You guys are spoiled and just need to be more proactive in your management of the situation....
Try being out in the country where you can be pinned by a tractor or under an implement....and no one would check on you until way after dark... and on 30 acres it would be iffy finding you anyway if it was something unusual...We know a woman whose HUSBAND AND HIS BROTHER were killed by Diesel tractor accidents in the last year.... one accidentally started his while standing beside it... IN GEAR....

Here are some suggestions...

Always have a spare ' Creeper ' desigated ' GUEST Mechanic' leaning up against something close by....and be excited when someone comes up... insist that they actually get on the creeper and COME UNDER THE CAR WITH YOU.... but warn them not to touch the car since you are worried about the Jack Stands Safety...

Have a CO2 fire extinguisher under the car with you at all times.... set it off in the direction of the person standing around at random times.... and quickly jump out from under the car when you do this... brushing off your clothes as you stand up...and being very ' concerned' about their well being... most people's hearts can't take the random fire Extinguisher ploy very often.. mental images of LARGER Explosions keep coming to their minds...

But the main thing... and I have to remind Rleo, JimmyL, and other guests... is to learn to KEEP WORKING WHILE TALKING.... if that means talking ABOUT the actual problem you are working on... you will probably bore your guest VERY fast... Don't let them treat you as a " captive Audience " for their ramblings... make it to where IF THEY STAY.... they will go home knowing everything imaginable about the problem you were working on as they stood or Creeped beside you....

I know the feeling. It is difficult to turn down family members. My kids generally want something NOW, but I have tried to be patient about telling them that I will help them AFTER, and I try to be very consistent. They are getting much better, and recently I've had a few nice experiences with my 9 year old twin daughters who will crawl under the car and/or actually help me with the few jobs I actually need a hand with. My wife is another story. Invariably, I'll be into something pretty deep, giving it all I have and she wants to tell me about how she just talked to someone who's brother-in-law works with some lady who went to college with the niece of this visually impaired graphics designer who vacationed in a small country last year and met a political satarist from Mongolia whose 3rd cousin corresponds to a chat room with someone or something that's thinking about buying a house on our street! What a small world! And then the other exciting thing I ......... To those of you with quick solutions to this problem, I submit you don't really understand. It's a hard one.

Family members get priority...
 

but neighbors? If its my daughter or wife, they do know me by now and they wouldnt stop to chat unless they really had something on their mind. If my wife says the cat's tail got longer and she wants me to measure it, she may be trying to tell me she has a problem with her boss at work, and my daughter really is a born chatter who loves to talk..
Neighbors? Some of them are great, but some are maybe a little less than that. .....

it will probably be my 4-yr old daughter who wants to go to the park before dark, or to show me the bug that she found...

Well, at least i'm missing out on the freezing cold part, it was partly cloudy and 70F here yesterday...gotta love Phoenix in the winter! I think I would rather have the cold, then be stuck underneath fixing something when it's 115F ambient here in July.

-Adam

Guess my neigborhoods are a little different. My two closest neigbors have older SL - there appears to be some sort of ESP developed as we all can hear a MB hood pop from almost anywere - and that generally leads to "gatherings" ;)

....and I thought the SDL was expensive to maintain :eek:

I don't have a problem with neighbors but those that do can maybe try this: "can you help me with something simple?" "well, uh, sure, I guess so" "over to your right, turn up the volume to the radio"........."yep, good, a little more now" "what?" "yeah, a little more, good........................... :D

I have a pothead neighbor (I call him "Beavis") who can't resist the urge to come talk to me when he sees that I'm working on a car. What bothers me is that he talks constantly, and everything he says is incredibly stupid. I was working on my mother's 300D yesterday (I trade cars with her when the MB needs maintenance & repair, then trade back when I'm done), and Beavis showed up as usual. He started off the conversation with, "You know, that's not a very good car." I wondered why someone who doesn't even own a car would find fault with a mechanical masterpiece like a W123 Benz, so I asked. He said, "Because whenever it's over here you're always working on it." He followed up with, "I'm going to buy a Porsche, because they're easy to work on (?!) and never break down (!?!)." Rather than argue, I just said, "No, you won't. You're going to smoke a joint and watch cartoons."

I don't know how to get rid of the boy, aside from shooting him. I would never let someone like that actually help me work on a car; he'd either destroy the car or get me killed. Blatant insults don't work either; he thinks I'm only kidding no matter what I say.

LMAO!! :D :D

Sometimes "neighboring" can be a good thing.
1) My father's tools were off limits when I was a kid, and my neighbor was a mechanic. "Helped" him rebuild an engine on an early 60's suburban and that got me a job in his garage. Sure beat the paper route.
2) I was the neighborhood "bike mechanic" when I was in the Navy. The rule was that my work gets done first, then the bikes. Those kids (and their parents) watched the place like a hawk when I was gone, and I got a home-cooked at least once a week when I was in. Moved 8 times in the first 6 years, so I fixed a lot of bikes and was never broken into or had anything stolen.

ROTFLMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a funny thread. Carrameow has a real knack for posting such threads.

I guess it's my chatty nature, probably combined with the fact that I live in the boondocks so I don't get company very often, but I am pretty good at carrying on a conversation while I work.

There was an elderly neighbor a number of years ago who was a great guy and I really enjoyed visiting with him. He couldn't get around very well or do very much, but I kept a chair in the shop just for when he came around. He always commented on my ability to work and visit at the same time. He would always say something like "you mean you already have that thing back together?" or something like that.

The old fellow told me one time; "You would do real well with a gas station. You'd have everyone coming around to visit and have more work than you could keep up with." I thought that was really funny.

I lost him about six years or so ago and I really miss his company. He was a great neighbor (out here someone who lives two miles away is your "neighbor." His wife of over 60 years died about a month before he did. Once that happened, he just grieved himself to death.

Merry Christmas,

I have the greatest neighbors.
 

And I don't want to alienate them either. Here's why: right now, at my hut (the typical suburban house), there are 4 Mercedes-Benz, 2 Ford trucks and one 31' travel trailer. One truck and the trailer is my Dad's, is in the driveway and is effectively blocking the garage and consuming all the off-street parking. Consequently, the entire street is full of Benzos.

Even I'm embarassed at the way it looks right now.:eek:

I guess it's all about respect. If I'm working outside on something and neighbor LeAnn comes by walking her dog, I'll unglove and give Mattie a good long pet. If I'm busy Mattie gets a brief rub, I say I've gotta go back to work and they leave. The neighborhood snitch, Ms Ty-D-Bowl knows that it is perfectly OK to put stuff headed for the dump in the back of the TOAD and if she's outside, I never fail to comment on the current status of her lovely flower beds either.

Somehow, it all works out.

if its kids and they are good kids...
 

I will spend hours teaching them and letting them play with the tools and try to work them into the job. I taught my 11 year old nephew to change the oil. I think he's going to be a real mechanic too; his Dad is a carpenter and a welder.

To CARRAMEOW, Thanks for this thread, got a grumpy old "bah humbug" goat to smile.

I was changing brake pads in my driveway two years or so ago when a gentlemen walked down my driveway....As he approached he said "its nice to see someone work on their own car" I'd not met him before but had seen him walking by a few times in the morning........Anyway... he asked if I was going to be there for a few minutes and ended up coming back and giving me a really nice torque wrench that he no longer needed....It was nice talking to him and you could literally see his mind working back to the times he was talking about when he wrenched this car and that car and he was an engineer....He was at least 80 or so years old and a damn friendly guy. I told him if he ever needed a torque wrench or anything else, he knew where to find me....Don't get me wrong, I hear you with regard to the pain in the arse useless chatter box interuptous maximus types....This guy was not one of those. Speaking for myself I sometimes ffind it rustrating to be so harried and busy that opportunities to tak with other folks that live around us are missed....Rob M

Fortunately I haven't had any encounters with neighbors while working on my cars because I have a garage to work in. But what I don't like is people asking me "What's wrong with your car?" just because I have the hood up and I'm checking my work from the day before in front of my workplace. Some people think there must be something wrong with your car if your hood is up. Those are the same people who never do any maintenance or let JiffyLube do it.