New Neighbors – Making friends in your new neighborhood

Meet Your New Neighbors.

by Bob Goldsmith.

Meet Your New Neighbors and Make Your Family And Home Safer And More Secure.

So congratulations! You have made a move to somewhere new. A new, town, city, state or county.

You
will have plenty to do, all that unpacking, organizing your new home,
decorating and all that stuff. But at some point you will want to make friends in your new neighborhood.

People make for a Safer Neighborhood. They are essential in ensuring the safety and security of your family and home.

Best
thing by far, is to join your local neighborhood watch program. You
get to meet folks, make new local friends and enjoy the benefits of
neighbor looking out for neighbor.

There are other things you
can do to become part of your new local community.

If folks around you
are your friends they are more likely to know when something is not
right and more likely to notice any Suspicious Activity around your home.

Meeting Your New Neighbors.

Throwing a house warming party, or block party, is a good way to meet
your neighbors.

Notice I said meet your neighbors and not get to know
them, this is because being the party host you most likely will not have
that much time to talk to each neighbor.

You will be the busy bee
engaged in making sure that everyone has drinks and food, taking care of
things and mingling.

The house warmer is a mighty good ice breaker though. And once you have broken the ice . . .

neighbors

You may think that your new neighbors will make the effort to
introduce themselves to you and likely some will. But many may feel that
you will be too involved in organizing your new home and will not
welcome an intrusion.

Do not wait for others to introduce themselves to you. There are many reasons for folks not making the first move to get to know you.

Don’t assume that neighbors that are slow in coming forwards are unfriendly or don’t like the look of you. Make that first move, the rewards for doing so are many.

It
has been my experience that you do not need to introduce yourself to
too many families to end up knowing a substantial representation of
your immediate neighborhood.

You get to know the folks either
side of you, and across the street from you, and as they each know many
locals it is not long before you too have the acquaintance of these
families.

Don’t Be Shy.

Try not to be shy about breaking the ice with folks that are
different to yourself.

If yours is a younger family, perhaps with
children, try getting to know some of your more senior neighbors, could
be great benefits for both sides. If you are a family, meet a few of
your single neighbors.

Introduce yourselves to neighbors of a
different race, religion or culture, it will enrich your life.

Some
years back when I resided in an apartment block, the best neighbor I had
by far did not have a perfect grasp of the English language, but he
certainly was interesting and treated my wife and I like a brother and
sister.

Other Ways To Meet Your New Neighbors.

If you have children throw a party for local kids. Parents will drop
off and collect, or invite them to stay and help out, either way you get
to know neighbors.

Hold a garage sale.

Do something for
charity. Ask your new neighbors to sponsor you. Yes, charity sponsorship
is not just for kids, anyone of any age can do it.

No need to run a
marathon, ask folks to sponsor you to clean up a local park, offer to
wash cars in return for a donation to a local animal rescue center. Bake
a batch of cookies and sell them door to door around your new
neighborhood, the cash to go to a children’s hospital.

old photograph of couple
Try not to be shy about breaking the ice with folks that are different to yourself.
 old photograph of couple
Try not to be shy about breaking the ice with folks that are different to yourself.

I find that an often successful way to get acquainted with a ‘hard to meet’
neighbor is to employ the old borrow something ruse, a certain size
spanner, step ladder, battery charger, you can even try the traditional
cup of sugar.

Not a very sociable citizen?

Prefer to mostly keep
yourself to yourself? That’s OK. I’m not one for having friends and
neighbors at my place all day and everyday either.

But you can preserve
your privacy and enjoy the benefits of knowing your neighbors, and them knowing you.

If despite your best efforts you don’t get to meet many of your new neighbors then volunteer for something.
The local chamber of commerce will help, you will find an amazing
assortment of organizations that need voluntary help. Before long you
will be a well known member of your community.

I’ve already said
this, but it is that important I’ll say it again. With regard to the
safety and security of your family and home, the best organization to
join is your local neighborhood watch.

If your block does not have one
then start one. If there is one but it is not very active, do something
about it, volunteer to recruit fresh members and renew interest among
existing members.

Do you live in a big city? Cities can be the
loneliest places on the face of the planet. Millions of people all
keeping themselves to themselves. I know what that feels like, it does
not feel good.

You have got to make that effort to get acquainted, they will not come to you. You can do it if you try. I did and it was worth it, suddenly the city was a better place, I felt safer and more secure knowing my new neighbors.



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New Neighbors.

Never underestimate the criminal mind. If you do you will likely be too
relaxed about the security of your home and family. Isn’t it best to
acknowledge that the average criminal is likely to be of at least
average intelligence and protect your home on that basis? . . .
Stupid Criminals.