Pretty much, my outlook as always been that if I want good neighbors, I gotta be a good neighbor.
8 months after I moved into my current home (20 years ago), one neighbor gave me an old boat trailer for a 10' aluminum boat. A small tornado had touched down in my yard putting down nearly 40 trees which took me the better part of 6 months to clean up with nothing but hand tools and a power saw. He had watched me working my butt off to clean up a yard that had nearly 30 years of neglect, which naturally made his yard look better too. I converted it to a yard trailer (built a wooden bed on it and shortened the tongue about 4 feet) and still use it to this day to haul off leaves that I pick up in the finished part of my yard. It won't haul much weight, but does a bang up job of saving me all the running back and forth to empty the bags on my mower. He came over when I was building my shed and helped me lift the headers for the roll-up doors, I split some hickory I cut and gave it to him for his barbeque pit, he gave me some Boston Butt. This past year, I helped him trim out a brand new shed which is basically a mirror image of mine (which is actually stick frame). The fella's got more money than he knows what to do with, so he put all the bells and whistles on it, most of which I helped install. I did all the electrical and plumbing for him as well. If he has something I need, I pretty much just go get it, and vice versa. More recently, I helped the guy that lives across the street from him build a chicken yard/coop. I've dug up stumps and moved logs and brush for the guy to the west of me, and the one just past him as well. I've borrowed a trailer (before I got my own) from the guy across the street from me, and I rewired it with all new lights in thanks. Like I said, be a good neighbor, you'll have good neighbors. Fortunately for me, most of the folks in our 'hood are conservatives and those that aren't are still good people. Only a few 'woke' or liberal folks here that have been here about 2 years that typically keep to themselves, and I let them. Don't have to agree with their politics to be a good neighbor. If ANY of them asks for help, I was brought up to NEVER EVER stand and watch someone struggle with a task. If they make a habit of it, though, then we discuss compensation.
We have a great little 'hood with only one empty home which has grown up miserably, and as you say, needs some help to help out the ones that live either side of it. Don't have a bushhog, or I'd ask the owner (she's living in her mother's home in another part of town) if she wanted me to knock it down. She planted Thorny Olive shrubbery between her and the house next door. When I moved here, it was like 3 feet tall. It's now 30 feet tall, and there's volunteer stuff from it all over the neighborhood. Thorny Olive is a VERY invasive plant that gets so thick that even rabbits can't get through it. It will choke out everything around it and has already killed to really nice maples in her front yard which is the only part of the lawn she has cut.
