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curtain twitchers

(96 Posts)
boodymum67 Sat 26-Sep-20 15:01:49

Would you class yourself as a curtain twitcher? You know, one of those neighbours who do take an interest in what`s happening along their street?

My 84 year old neighbour has just rung me. I knew it wouldn't be for a general chat, as we did that yesterday. She`s a lovely independent lady who has been my friend for 32 years, when we both moved into our road at the same time.

She helped me a lot when my disability struck 22 years ago. My hubby helps her a lot since she lost her lovely hubby suddenly.

Anyway, my friend has just rung me to say `Do you know what`s going on at the end of our road?` I didn't. I sit further back from the window and she sits beside it.

Hubby looked out and saw an ambulance.....there is a fish and chip shop there and my hubby thought it was just a stop to buy the paramedics some lunch!

Isnt it great the way we less busy people keep an eye out for what`s going on?

Peace67 Sat 26-Sep-20 18:26:31

Hmm interesting. As i try to be observant but am totally useless at it unless it takes an interest. My neighbours are lovely with 1 side giving me eggs and and a chat and the other we often chat.
Ive just taken on a puppy a couple months ago so im out and about now . Though, im sure i dont know what possessed me to do that as beautiful as she is.
I think noticing things is positive and neighbourly and different to being just nosey.
As i age i feel i need to know less and sometimes ignorance really is bliss.
I get lonely but absolutely dont feel the need to find drama as company.
Writing letters i enjoy.
Im not sure i agree with covid statement on telling on your neighbours , as who looks after your home when your away or runs an errend if your sick etc etc surely that takes away the community feel.
Luckily in Suffolk everyone ive seen seems to obide.
I guess ive tangented sorry x

Chewbacca Sat 26-Sep-20 18:31:52

I work from home and my home office is at the front of the house, overlooking the front garden and road. My desk is under the window and so I'm looking out most of the day, whilst on calls. But I appear to be amazingly unobservant because I seem to miss all the drama and excitement that my next door neighbour witnesses on a day to day basis. Near miss car crashes? She saw it! Wheelie bin rolling into the road, narrowly missing a car? She saw it! The delivery driver who didn't bother knocking on a door and just chucked the parcel up the path? She saw it! I'm just not interested enough to notice.

Pantglas2 Sat 26-Sep-20 18:44:17

During the day I’m to be found in the kitchen or conservatory reading so don’t see much.

My sitting room window faces the road and I see most of the comings and goings if I’m in there watching tv of an evening but once it gets dark the curtains are closed so I miss everything!

My neighbour never closes her curtains and her armchair is positioned so that she can see everything on a 14 hour shift! To be fair she’s a good neighbour to have as unofficial Neighbourhood Watch as not a lot gets by her beady eye!

dontmindstayinghome Sat 26-Sep-20 19:12:41

I'm not a curtain twitcher, in fact my sitting room is at the back of the house so only overlooks my garden - but I do have extremely good hearing so I hear things going on rather than see them.

I am also very observant so I do notice when something changes.

My OH is always amazed that I seem to know when things are happening but I rarely say anything about it unless he asks.
I'm really not interested in other peoples lives, I've got enough going on in my own life to keep me occupied!

Jayt Sat 26-Sep-20 19:28:58

I never know what’s going on but I do notice if something is out of the ordinary. I don’t care if neighbours watch me or not. There’s never anything very exciting going on anyway - oh, except the day the bomb squad arrived. Now, I have to be honest, I did watch that!!

farview Sat 26-Sep-20 21:11:19

My H is a curtain twitcher..
really annoys me...we live facing a golf club,farmland at the back...and on the edge of the moors ...walkers go past..more frequently at the moment...he jumps up to to watch them...occasionally a car pulls up outside..maybe to rest or use their phone..."theres a car outside"..."theres a van pulled up" "a guy just looked in here" etc etc...aaagh..I'm always in the back of the house and he absolutely drives me nuts....I'm definitely not a curtain twitcher...?

V3ra Sat 26-Sep-20 22:37:07

Our house is detached, at the top of the cul-de-sac and our bedroom is at the back so I see and hear very little of what goes on among the neighbours.
The house next door is a semi and years ago the other half was lived in by a family who had a lot of dramas in their life.
Time after time my neighbour would tell me about the police cars, ambulances, domestic fights, you name it, that had been going on through the night and kept her awake.
I never saw or heard any of it!

We do now have a nosy (and noisy) dog though who barks whenever anything happens, or the neighbours come or go, in fact I think he barks every time a leaf blows across our drive ?

JenniferEccles Sat 26-Sep-20 22:42:42

We have a neighbourhood watch scheme operating in our road, which we like to think really helps to deter burglars. However, we could be kidding ourselves. I remember reading a scary yet believable story about neighbourly interest.

A couple noticed a large removal van had parked on the drive of a neighbours house. Two men went into the house and over the next few hours emptied the house of furniture and belongings.

The neighbours just idly commented to each other that they didn’t know the neighbours were moving, but said that they just passed the time of day with them and weren’t really friends.

It turned out that the poor neighbours weren’t moving at all - they were on holiday and the ‘removal men’ were in fact burglars with the cheek of the devil to spend hours clearing out the house.

It just goes to show that even curtain twitchers who take a keen interest in neighbours comings and goings can at times be useless in preventing crime.

MissAdventure Sat 26-Sep-20 23:07:42

*farview", most visitors to my flat are like your husband.
They tense up and whisper "who's that!?!" every time someone walks past my window (which is a lot) and usually end up saying "Oh, I couldn't live here!"

Hellogirl1 Sat 26-Sep-20 23:28:06

I don`t curtain twitch, but if I do feel like a bit of people watching, I just watch the CCTV pictures on the TV.

Ngaio1 Sat 26-Sep-20 23:34:10

My next door neighbour is appallingly nosy and gas been seen bearing binoculars when trying to ascertain what is going on! We call her Nosy Rosie. I can spot her looking down into my garden from her bedroom window and peering through the fence when i come back from shopping. She is a pain in the botty!

3nanny6 Sat 26-Sep-20 23:52:59

It used to be good in our cul-de-sac and there was always a bit of drama going on. Several people have moved now and also most of the younger generation of children have got there own places so these days it is as quiet as sitting in a library.

There was a bit of an argument between two neighbours a couple of months ago and I missed it as I had been out for a long walk with the dog and then took forty winks in the armchair.
The neighbour who had been involved in the argument saw me getting shopping out of my car and he apologised for the bad language from the other neighbour.
I told him I did not hear anything and apparently I was the only one that never went outside.
I told him when the next bit of drama happens make sure someone knocks at my door because I miss everything .

GrandmasueUK Sat 26-Sep-20 23:57:02

My grandma, mum and 2 aunties were watching some neighbours having a row. They were grouped behind the net curtain which was threaded onto a wooden rod when my uncle flipped it off the bracket. Four very embarrassed ladies were caught out peeping.

JonesKpj000 Sun 27-Sep-20 00:12:28

I'm not a twitcher but one of my neighbour's is. There is nothing she misses and I don't like it at all. She slips in conversation the car she has noticed outside our house if she doesn't know who the mystery guest is. She knows when we opened our curtains or when we have been shopping. She took it upon herself to ring a neighbour who had an ambulance outside in the middle of the night to ask who had gone to hospital and why. This was a deeply private couple too. Who is looking down the road at 4am? She is the first to complain if someone on our road asks her something saying they are downright nosey. She spends all day in her front garden pretending to weed. She is seriously getting on my nerves. I feel like i'm being spied on.

mokryna Sun 27-Sep-20 00:13:03

It reminds me of Mickey Flanagan and peeping at neighbours. My.south window faces a line of trees, so I only see the road in winter, when it very interesting to watch, on icy mornings, cars moving too fast while trying to turn a sharp corner on a hill.

inishowen Sun 27-Sep-20 09:48:20

Just last week we had shrubs taken away as they were obscuring our window. I fully intend watching what is going on in my street. I have many years to catch up on lol.

Froglady Sun 27-Sep-20 09:48:56

I am as I live at the side of a cul-de-sac and it was an ideal place for the local drug dealers to do their deals. And for people to fly-tip. I keep an eye on what's going on and, if necessary, contact the relevant authorities. I don't sit at the window watching, it's only when I'm on my laptop as it's by the window.

Moggycuddler Sun 27-Sep-20 09:51:34

Yes, I am rather nosy, I'm afraid.

CBBL Sun 27-Sep-20 09:53:40

No. Our bungalow has the bedrooms at the front, so I could not see anything that was going on, unless I was working in the front garden at the time. However, our village has only two streets, and no through road, so a friend whose house windows do face the street, will always keep us up to date with anything that does happen (not that anything much happens, anyway!).

Froglady Sun 27-Sep-20 09:57:31

JonesKpj000

I'm not a twitcher but one of my neighbour's is. There is nothing she misses and I don't like it at all. She slips in conversation the car she has noticed outside our house if she doesn't know who the mystery guest is. She knows when we opened our curtains or when we have been shopping. She took it upon herself to ring a neighbour who had an ambulance outside in the middle of the night to ask who had gone to hospital and why. This was a deeply private couple too. Who is looking down the road at 4am? She is the first to complain if someone on our road asks her something saying they are downright nosey. She spends all day in her front garden pretending to weed. She is seriously getting on my nerves. I feel like i'm being spied on.

One of my neighbour's windows is by my drive. I hate it when he sees me and taps on his window to wave at me, or asks me where I've been and what I've been doing. I feel spied upon to such an extent that I don't like going outside with my bins for the wheelie bin or if I want to sit outside in the sun. He is just nosy and wants to know everything that's going on with the 12 of us who live in this court. I am the only one who he can see going in and out. We all have mental health problems who live here and he is affecting my mental health by his actions now. He even asked me the other day, when he saw that I had a brown envelope in my post, if I'd got a Giro in it?! If he hears anybody talking in the courtyard he shoots outside to see who it is. I don't like confrontation so haven't said anything to him about how his behaviour is affecting me but it will come to a point when I'll have to.

Alexa Sun 27-Sep-20 09:59:11

The kitchen sink is positioned at a window that overlooks a well used footpath and public green, and I love to see joggers, mums with little ones, dogs and their persons, cats staring at what cats stare at, school boys and girls, old couples some of them dressed as for louping over fields, the local drug seller on a bike so I was told, young Indian lovers, young ladies in great fashions, local children out to play, the local authority grass cutting man.

ReadyMeals Sun 27-Sep-20 10:02:10

I have security cameras. I no longer need to give myself away by moving the curtains.

Gymstagran Sun 27-Sep-20 10:07:11

My neighbour is constantly watching my ins, outs at the front and back. Asking who my visitors are etc. I feel under surveillance. However when I was burgled she saw nothing.

Growing0ldDisgracefully Sun 27-Sep-20 10:07:17

No, I'm not interested in other people's comings and goings, and abhor those who think it is their business to know about other people's business.
The only time I actively keep an eye out is if we've heard noises which suggest our cars or garage are being tampered with. Because of that precaution we did catch someone trying to syphon petrol out of one of our cars.

TrendyNannie6 Sun 27-Sep-20 10:09:55

No I’m not a curtain twitcher as we couldn’t really careless what other people get up to, personally can’t abide nosey people and gossips