Whatever happened to Neighborliness?

I need to just vent for a minute here, so bear with me.

I moved in with my BF 2 years ago. He lived here with a roommate for a year before that. We rent a condo from a very nice gentleman, in a pretty decent area of town. In the two years that I've lived here, I can count on one hand the times I've interacted with all my neighbors -- other than the head-bobs that we give each other when we happen to see each other heading to our cars or to check our mail. And that's not for the lack of trying on my part. I purposely walk the long way home after a run so that I can go by their front doors and open garages in the event that perhaps one of them will be out and I can stop and chat. The short-cut would be to use the sidewalks that NOBODY ever uses.

The first Christmas I was here, I baked a zillion cookies, packaged them up really nicely in celophane, ribbons and bags, and attached a hand-written card saying who I was and where I lived and wishing them Happy Holidays and New Year.

In the following Spring, I got the idea to do a neighborhood newsletter (I've seen it done elsewhere and it was a hit), which I typed up, photocopied onto nice colored paper and left on their doorsteps.

What do I get for my efforts? Nothing. Worse than nothing.A couple of months ago, we remodeled our front walk area and took out some paving and edging stones and built a nice raised bed border out of wood. I planted a whole lot of nice flowering plants. We stacked the removed stones up nicely by the front walk with the intention of having someone come pick them up -- but that never happened. So, on Friday, out of the blue, our landlord rings the bell and says "Did you guys get my note about the junk piled up in your front yard?"

We never received any such note. It seems the condo association sent him a letter complaining about the "junk". In the past, he has forwarded a similar note to us telling us our rose bushes were too high (which we promptly trimmed). I assured him that if we had received his note, we would have done something immediately. He was cool about it, and just asked that we take care of it as soon as we could.

He then said that he was mainly concerned because it was the woman who lives in the condo across the cul-de-sac from us who typically complains. She's the same person who complains when one neighbor walks his little chihuahua "Baby" without her leash, or when people leave their newspapers out too long (god forbid you're out of town).

Well, where was she when Eric's Kyserium was stolen off his bike which was locked to the back of his Jeep, which just happens to face her condo?

And, don't get me wrong. This rant isn't entirely about her. It's about all the other neighbors here as well... 2 years and I've never met any except for the woman who lives next door to me? 2 years? There are 25 condos within the view from my front door and I only know one person by name? WTF?

Is this really how people live today? When my grandmother died, practically her whole town came to the funeral. People I didn't even know stopped me on the street to tell me how much they thought of her.  Granted, that was in Columbia, Louisiana, but still...

Don't think this is going to drive me inside. No, I'm not going to let the hiders win. I will not become like them and just shun the outside world, and my neighbors along with it. My goal for the next two weeks: a real door-to-door campaign -- obstensively to raise money for my part of The Relay (http://www.therelay.com/co_start.htm), but also as a chance to meet these people face-to-face and start a friggin' dialog with these jokers.

/rant