Won't you be my neighbor?

It's odd, but in the past few months of living in our condo, we've had some bad things happen but I've had my faith renewed and restored by meeting some very nice people, our neighbors. Not every neighbor is a gem. There are some young college kids across the way that smoke outside and talk loudly, so that can get annoying. There's another family down the way that has their TV on loud sometimes and we have some non-friendly non-chatty neighbors, but overall people have been very nice and it seems like the kind of neighborhood everyone looks out for each other.

We met our downstairs neighbor one week after living in our new place. She leaves a nice note on our door, saying her bathroom is leaking water and she believes it's coming from our place and could we check it out and get it fixed. This was very upsetting and not good news as we were still stressed from the move and settling in. I got defensive about the leak and also very worried about the extent of the cost of fixing, repairing and who was really obligated to pay for the repair.

Anyway a plumber came in, verified it was our leak causing her drip and he fixed it with very little pain or cost. I was thrilled I was just overreacting. Our neighbor was a darling, a sweetheart, and was like "so sorry to bother you guys with this leak, especially just moving in new. I'll take you out to dinner once this is all done". We were like "we're sorry you have to deal with a leak in your bathroom, we should take you out". She could have been so much more annoying, snippy and threatening about the leak, but she wasn't, she was perfectly nice about it. We had such a nice time getting it all figured out, that after it was done we took her out to dinner, and had a good time getting to know her and hanging out. She's still really cool and we hang out once in awhile.

Now just recently, we met 3 more neighbors and here's how. In our new condo, we have a shared garage. It's separate from our house, and it's a 4 car garage with 2 doors. So we have one car parked there and we share with 3 other neighbors. It's small but overall manageable arrangement.

So we recently went on a weekend trip and got home late on a Sunday night. On Monday morning as we're pulling the car out of the garage, I notice that my husband's red mountain bike was missing/stolen. His passenger automatic window was also not working which makes me suspect that whoever stole his bike also tried to break into the car but was unsuccessful. Anyway this was very upsetting least to say. I felt vulnerable, vandalized and lost my faith in people.

So we decided to leave a note to our 3 other garage neighbors. The note said we had our bike stolen from our shared garage, we're going to report it, asking for info, please check/safeguard your things, and please be sure to make sure the garage is closed when you're leaving for the day, and hope none of your stuff was stolen and a generally overall friendly but sad letter. Anyway we ended up talking to all 3 of our neighbors. They were all very nice and very sympathetic about what happened. They reported back immediately that they didn't see anything and they weren't missing anything, but they will be much more cautious from now on. We also got to know each other a little more through some friendly short chatter.

Anyway, we do live in a nice neighborhood where this sort of thing doesn't happen and people feel safe, and so we concluded it must be some teenage kids off for the summer totally causing trouble. Odd thing is the thief stole my husband's mountain bike and left mine, which is I guess, not a total loss. One of the neighbors was like, if I see a kid riding around on a red mountain bike I'll quiz him, tackle him if need be and take the bike back for you. Very sweet.

Anyway, I'm not a silver lining person, but I can't help seeing it now. Two unfortunate incidents, brought us closer to the people around us. We're very lucky because overall our neighbors are nice. After something as bad as a inter-condo leak and a theft, they were all kind and sympathetic and wanting to help and make things better. Of course no one likes when things go wrong, but in a weird way, it's made me get to know my neighbors and made me like them a lot. No one was intrusive, pushy or obnoxious. They were all descent and unexpectedly nice. I expect the worst of people and things sometimes, and it's nice to be wrong in those cases.

And the last thing is, one of our neighbors is an older retired teacher, super friendly, chatty and just a nice guy. He's one of those people you feel lightened after just saying hi. It's just cool being around someone who is sincerely, that cool. He's totally our "Mr. Rogers" and yes we live in his neighborhood.

So anyway, I toast to my new neighbors. I hope we always have descent and nice people living next to us. I thank the universe for having known them. I hope one day we won't need a leak or a theft to knock on their doors and get to know them.