How Do You Deal With Nosey Neighbors?

One of the things that I hate the most in the world is a nosey neighbor. Unfortunately, I seem to be surrounded by them in my neighborhood. It seems that there is a direct correlation between a neighbor’s age and their level of nosiness.

Why do I say this? My young or younger neighbors really couldn’t care less about my comings and goings and those of my family. They are too busy going about their own daily routines to worry about what I am doing. Unfortunately, this is not the case with my “older” or elderly neighbors. It seems that their entire existence depends on how much they know about everyone who lives on my block. Believe me, my next door neighbor will even go as far as to question my children when they are playing in my front yard.

Let’s examine this issue for a moment…Years ago, it seems like neighborhoods were more close knit and everyone knew everyone else. Don’t get me wrong, a certain degree of this is very nice and I appreciate greeting my neighbors when I see them as much as the next person. The problem is that simply saying “good morning” is not enough for them, they need more. Does this mean that I am doomed to a life of gossip and nosiness in my golden years?

Some of you might think that I am exaggerating about this topic so prepare to have your socks blown off. I ordered a package online this summer and I specifically requested that the UPS guy get a signature from me to verify receipt, as this was an extremelly important package. The day that the package was delivered, nobody was home which means that the UPS guy was supposed to take the package back to the UPS warehouse and leave me a note letting me know that I could pick it up there. This is not a big deal as the UPS warehouse is about ten minutes away from my house. Instead, he started conversing with my neighbor “Jack” (all names have been changed to protect the nosey) and Jack volunteered to take my package for me.

Mind you, Jack and I are not close friends and the extent of our relationship is “hello” and “goodbye.” In any case, the UPS guy went against protocol and allowed my neighbor, who is basically a complete stranger to me, to sign for my package. And do you want to know what Jack did? He and his wife proceeded to go on vacation for almost a week and left MY package in his house while he was surfing it up. How ridiculous is that? The UPS guy basically put his job on the line trusting a nice, white haired, older gentleman by giving him my extremelly important package.

In the end, I had to go through a big hassle having another duplicate package delivered to me. The UPS guy promised me he would never do it again after I filed a complaint against him with his supervisor. Jack told me he was sorry but he felt it was the neighborly thing to do to sign for my package. What do you guys think?