General Chat

I wonder if my experience this morning is normal, and just a fact of modern living.

There was a letter delivered, with a pile of other post this morning, from a high street bank. The name was very similar to my surname and as the initial was the same as mine, my husband handed it to me and it was opened. It was concerning a dispute the account holder had with his mortgage deductions in error from his current account. The letter detailed the compensation the bank was giving him for their mistake.

The letter just had the street, without the house number. I can understand the mistake our postie made, and she is normally excellent – I have no problem with her. I have tried, via three different telephone numbers, to find the correct house number for the gentleman, but ‘data protection’ prevented this. The bank just wanted me to return the letter to them. My argument was that as the gentleman was already in dispute with them, I would knock on doors until I found him.

The point of my posting this is not so much the content of the letter, but the fact that no-one seems to know their neighbours these days. I haven’t knocked on every one of the 50 or so houses, mainly ones I do know and some others I don’t. Most did not know their next door neighbours names – at present I am waiting for one to get back to me when his neighbour gets up from sleeping after a nightshift.

If I have no luck, I shall go into the local branch on Monday and make a complaint about the lack of a number on the letter. (I am also a customer of this bank.)

Do you know your neighbours names? I am ashamed to say I only knew a few – until this morning!

Elisabeth

Problem sorted. The young chap now awake from post night-shift sleep. The letter was his.

I now know one of my more distant neighbours.

Glad you got it sorted Elisabeth. Thinks it's a sign of the times though. I do know quite a lot of my neighbours, the one's who've been here a long time (we've been here 20 years), but don't know many of the new ones, and they don't seem to want to get to know people either.

DET made me laugh about not knowing names, and names given, we only know a lot of our neighbours by their cats. Lucy's Mum, Tinkle's Dad, We have one family who are a bit strange we call them The Munsters. Another woman who is very nosey, we call her OO7, as she is always spying.
My husband christened someone who had been in the navy t he Commodor and his son the Cadet.
Wonder what we are called, hope it is not too outragous.

Mo

Thanks for responses girls.

Mo - I now have a mental picture of a very odd street full of people.

I'm just pleased I was able to resolve the problem, and I have met the very nice young man who came to collect his letter. That is my good deed for the day!

Have a happy evening.

Elisabeth.