Everything you noted about Next Door is what I noticed when I joined late February. I’d never heard of it before, then someone recommended it because we noticed a sudden appearance of cats around our home. I’m experienced with rescues and wanted to ensure i didn’t snatch up someones pet, and we live in a very nice neighborhood, so strays are unusual.
As I became familiar with Next Door, I saw the good – neighbors recommending contractors, lost pets, BOLO’s etc, but late Feb is when everything started to explode with SARS 2. Within a week, many many ‘Karens’ were ratting out a litany of people who THEY thought were not behaving properly. It became a thing here for the Karens to call the CDC, County Health department and local police, in that order. They all self congratulated, and the normal people who tried to have a discussion about it were banned.
I quit Next Door after 10 days due to the brown shirt attitude of a minority. It’s a revolting mindset.