Do You Use Nextdoor?

[ERD50]

I've been signed up for about a year. Was hesitant, I don't do Facebook because I want to avoid issues. Ours has been fine, and generally helpful. Lost pets, business references, notices about things that might affect the neighborhood. I have not seen any bickering type posts.

I initially got an invite from the local RE agent, figured it would just be her promoting stuff, so didn't accept. Then got one from the neighbor, so figured it was worth a try. Been OK so far.

And if I want to give something away, or sell something, I'd try this first - seems far safer than other methods, and you know it is local.

I had been signed up for Freecycle, never used it, and I've noticed traffic has gone to near nothing in the past year - I assume this NextDoor has taken over from it.

-ERD50

 

[Ronstar]

We use it. I recently posted that I had some free firewood that I put out at the end of our driveway. I got a few responses saying that they would pick some up. About every 3 days, a few logs would be taken. Its like they didn't want to take all of it in case somebody else wanted some.

 

[Scrapr]

I banned myself. (I quit!)

in our main home Next Door was great. Sold a few things to local neighbors. Gave some stuff away. Etc

Then we sold that home and moved to our 2nd home 3 hours away. Since we had a good experience there we transferred the account over. We posted up a few things. Then I made a funny (not snarky) comment to lighten the mood. Bam...moderator note. We don't do that here. Please refrain. Ok. Mea Culpa.

Then either I forgot or my evil side overcame my "good" twin. I made another comment. Bam...2nd warning.

Mods on a power experience. I'm outta here. Why cant it be a fun experience and not a slog through the marsh?

It was useful last winter as the snow piled up (PHD?) and we were trying to uncover storm drains

 

[growing_older]

I signed on to NextDoor when I believed it was going to be a local group just for our block or maybe a block or two around us. That was how it was pitched in the invitation and that's the name of our local group. It was useful for a while with garage sales and local incidents, but as it's grown more successful the area seems to have expanded and most of the people are strangers who don't live near me. I'm only looking at the daily digests occasionally and they are huge - more messages than I want to read, mostly about things that aren't local to me anymore.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

I signed up but it seemed to be mostly people looking for contractors and a home based hair stylist posting ads every other day, so I turned off notifications and ignored it. After reading that blog post above I decided to check it and got a real chuckle when the topmost thread was a warning of a panther sighting (yeah, right) with 79 replies.

So I'll continue to ignore it.

 

[LastOfTheBoomers]

My "hood" on Nextdoor is pretty small - around 150 - I do get some nice updates in lost dogs and yard sales. I've posted 3 things on ND and they all sold - I think of it as a place sell stuff prior to posting on Craigslist

 

[jfn111]

We use it. I had a couple of old bikes I wanted to get rid of. Took a picture and put them at the end of the driveway. They were gone in 15 minutes.

 

[SteveNU]

We live in a rural area and I tried it but our "Nextdoor" included part of the city next to our town about 4-5 miles away and really not relevant to our area. Never saw anyone on it who was within a few miles so I got out.

 

[Red Badger]

Same with us.

+1.
Ours is very civil and community oriented.

 

[citrine]

We are on it....pretty rural area so it comes in handy...lots of nosy people watching the neighborhood me included! Also with lost pets, chickens, miniature horses walking down the road!

 

[MissMolly]

An article posted on our Nextdoor today called "8 Truths About Nextdoor". Pretty funny.

https://suburbanturmoil.com/8-truths-about-nextdoor-com/2017/08/24/

 

[Midpack]

We use it. Most of the posts in our neighborhood are

• lost/found dogs,
• looking to buy/sell something,
• contractor/services suggestions/recommendations,
• kids looking for PT work or
• complaining for the sake of complaining - dog peed/pooped in my garden/yard, kids are vandals, solicitors drive me crazy, slow down driving in the hood, more stop lights/signs, etc.

If you can ignore the latter, it's useful IME.

 

[Just_Steve]

I had never heard of it, but went there to check. Turns out my street is not included, although it has been here since 1996. Lucky me!

Never heard of it either. Just checked for my area, subdivision has been here since 1960, no group found and I'm not about to start one.

 

[gayl]

I use it, as does both my daughter and my daughter-in-law. However we have restricted it only to our small area. So we've got a total of maybe 1,100 people. And we all get along. Maybe that's because we live on the outskirts of Suburbia where we can go into a major city, San Francisco, if we really want any drama

I am not on Facebook. That has absolutely no interest or benefit to me

 

[TrvlBug]

Yep, use it. Based on your comments, I would swear that you all lived in my neighborhood...except those who have civil ND .

The most recent post that made me laugh out loud was where someone asked what the rules were wrt keeping roosters in our semi semi-rural area because there's one that wakes her up at 4:30 every morning (they are not allowed). One of the responses was for her to wear earplugs .

 

[Lagniappe]

I am a member and it helped enormously during the hurricane. Got info from folks near the bayous and around the general area of where to avoid, places open, roadways to be cautious with and community information.

I use it also to find garage sales, give away building materials and keep an eye out for lost pets.

I turned off all notifications other than emergencies. I also make sure to report the garbage posters (spam, drama queens) when I come across them.

Same here. During Irma, the neighbors who stayed kept the rest of us up to date on when roads were safe, power was back, etc. There was also an ongoing thread that alerted people when stores got shipments of water or gasoline.

Before Irma, it was basically where you asked for recommendations for service providers.

 

[jazz4cash]

I think I heard about it here awhile back and checked it out. We had a Yahoo Group but it was under utilized. Next door is about the same and I could see the dumpster fire from a mile away. So far not too bad though. Good alternative to Craigslist for selling and giveaways. Too many lost cat reports. A neighbor asked me to submit a "dog found" report and I got 50 emails asking if the owner was found because I was slow to update. My #1 pet peeve is people get into 1 on 1 dialogues (what color is the Edsel you have for sale?) that do not involve the community instead of switching to personal messages or email.

 

[Katsmeow]

Wow. I've never heard of it. We do have an unofficial Facebook page for our subdivision and also an POA run community board. The official one is valuable because you can get information on official POA related stuff. The unofficial one is valuable because you can say things about the POA that would get deleted on the community feed. Both are really useful for things like finding workmen to do stuff or do sell gently used items to some one in the neighboorhood. During the hurricane both were great in giving information about what roads outside the neighborhood were flooding and about what way to travel.

 

[iloveyoga]

That is pretty funny stuff.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Yes but it is starting to make me paranoid) Mostly bad stuff that is going on is reported.

 

[AutumnElf]

I read NextDoor quite regularly. I'm really shocked at how some people think. And why do they complain about a recommendation that someone may post? Isn't that what the app is for?

If I see a post I don't like, I just scroll past it (as do most folks) but there are some who just blow it up into a drama. We've had verbal attacks on our neighborhood city workers regarding the homeless problems in our area!

Our neighborhood posts animal sightings (bears, bobcats, mountain lions). I like these because it builds an awareness that we are living in a wild environment... And to not let your beloved pets outside.

We do have a lot of stray pet posts (some neighbors here are upset about those too... I don't know what they expected this app to be!), and environmental warnings.

I just found an ottoman that someone posted for sale. The price was good, it was in great shape and I got to meet one of our neighbors and we swapped stories, as well as getting a decent price of furniture.

So far in like the app and it's been useful to me.

 

[Teacher Terry]

It is helping a lot of lost pets go home which is awesome. It also tells us about wild animal sightings. Yes people get in fights about stuff such as the homeless. Some people register 0 on the empathy meter)