Hellobee Boards

Thats really sweet of you. Do you have a nice front yard? I know our neighborhood "parties" were often more driveway parties which made it a little easier for the host and for people to just stop by.

Where is the entrance to your street? From that bottom street or from the street to the right? If you drive in from the bottom street, I think using that point as a cut off makes sense.

We had an open house and invited our cul de sac, but also family and friends.

Is there a neighborhood association? Ours holds a "new neighbor" party each year for this purpose.

We met people organically first, then invited them to our party (it was a year later)

I wish I was bold enough to do what you are doing - it's such a great idea. I would invite the cul de sac first - talk to immediate neighbors. There's the possibility they'd want to make it a block party.

I think it's a great idea - I've been here for 7 years and would still like to do this lol

I think it’s a great idea too – you’ll find out pretty quickly who has kids and whatnot which will be useful information to have. I would definitely invite the entire cul-de-sac (entire HOA?) and I personally would invite directly adjacent homes as well, even if not part of your HOA/cul-de-sac. I would also invite friends and family.

If I received an invite I would try to attend; but if I couldn’t I would definitely make an effort to swing by and introduce myself, which I might not think as much about doing without the invite as a formal prompt.

We live on a cul-de-sac (in a HOA) as well as there are adjacent homes that are not directly on our cul-de-sac or part of our HOA (1 home at the end of our street and a couple of homes that are backyard –to-backyard adjacent to a few homes in our HOA). There is definitely a divide between “us” and “them” because invites to parties go out via a private HOA FB group and nobody ever remembers or thinks to invite those homes. There have been enough comments made by residents of “those” houses about “us” - - it’s all juvenile but if it were me, I would over invite to cut down (if I could!) on potential neighborhood middle schoolesq drama.

We did something like this a few months after we moved in and now do it every year. We do it in the driveway because we have really good shade in our front yard in the afternoon, so people just wander over.
We typically do it on a Sunday afternoon, starting around 4pm and go until it's time to put the kids to sleep. I figure it ups our chances of people attending because they don't have Sunday afternoon plans and if they see a bunch of people congregating in the street, they can just walk on down.

I think this is a great idea! We wanted to have a housewarming when we recently moved and invite over the neighbors, but we didn't end up following through. I wish we did!

1. What do we call it? I'd probably call it an open house
2. Who do we invite? We would invite the cul-de-sac, but also invite the neighbors up to the next side street? I think up to that side street is probably a good cut off. I'd also probably invite friends and family too, to have the party well attended and kill 2 birds with one stone.
3. What time do we have it? We will have it on a Saturday or Sunday. Open house style (all afternoon) or for a couple of hours? I'd probably do it all afternoon. I prefer drop in type parties like that, since it's more casual and on a busy weekend, probably easier for people to fit into their days.
4. Would you come to something like this if your new neighbor gave you an invite? Absolutely!! I'd love it if someone on our culdesac did this and come bearing booze and brownies in a heartbeat.