Asklemmy

43974 readers

741 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
[email protected]: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

128

What's a good and non patronising way to help my neighbour out (self.asklemmy)

submitted 10 months ago by Noedel to c/[email protected]

42 comments fedilink hide all child comments

My neighbour has a cat called Stevie. Stevie hangs out with us a lot and we look after him when my neighbour is away.

Yesterday we found Stevie very unwell in our garden. We took him to the neighbour and she immediately rushed him to the vet.

She mentioned the vet was 200 dollars which was a big unexpected expense for her. Her son's birthday is on Monday and she won't be able to do anything for his birthday now.

My wife and I are fortunate enough for 200 dollars to not be a lot of money for us and we want to help, but I'm unsure how.

One option would be that we leave her a little card with 100 dollars and write that we wanted to help because we care about Stevie too.

Another idea is we ask her to do some gardening for us (that's her job, and we're too busy to do it ourselves right now).

I don't want her to feel patronised or awkward about any of this... Happy to take insights.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Backsideslappy 25 points 10 months ago (2 children)

I think the idea of sending them a "get well soon" card for Stevie with some cash tucked in is a perfectly reasonable and subtle enough idea. Asking somebody to work for you to earn cash for their kids birthday because of unexpected expenses seems a bit on the nose to me but I'm not really familiar with the relationship I suppose.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

Yeah, much better to, if she protests the money, go "no no but we might need some help in the garden..." And then say she can consider it a down payment on that if that feels better for her but that really it's just that you care for them as you should care for your neighbors.

[–] Noedel 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Off to get one now 😄

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Just be aware money attached to a written note about Stevie’s illness could be seen, in the unlikely event there’s court between you two, as an admission of liability for Stevie.

[–] Noedel 2 points 10 months ago

Lol I'm not in a country that operates like that.