. Because in the neighborhood where we lived before, which was almost identical in makeup and proximity of the houses, most of my neighbors kept to themselves and rarely spoke to us. And before that, with a similar social makeup, we had great neighbors.
I’m a naturally neighborly person, so I always try to get to know people and I try to feel them out too, some people are just not neighborly and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I just steer clear of those folks.
The neighbors that we have now regularly come outside to chat (especially the men, who often borrow each other’s tools and talk about projects), invite each other in to see their new decorating ideas and to bring over a little food gifty. And every one has pets, so most of our neighbors are out and about walking their dogs or rounding up their cats, so pet talk is very common. We actually babysit 2 of the neighbor’s pets when they go out of town.
My Dad has a power washer, a tall extension ladder and a lot of odds and ends, so there’s always some fellow from up or down the street in our garage talking to my Dad or borrowing one of his tools. He also has this big digging bar for getting huge rocks and roots out of your yard. That seems to be especially popular. And my next door neighbor has a lot of weird plastic stuff, from a former business that he used own in his garage, that all the men in the neighborhood like to use to “make” other stuff. It’s very funny.