What a small grudge can accomplish...

Neighborhoods change. Years ago, you lived on a street and you knew all your neighbors. When there was a situation, you could count on a neighbor to mind your children, to help out with grandma or granddad, to fetch errands for you, etc. Everybody knew everybody and kept an eye on what was happening.

Nowadays you live somewhere and most of you won't know who's next to you (or above, or under). Nobody cares a lot. Thieves have more and more success breaking into houses at daytime, just because the neighbors don't know rightly who belongs where.

This new attitude also results in the fact that more and more neighbors file complaints against each other. This had lead to a hilarious situation in the environs of Ghent.

Somebody in a newly built housing estate filed a complaint because he/she could not arrange the garden as he/she wanted. According to the complaint, the neighbors had done the same and they had not gotten a control... 

Now the city council decided to come and see all the gardens in this neighborhood. The result is that hundreds of people have to rearrange their gardens, according to the stipulations by the housing permit. Can you imagine anything like this happening where you live???

I'm very happy to live in a street where I still know my neighbors. The neighbor on my right looks after my house when I'm not there, and the one on the left lends me his tools when a job needs to be done. I could also complaint about some things, but why risk a good relation with your neighbors?