Neighbors Stories

If you asked me what I like about moving into this house, I would say it's our neighbors. Both my left and right neighbours are very nice, but the one i'm going to tell you about are the older Croatian couple. They are a nice couple and very friendly. You know what, the husband is the one moving our front and backyard while my dad is not here XP

We didn't ask him of course. After we came back from holiday, the wife told us when it's time to mow the lawn, just ask her husband to do it. It's not girls' job, she said. Of course we just laughed it off, but then not long after when I got home, I noticed my front lawn was flat! My lawn is full of weeds so you do notice when suddenly it's flat. When we asked the neighbors, and thanked them, the husband asked said, "yeah, I wanted to do the backyard too but it's locked. So tell me when you want me to mow it". We told him don't worry, we'll do it ourselves but he insisted. Then, he did it then and there XD since then he's been mowing our lawn every 2 weeks :P

Plus, on taking the rubbish day out day, we noticed that by the time we got home the day after, the bins have been pushed in next to the house. Initially I thought it was one of my sisters as I'm the last one to return. However, later on my sister asked me if I did as neither her nor her twin did it. When we confirmed with next door, yeah it was them.

We met them tonight on our way home and ended up talking for quite a while. It's nice to hear their stories about the old times..

They told us in 70s, when they first arrived in Australia, the husband first pay was $50 a week and the wife's pay was $34 per week and it paid for rent and food for them and 2 children! 700 ml milk cost 20cents and a baguette cost 5 cents. Milk really doesn't have much increase. You can still buy a litre for $1 now. While baguettes hmm.. quite an increase. You can leave money for bread and milk delivery in front of your door safely, but outside generally wasn't as safe as now. There weren't much take away places, just fish and chips, burgers and such. You couldn't buy lunches on Saturdays because stores closed at noon! Getting a place to rent was hard if you had kids because landlords worried kids would damage the property. They said people with 2-3 kids usually lied and said they had 1 kid only if they wanted to rent. Childcare of course were not many, so the wife worked in the morning and her sister worked in the afternoon to take turns watching over the children. They had a tough life back then.

They said they had to work hard in a farm when they were in Croatia. They said it was a small village where they lived, probably 50-60 houses. Everybody knew everybody. When they took their children back there for holiday, their eldest was surprised, "Why don't people knock when coming to other house?? They just opened the door and walked straight in!". It's a pity now that that village isn't like how it was before. People don't know everyone anymore and it has grown too.

They were all good story and I guess, worth my blood being fed to mosquitoes listening to it :P