We keep getting letters from them asking us to sign up for their local group. Reviews online are pretty negative.

Any personal experiences here?

I signed up, thinking it would be a way to sell our downsizing stuff to people who live nearby. Turned out to be no better than craigslist or other online marketplaces.

It can be a decent source of info about good tradespeople for plumbing, remodeling, etc.

People start threads complaining about every little thing. The responses are even dumber.

What should be innocent threads devolve into political commentary and sniping.

For the last two reasons, I closed my account and had them delete it. Juice wasn't worth the squeeze...

I also notice that the neighborhood groups on Facebook serve much the same purpose, and they’re often moderated, which helps keep out the riffraff.

my experience is almost exactly the same as WTG’s. One small differences,a couple of times where I wanted to give away something it’s worked out really well on nextdoor. in both cases, I felt like I managed to get it into the hands good people who had a need.

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People start threads complaining about every little thing. The responses are even dumber.

What should be innocent threads devolve into political commentary and sniping.

This has been my experience as well.

The only reason I'm still on it is bc sometimes there's actually good info there that I wouldn't have known otherwise. Like road closings, info about local businesses, the odd "explanation of that weird noise" ...

I posted there maybe once or twice but now I never do. I just sort of keep it as something I randomly look at whenever there's a weird noise in the neighborhood we can't explain.

Mine is all "get off my lawn!" and "young people these days have no manners".

The only Nextdoor I read is Twitter's Best of Nextdoor.

This right here.

https://twitter.com/punished_c.../1609941539144306690

Also this, not actually NextDoor, but the kind of colleagues we all need.

https://twitter.com/kbworld33/.../1603574321921884163

/threaddrift

I think it depends on your local community. I started a NextDoor group when we moved to our current house because I'd used it in town and it had proved invaluable.

Next door helps people find lost pets, helps neighbors discuss how to handle an icy private road, helps alert neighbors when the community water is going to be turned off, etc etc etc.

It's like the town crier or bulletin board.

Ours is very useful. I can imagine in more jaded surroundings it could just be a haven for scammers.

The top complaint on ours is “someone threw their dog poop away in our garbage bin!”

But it’s great for finding lost pets. I get it in digest form, and just skim the most popular topics.

I get a lot out of our Nextdoor site (as messy as the coding is - making it hard impossible sometimes to find particular topics, members, news. And I've been struck out at random twice (only suddenly noticing I hadn't gotten any postings for an awfully long time.). Then I have to write in and request I be resubscribed and it happens.

It's been invaluable to find helpers and (since I'm not subscribing to our local paper anymore (it's been bought out and sleazed up by some conglomerate) I get most important local news on Nextdoor sooner or later.

What I object to, is the scrambled way various neighborhoods may miss important news from other ones, owing to how postings are arranged by "neighborhoods". I just learned one condo development in a neighborhood called "Park Forest" suffered a terrible sinkhole which destroyed (flooding) a number of them. Someone who lived there wrote in today complaining (and very justifiably) about the number of gawkers coming to see the giant sinkhole growing in the association's parking lot.

(Apparently underground water pipes had burst, and run full force for four hours because the Water Authority couldn't find the shut-off. That left the hapless residents to watch while the parking lot caved in and their own homes were flooded.)

Today's resident asked if the voyeurs realize what they were visiting and taking pictures of, wasn't a natural wonder, but the outward sign of the destruction of numbers of their neighbors' homes. That while they gawkers had been cooking their Christmas dinners, others had been flooded out of their homes because of this catastrophe (and were now facing homelessness for at least six months while repairs were undertaken?)
And no, their insurance wasn't covering water damage, nor were either the Water Authority or HOA accepting any responsibility. How about stepping up to the plate those of the readers who had an unused guest room, etc?

I hadn't heard anything about it, because Park Forest didn't post to our township, Boalsburg. What a horror! I wrote the author of the thread (I guess the original news was weeks old) commiserating and making what offers and suggestions I could.

I wish Nextdoor was less random in where they broadcast to! Only a week ago, it posted a calamitous, horribly beautiful video of an immense fire destroying two adjacent apartment buildings with all the earthly possessions of the residents (thankfully all lives had been spared). That fire happened in a fairly distant town-city (Bellefonte) over ten-fifteen miles North of the university and main town. Nonetheless, it was vividly covered, thus allowing good Samaritans to step up the plate, with GoFundMes, and contributions of food, money and goods. One extraordinary woman even offered a fully furnished, move-in ready home to temporarily shelter the young family of two small children. Thanks to the coverage of their disaster, I was able to collect in my home, many items they needed (many new), including toys for the children. (They got one of the last giant Pandas I purchased a decade ago for only $10/apiece - FAO Schwartz quality - manufactured for a department store's close out.)

I was glad I could play a small part, as one of the many "neighbors helping neighbors" opportunities Nextdoor provides. Someone else wrote in before Christmas about having encountered a super hard luck story, bumping into (literally) a sick lady sleeping on the floor of a convenience store. She - and her beloved young dog - are being helped, and we're still looking for a thrice reported barmy-sounding homeless lady, living in a car along with what appear to be dozens of cats. (And this during the Siberian cold spells we've been having!) No one's yet been able to establish a trusting connection with her, but now that we have a description, many people have her on their radar - hoping they are all still alive.

Such bulletins really do bring out the best in people, but because they aren't publicized in every neighborhood some (like those condo dwellers) do fall through the cracks. Overall, Nextdoor is a helping vehicle in our county, besides providing very useful references to numerous tradespeople, professionals, and how-tos for special problems mostly particular to our area. (Bear issues, free wasp nest destroyers - they sell the venom - warnings of downed trees, wires and other PSAS.) It's kind of sloppily put together, but for the most part, it's a lot more reliable about local people and businesses (tradespeople, professionals, little-known Mom and Pop businesses, and more). They're vastly better than the scads of pseudo reviews on Google, YELP, Amazon, Angie's List and ALL those padded medical reviews. In that regard, it represents the best of what the internet could have been (and isn't) - a word of mouth town crier for ones locale.

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The top complaint on ours is “someone threw their dog poop away in our garbage bin!”

Yes! Though to be honest, I never thought that was a thing until I read about it both here (I think) and on NextDoor. I figure a trash can is a trash can, they should be grateful that I'm picking up poop and throwing it away. Apparently it makes the garbage smelly. But yeah, it's garbage. Who spends a lot of time standing around smelling their garbage cans, anyway.

Because I have been enlightened I now carry it in my neighborhood and toss it in my own garbage can. But I refuse to pack it, carry it home and toss it there when the "deposit" was made in a public location, with public garbage cans. (Apparently that's a thing, too.)

The other item on our hit parade are coyote sightings, which almost inevitably morph into indoor/outdoor cat arguments.

Finally, there are the "crime" reports, like "I saw someone walking around my neighborhood and they looked like they were casing out houses to rob later."

I am still a member, but I no longer get notices. I'll go over there to find out things like "what was that noise," or "is your power out, too"? that's about it.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:

quote:

The top complaint on ours is “someone threw their dog poop away in our garbage bin!”

Yes! Though to be honest, I never thought that was a thing until I read about it both here (I think) and on NextDoor. I figure a trash can is a trash can, they should be grateful that I'm picking up poop and throwing it away. Apparently it makes the garbage smelly. But yeah, it's garbage. Who spends a lot of time standing around smelling their garbage cans, anyway.

Because I have been enlightened I now carry it in my neighborhood and toss it in my own garbage can. But I refuse to pack it, carry it home and toss it there when the "deposit" was made in a public location, with public garbage cans. (Apparently that's a thing, too.)

The other item on our hit parade are coyote sightings, which almost inevitably morph into indoor/outdoor cat arguments.

Finally, there are the "crime" reports, like "I saw someone walking around my neighborhood and they looked like they were casing out houses to rob later."

I am still a member, but I no longer get notices. I'll go over there to find out things like "what was that noise," or "is your power out, too"? that's about it.

Don’t forget the porch pirate sightings!

What was that noise?

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Originally posted by Steve Miller:
What was that noise?

Generally fireworks. Or gunshots.