Empowering busybodies

[The Wookie]

I've had a lot of reports from friends recently of heavy handed police interactions for minor breaking of COVID rules.

One in particular that got me was a friend of Mrs.Wookie, he lives by himself in a Cul-de-Sac near us and he'd noticed several police visits over the space of a week, all turning up to different houses.

He had a chat with the only one he knew closely, an older couple, who had received a police visit, obviously it was for a potential COVID breach. As it happens what they were doing was actually perfectly legitimate, they had taken their grandchildren for a night as their kids had an emergency on the other side of the family. The police turned up and were pretty heavy handed with questioning and threats of fines.

It turns out the resident nosey neighbour has set up shop by their front window to observe everyone's comings and goings and is shopping people for suspected COVID breaches.

Anecdotally it was no different for anyone else that received a visit. Everyone is being sensible and had a justification within the rules. No-one is having any dinner parties or taking the piss which is generally inline with what I see around here too.

I know the nosey neighbour phenomenon is nothing new, neither is the 'community spirited' type who likes to feel important, and I get the fact that people should be behaving themselves at the moment but the fact these people are actively spying and the police are indulging their behaviour feels like a worrying shift to me.

The additional laugh is that his dog has just had puppies and the nosey neighbour asked if they could come round with their kids to have a look!! He wasn't sure if it was them being idiots or if it was a trap to report him too, but he's not one to mince his words and told them to ps off

Thin end of the wedge or am I overreacting? Anyone else had similar experiences recently?

[steveo3002]

just how the police want it to pan out , submitting dash cam evidence of bad driving , next door grassing up each other etc

[sutoka]

Not had any interactions with the plod since the first week of lockdown.

Was going to do a grocery shop and got to a checkpoint, particular officer seemed to have got out of the wrong side of bed that morning and stood on the cat which in turn made his personality fall out.

Officer : Where are we off to the day, sir?
Me ; - Off to do the weekly shop?
Officer : - Are you aware of the current lockdown restrictions, sir?
Me : - I am indeed
Officer ; - So you would consider your journey essential then sir?
Me : - Yes, but sure I'll give you this list and you can bring the shopping to my door?
Officer : - Have a nice day, sir? * walks off*

[Gary29]

Unfortunately, Covid, is a curtain twitchers wet dream, and I doubt grassing up your whole street is going to win you many friends.

This kind of behaviour is either in your nature or it isn't, in my street, there have been a few houses having regualr visitors round that I've noticed, but I wouldn't dream of calling the police, everyone has got their own lives going on.

A wise man once said 'Mind your own fking business'

[The Wookie]

Gary29 said:

A wise man once said 'Mind your own fking business'

Yeah sadly that old axiom seems to have been forgotten about in recent years

[rxe]

I think this is going to poison relationships between people for a long time. We have a similar one in the area, their life is going to be utter hell when this is over.

[mike80]

Luckily we haven't had anything like that yet in my village. There's a few curtain twitcher types on the local Facebook page, but they generally seem to mean well.

They did catch me taking photos of the local school though...

[bucksmanuk]

A brilliant line from late, great Bill Hicks.

“Mother Nature always creates a method to separate out the idiots”

[Sophisticated Sarah]

A Covid informant near us had his window spray painted

Similar to Wookie, there were numerous police visits to the street and people were getting pissed off not knowing who was reporting them for leaving the house. The prat identified himself during a covid circle jerk on Facebook when he proudly declared the action the police were taking on his calls

[vixen1700]

I like the anonymity of living in London, none of this nonsense from neighbours or the police.

Our niece did mention to us that the police were questioning people on why they were out and about, and she 's out near Chelmsford. This surprised us as there's nothing like that here.

[CustardOnChips]

Welcome to post war East Germany.

The covid bed wetters have turned themselves into a self appointed covid informants.

What is most amusing to me is most of these curtain twitchers are probably Union Flag wkers who hero worship Churchill, and wanted to take back control.

[Adenauer]

I think this sort of thing is a pretty tricky one actually.

Whilst the guy referred to in the opening post is clearly a weapons grade bellend for being petty. I had a similar experience myself a week or two back and was only stopped from being him by Mrs A.

We drove past a house half a mile or so from where we live and could hear loud music coming from it, we know there's a young couple living there (slightly chavvy), and there were 5 different cars parked outside, all from various different locations. Pretty obvious there was some sort of party going on.
As we drove past I said, 'look at all those cars, they're having a bloody party, shall we call the police?'

Mrs A looked at me like you would look at someone you felt sorry for for being so stupid, and said, 'Adenauer, don't be that person'.

So I didn't do anything.

Should I have? No idea, but at least we're still married.

[320d is all you need]

The Wookie said:

I've had a lot of reports from friends recently of heavy handed police interactions for minor breaking of COVID rules.

One in particular that got me was a friend of Mrs.Wookie, he lives by himself in a Cul-de-Sac near us and he'd noticed several police visits over the space of a week, all turning up to different houses.

He had a chat with the only one he knew closely, an older couple, who had received a police visit, obviously it was for a potential COVID breach. As it happens what they were doing was actually perfectly legitimate, they had taken their grandchildren for a night as their kids had an emergency on the other side of the family. The police turned up and were pretty heavy handed with questioning and threats of fines.

It turns out the resident nosey neighbour has set up shop by their front window to observe everyone's comings and goings and is shopping people for suspected COVID breaches.

Anecdotally it was no different for anyone else that received a visit. Everyone is being sensible and had a justification within the rules. No-one is having any dinner parties or taking the piss which is generally inline with what I see around here too.

I know the nosey neighbour phenomenon is nothing new, neither is the 'community spirited' type who likes to feel important, and I get the fact that people should be behaving themselves at the moment but the fact these people are actively spying and the police are indulging their behaviour feels like a worrying shift to me.

The additional laugh is that his dog has just had puppies and the nosey neighbour asked if they could come round with their kids to have a look!! He wasn't sure if it was them being idiots or if it was a trap to report him too, but he's not one to mince his words and told them to ps off

Thin end of the wedge or am I overreacting? Anyone else had similar experiences recently?

There is always one toss pot in every street.

Every single one.

Nosey neighbours. Snitching on you for seeing a mate.
Just recently one of our neighbours reported our car for no Tax . Because he had to park his Taxi on the other side of the road.

People are absolute s most of the time and unfortunately lockdown / furlough / lack of social interaction / really impacts some people more than others.

People love to "get one over" on someone else, all I can say is that in time Karma will get them, maybe tomorrow, maybe in the next life, maybe somewhere inbetween.

My rule is I keep my nose out of other peoples business.
I say hello to my neighbours, you good? Yes pal thanks, and you?

And no more.

Since Facebook / Twitter came about I've seen a very rapid decline in how people treat each other in general, most of society are very selfish and vain.

[320d is all you need]

Adenauer said:

We drove past a house half a mile or so from where we live and could hear loud music coming from it, we know there's a young couple living there (slightly chavvy), and there were 5 different cars parked outside, all from various different locations. Pretty obvious there was some sort of party going on.
As we drove past I said, 'look at all those cars, they're having a bloody party, shall we call the police?'

So you're one of the busy bodies.

[anonymous-user]

Having neighbours snitching on each other is a pretty efficient way to police a country.

It doesn’t do much good for social cohesion and community spirit though.

Maybe in the future the public will have access to all the files and we’ll see who was reporting each other to the police as happened after the fall of east germany and all the stassi files got made public?

[lufbramatt]

There's a flip side to this- our next door neighbours (late 60s/early 70s) have their two grownup kids still living with them, and have been having all and sundry round- grandkids, kids partners/ex-partners etc. I could have reported them, but didn't as what they do is their business, doesn't directly affect me.

End of last year they had a funeral, and evidently the "wake" ended up being held in their house, they had family stay with them who had travelled from another part of the country. Turns out they had covid and spread it to the rest of the family. The couple both ended up in hospital. The bloke is home now, he's lost loads of weight. The lady is still in hospital, I doubt she will be coming home tbh by the sounds of it. Very sad situation.

It does make me think that if I had of said something earlier (not necessarily dob them in) it might have discouraged them having a big group gathering at their house? I don't know. Not really my place to get involved, they're all adults and made that decision themselves to take the risk.

[Adenauer]

320d is all you need said:

Adenauer said:

We drove past a house half a mile or so from where we live and could hear loud music coming from it, we know there's a young couple living there (slightly chavvy), and there were 5 different cars parked outside, all from various different locations. Pretty obvious there was some sort of party going on.
As we drove past I said, 'look at all those cars, they're having a bloody party, shall we call the police?'

So you're one of the busy bodies.

Have another read of what I posted, maybe a little bit slower?

[anonymous-user]

I wouldn’t dream of reporting my neighbours. I’d much rather live in a community than somewhere that people reported each other.

My neighbours all seem like decent people though so if they were making small infringements of covid rules I’d likely A)Not notice and B) Not be bothered.

[320d is all you need]

Adenauer said:

320d is all you need said:

Adenauer said:

We drove past a house half a mile or so from where we live and could hear loud music coming from it, we know there's a young couple living there (slightly chavvy), and there were 5 different cars parked outside, all from various different locations. Pretty obvious there was some sort of party going on.
As we drove past I said, 'look at all those cars, they're having a bloody party, shall we call the police?'

So you're one of the busy bodies.

Have another read of what I posted, maybe a little bit slower?

I did read, you didn't because your Wife told you!

[Don Veloci]

Don't be that person is how I see it.

If there was a party next door I'd be angry about the noise, not the covid aspect. I can't see how it would be a risk to me unless they came into my house and gave me a slobbery kiss.