I had my feelings hurt today...

[SpottedCrow]

I was friendly to EVERYONE in my neighbourhood, said Hi and Howya doing and all that...I was invited for tea etc...THEN...dramatic pause..."We don't see you in Church" and things went downhill from there...My whole neighbourhood is Irish Catholic and they all go to the same church and play soccer on the same team etc.
DH is Greek Orthodox so we wouldn't go to a Catholic Church ANYWAY. Strike One!
DS isn't into sports and never was or will be. Strike Two!
I'm a Pagan...Major Strike THREE!!
We've been ostracized since...
And when we got the chickens, that was the last straw...NOONE talks to us...but it only the folks MY age late 30's mid 40's and it's the Queen of the Neighbourhood's Clique...

And QOTN had the nerve to be nice to my face, but when I left to badmouth me...I heard this from another gal who I was sorta friends with who didn't put up with that crap either...

So I'm going along, doing my thing, and everyone that's gonna be like that can kiss my lily white hiney.

AMEN Hawke

 

[Meesh]

Any small chance someone lived in YOUR house before that was really difficult for your neighbors to deal with? It's a long shot, but...

We had a very nasty, very bitter lady next door to us for several years. She fought with and screamed at everyone on our road - including me. After her house sold, it took me a while to let go of the stress that she had created. I had learned to not even *look* over at her house, and I know I was not as friendly to my new neighbor as I would have been had things been different. As I said, it's a long shot, but maybe someone lived there before you that started the problems, and you are just catching the fall out.

I will say with the nasty lady, I tried the 'killing her with kindness' routine. When her kids abandoned her, I tried to help - helped her move hay, loaned her my car one day when her's died, fixed all of our fences along our property, etc. I plowed her drive when it snowed, even when she was in the middle of a streak of being very nasty to me (driving by and screaming obscenities). This after she burned up several acres of my property and nearly burned my house down with an out of control 'controlled burn'. She never was anything but hateful to me, but I did earn the full respect of her friends and the rest of our neighbors for being a decent human being amidst her storming at me.

I think it's very important to know yourself and what kind of person you want to be, and stay on track. Don't let someone else's hate and nastiness steer you off of YOUR course.

I ended up starting a beautiful flower garden along my fence by her house because I got tired of looking toward her house and feeling only bad feelings. Now I have a great garden that I enjoy every day and a great new neighbor.

Cheers,
Michelle

 

[sunnychooks]

Continue to make new friends. Join a community group or become active in church or school activities. When people in the community get to know you, it won't matter what she says because everyone will know she is wrong.

BTW, I have the opposite situation. We were here first. Our house is old and needs a bit of TLC but it's certainly not ready to collapse. We have dogs, chickens, sheep and goats on about 9+ acres. They built houses across the street from us about 6 years ago. They are big and expensive. Most of our new neighbors regard us as the Clampetts! If we wave to them they pretend not to see us and when they are "forced" to acknowlegde us they look as if they're afraid they'll catch something.

DH and I just laugh about it. What jerks!

 

[meriruka]

Quote:
hey! I'm Russian Orthodox in the rural Baptist south, I know how you feel........

 

[clay]

Quote:
Jackson, NJ, eh? Anywhere near the "tiger lady" who also has suffered due to the new housing and influx of more "upper crust" types? I have family in and around Indian Mills, NJ, which is turning into "yuppie country estates" and even changed the name of the town to Shamong, in order to, I suppose, celebrate the communitys change in status. I lived for a couple of years in Salem County, but even that is being transformed by $300K+ cookie-cutter housing developments replacing the farms and orchards.

 

[sunnychooks]

Quote:
Jackson, NJ, eh? Anywhere near the "tiger lady" who also has suffered due to the new housing and influx of more "upper crust" types? I have family in and around Indian Mills, NJ, which is turning into "yuppie country estates" and even changed the name of the town to Shamong, in order to, I suppose, celebrate the communitys change in status. I lived for a couple of years in Salem County, but even that is being transformed by $300K+ cookie-cutter housing developments replacing the farms and orchards.

Oh, yes. The tiger lady.
What was amazing about that was that the housing development that forced the issue was named "The Reserve", after the tiger reserve it was near. How can those people say they didn't know???
I had friends in Shamong. They moved to Virginia when the cost of living and development there started to get out of hand. They told me that the name was changed because someone decided that calling the town Indian Mills was not politically correct.

 

[miss_thenorth]

Quote:
It's true, the ppl who lived here before were not very well liked, but how would that transfer to us?

My hubby came home from work, and i told him what's up. he;s gonna talk to the guy who supposedly has issues with our dogs. As far as the lady who badmouthed us, i do know that they are going through their own personal issues whick might cause her to loathe us.

We will see how this plays out after dh talks to the one guy. i do think that a 'neighbourhood' barbecue is in order though.

 

[lengel]

When we moved here to take care of my mother-in-law because she had dementia and it was just awful to see her that way, we were treated soooo horribly by our two nearest neighbors. I struggled with it the entire time we were caregivers for her. I truly thought that they were being protective of her, thinking that we were gold-diggers and not realizing that she didn't have any money. In fact, we had been taking care of her financially long before we moved here but I didn't want to embarrass her by making that public.

Just before MIL went to live in the nursing home down the street, she looked at me and said, out of the blue, "They aren't my friends. They thought they could buy my house for cheap." It was a moment of clarity that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Maybe your neighbors just wanted the land and thought they could get it for nothing.

 

[ZykloniaDark-GothikRanchr]

shoot em, use em as compost..

lol just kidding. don't sweat it, I fly a pirate flag at my property, lets people know I will probably like them as much as they like me

 

[crtrlovr]

I'm sure this probably doesn't really apply to your situation or to some of the others that have been posted here, but I feel compelled to confess something along this line. *I've already repented and asked the Lord and the lady to forgive me, so that part's cool!

* When we were going to Bible college there was a woman in one of my classes to whom I took an INSTANT dislike. I'd never seen or met her before, knew nothing about her, but something about her just galled me. I kept telling myself to stop being ridiculous, but the feelings wouldn't leave. When I finally got revelation of why I was feeling the way I did, I REALLY had some confessing to the Lord and repenting to do.

It hit me like a ton of bricks when I realized the reason I didn't like this woman was that, other than her hair color, she looked remarkably like my husband's ex-wife who had caused us a world of grief over child custody issues. Then had to repent because obviously I still had unforgiveness issues pertaining to her as well....

Once I'd done that, and actually got to know the woman at the Bible college, she was a very friendly and loving person with a warm and caring personality. I could have missed out on a sweet friendship by letting my own unforgiveness cloud my perception and putting my anger and resentment onto someone who didn't deserve it.