Don't say goodbye then!

Had they told your son the date they were moving house?Had they already had a good chat before they went? Perhaps they will come back to clean and intend to say a final goodbye then.

It does seem odd.

Oh yes they had said that they were moving out Friday, today, a moving van had been there. I'm hoping they will return to clean the place it just doesn't sound like them. No they had not had a good chat for a week as they've been away.

Some friends of ours moved this year and they had been very much a part of village life and activities including one singing in my choir. From the moment they decided to move, they withdrew from everything and went without leaving address/phone number etc. It is very bizarre.

Were they home owners? Has the house been repossessed? If they were in financial difficulties they wouldn't want to talk about it. The house we currently live in was a mortgage repossession and the previous owners didn't tell anyone around here where or when they were going.

That has happened to me too, when my neighbour, dd's godmother, moved and never contacted us again and she only went round the corner.
(I did try)

Some people near us moved out without saying a word to anyone - and left their cat behind too.

I ;am so happy my neighbours have SOLD sign up. They are not very nice neighbours at all. They have 3 dogs who bark loudly and snarl when we are in the garden, even though they cannot see us. Every move we make they start. The owners then scream loudly at the dogs. She even accused me of killing one of them by not cutting our holly tree down. She said the dog ate the berries - the holly tree is behind a 7 ft fence (growing above it, yes) it is a male holly bush and has never born berries.

This happened when I asked her how the little dog was as I hadn't seen
heard him lately. She replied 'He died' I expressed my sorrow for them and asked how then she told me......... They have so much crap rubbish lying around in their garden I'm surprised that all of the dogs are not ill.

Any way, I digress, THEY ARE UP FOR SALE, good luck Oxfordshire is all I can say.

I am embarrassed to say that, when my husband and I separated and moved to 2 different properties, we told no neighbours that we were even selling, let alone when we were moving. We got on OK with them all, but the ones who had been in their houses since they were built (post-war) were terrible gossips. Having heard the awful way they spoke about other families in the road, we chose to let them talk about us after we were gone! There would have been many huddles and much exaggerated speculation!
dorset, I hope your son gets a goodbye from his neighbours, maybe they found the move took longer than expected and didn't have time. I also hope the new lot are pleasant!

No their house was not re-possessed , he has just been offered a headship at a independent school in Hampshire, they've bought a large house there and she works as a teacher part-time. My DIL says they wont be coming back to clear and clean as I had hoped, as the new neighbours move in today. shysal no matter how busy it wouldn't take a moment to knock on the door. Or do what my old neighbours did. they felt it might be a rushed goodbye so popped by the evening before. If you knew the couple you'd all be as shocked as we are, as they are nice people. Maybe she got upset or the kids did and hopefully they will drop a line or two sometime in the near future.

I would say they were just too busy to think straight. I have moved frequently, and if he is taking up a new headship he will have to be in and starting on Monday.

I haven't always said goodbye for a reason you may not have thought of - I was just too sad.

If they know their new address perhaps your DS and DIL could send them a Welcome card to their new home, saying how sorry they were to miss them to say goodbye and hope they'll be very happy where they move to. The ball is then in their court.

It is strange; we had young neighbours (not directly next door) for about 18 months. They rarely spoke, he did occasionally and the children called 'hello' but she never said a word. Then on the day they moved we happened to see them in the road and they (particularly her) chatted for ages as if we were really old friends!

It was what I was intending to do if and when we move from our present home but that is because we have been threatened by one of our neighbours. The rest have been ok but in our street any news gets around and I don't want to leave a forwarding address with anyone so this person knows where we will have moved to. Or can someone suggest saying goodbye without saying where we would be moving to? Normally the question of where you are going comes up. I have thought of saying a totally different area but the answer has to be plausible.

Does your son have a number for his neighbour? He could drop a quick text. "Sorry we missed you leaving, we hope you will be happy in your new home" sort of thing and see if he gets a reply. If not, there is nothing he can do but chalk it up to experience and not let it taint his friendship with the new owners. And meantime, drop a card into the new neighbours welcoming them to their new home. Good luck to him and his family.

sometimes people find it hard to say goodbye and just like to cut all ties with the past, move on as it were - but I would say goodbye to close neighbours (maybe they forgot in the stress of moving).
I am one of those who when I leave I am gone and NEVER go back to either contact or see places I have lived or my neighbours.
I know some would find that strange but to me it is normal and my preference - the only constants in my life are my family.
I also keep moving on a lot.

Do you know the expression 'There's none so queer as folk'?

When our neighbours moved out I waited for the new people to arrive and then went round with a greetings card and had a brief chat and offered them any help they needed including space on our drive when their removal van arrived with the furniture. All very amicable.

They never did arrive as they had bought the house as a house to let for holidays.

Why oh why did they let me go on with my welcome speech. I feel like saying (when they come round the clean or mow the lawn) 'I wish you had been straight with me'.

While I also like people to be straight with me, nankate, I can understand those people not wishing to tell someone they'd only just met what their business was. Perhaps your welcome was so good that they didn't want to, as it were, interrupt the flow with the reality of the situation because it would have seemed rude. I can imagine feeling like that myself. Without ever wishing to be rude I don't often want to tell strangers my plans. That's not being unfriendly. At most it's a little bit of sensible reserve.

I can see what you are saying 'thatbags' but I felt so foolish afterwards having said how long I had lived here and that if they needed help on the area we were happy to help.

It turns out they have a house about 500 yards from us round the corner from us.

My own feeling is that they didn't want negative vibes from me about having a rented house next door.

It has transpired we have met some lovely people in the 9 months the house has been rented out. In fact my husband found a credit card in the road belonging to one of them and posted it back through the door. They came the next day with a very nice bottle of red, which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Glad the story has a happy ending, nk

dorsetpenn That is sad. I can understand your son feeling very hurt. It may have been just thoughtlessness.

We had had a very unhappy time in our last house and I have never been so glad to move. Our neighbours on one side were very nice and always friendly. We used to chat in the front garden and their daughter used to come round to chat with our daughter.

We had no real "joint" friends when we were living there but I had made some good friends at work and, instead of us all going out to a restaurant, I had a "leaving do" at our house. Thinking about it long after we moved, it struck me that our neighbours may have been hurt that they had not been invited - they would not have realised that it was just a "work do".

My husband was already living back in London and came up the day before the move, so we were rushed off our feet. The removal men turned up and were cocky and unpleasant, and it added to my feeling of just wanting to get away. I'm not sure if we said a proper goodbye to the family next door and I've always regretted not thanking them for being such nice neighbours.

I've been musing about this - we had to sell our house in the 80s, as we had awful mortgage arrears, and when the sign went up my neighbour , who has been a good friend got very queer with me, as I hadn't told her ( I was going to and hadn't expected the sign to go up so quick ), we had to move into rented before the sale went through, so were popping back, and found they had come in to the garden and chopped down the honeysuckle, as it was growing on their wall...it really upset me.

However in this OP case, it could be a case of three sides to every story, yours , mine and the truth, and I wonder if there is another couple somewhere saying ' how strange we'd been so friendly with them, they could see we were busy loading the van , and they never even bothered to offer a cuppa, give us a new home card or say goodbye....' ?