All this talk of nosy neighbors has me thinking about safety. I live on the near east side of Indianapolis, a mile from downtown, and while it’s not exactly Crime Alley, it’s not the kind of place I’d recommend you keep your doors open and unlocked all night, either.
There’s a fine line between nosiness and neighborliness. Most of the people in my neighborhood keep an informal eye on each other’s houses, but it’s not so much an interest in what we’re doing, but in what outsiders might be doing.
More than once, a burglar has been caught by the eagle eyes of a nearby neighbor who wondered why someone they’d never seen before was furtively loading up a truck from a shed next door. They don’t even have to be confrontational about it; usually a quick “Hey, how’re you doing, are you new to the neighborhood?” is enough to convince a thief-of-opportunity that maybe they should just mumble an excuse and get the heck out of there as soon as possible and try someplace with less-watchful neighbors.
And when a neighbor starts acting irresponsibly — leaving a home for weeks or months with broken windows or other eyesores and nuisances — we’ve got a solid track record of letting people know that they really need to shape up. But such things are few and far between. We put a lot of our efforts into neighborhood clean-up days, and we have an active beautification program that plants trees and establishes pleasant greenspaces around the neighborhood.
We’re a pretty good group around here — my neighbors and I are sort of like a mini-Angie’s List, pooling information and watching out for each other. And that’s what it’s all about, right?
(Just as long as they don’t peek into my windows!)
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