Having a good relationship with your neighbour is invaluable, as you can help each other if you’re ever in a pinch.
And one woman shared that she used to have a really good relationship with her neighbours, and had done for a whopping eight years until they suddenly turned their backs on her and her partner. “We’ve never had any problems with them whatsoever. Not friends but regular polite chats over the fence etc, and would always say hello on a morning,” she detailed.
The woman even explained on Mumsnet that “sometimes” they would take in parcels for them, but not often, as they had a specified safe place rather than bothering them.
She penned: “In the lead up to Christmas, they had taken a couple for us (obviously, we were ordering more than usual at this point), and my partner apologised for this and said, ‘You’re like a sorting office for us. I’m really sorry!’ The guy was like, ‘Absolutely no problem at all, don’t worry about it’!”
However, things took a turn, and the neighbours soon began behaving strangely towards them.
“So, then, a week or so before Christmas, Amazon left a parcel of ours at their house one morning. We knocked on their door a couple of times in the afternoon (it was an emergency order of something I needed that night) and even though they were in they didn’t answer. I tried one last time at 7.30pm, and they didn’t answer, so I left it there for the night,” she detailed.
The next day, “the guy came round” with their parcel and “banged on the door,” in an unpleasant way. “The guy said in a really aggressive way’, When you came round last night, you woke up our poorly two-year-old, so can you please take us off your preference list?’. My partner apologised, but by that point, he’d already turned his back and stormed off!”
The pair were horrified by the run-in, and despite their preferences, a few days later,“ Amazon tried to deliver a package to them a few days later (even though we were in!) and they refused it, which is fair enough, BUT he has not spoken to us since!!!!! No hello in the morning, doesn’t even look up, etc.”
She then shared the way she knew her neighbour was truly fuming, as she detailed: “I was really, really struggling to reverse off the drive. Partner was having to dig me out with a sweeping brush and push my car into the street. We had a scared, crying six-year-old in the back. I was skidding all over the place, and my engine was revving all whilst our neighbour was casually de-icing his car (he works from home, so I am not sure why) and didn’t offer to help or offer to lend us his shovel, which for me shows just how mad he is!”
She said that she was really sad that it had come to this after eight years of living harmoniously next to each other, saying “it all of a sudden feels like we’ve got a big problem over something that I feel is an innocent mistake”.
In the comments, someone urged her to try and make up with them, writing: “Present and an apology, tell them you have changed preferences with Amazon, hope we can put this behind us as we have always valued you as neighbours. Kill them with kindness, and don’t let it get to you if it doesn’t work! You have done your best.
You weren’t to know the little one was poorly, but I’d probably have taken the hint if they were in. I didn’t answer, but rather than go back again.”
Another wrote: “I think your neighbour was probably snappy and exhausted after a difficult night with a poorly child, and it made them overreact. They are probably a bit embarrassed but stubborn and have decided to stick to their guns as it was annoying to take in your parcels. As you weren’t friends anyway, it is unlikely to feel like a loss to them. I wouldn’t have knocked at 7.30pm if I knew the person had a 2 year old. It’s not their problem that you had an urgent parcel delivered to them.”
One Mumsnetter shared: “Wait a while then drop a note through the door saying you are sorry for waking their child, obviously you wouldn’t have knocked if you’d known. Reassure them that your preferences are set to leave parcels elsewhere and tell them you are fine with them refusing them if any slip through the net. Then forget about it.”
