The neighbours

A place for all the trials, tribulations, and irritations both major and minor, inflicted on us by these most intimate of strangers.

Several days ago, I noticed a seeping of water through the living room wall. As each leak spreads through and dries in, well, it looks like p*ss stains actually. I don't hold out much hope of having it paid for - this happened before and they waltzed off without offering a penny. 

So there's that. But I've now become aware that the current occupant of the very same flat has a dog. A dog that's amused by what I've worked out is a ball being repeatedly thrown at the wall. I'm just building myself up psychologically to knock on the door and politely enquire if this can stop. Or whether I must sadly pass their contact details over to the nearest Korean takeaway.

All rather awkward. The last time I had to knock on a total strangers door was with an apparently celebrated horror fiction writer living in the flat sort of diagonally? down (the edge of his ceiling met my floor). We had a vicious fight when I asked him to be mindful of the vibrations caused by someone of his size having such an active s*x life. It was like living on top of Cape Canaveral.

I hope the troublesome occupant isn't the woman with the two children I acquainted myself with via the window. If she answers the door to find me there, with two new complaints to be resolved, that'll be quite difficult. 

Having said that, a leak is a very serious concern rather than a preference. And my preference for lack of nonchalantly ignorant sources of noise is only because I go out of my way to walk around like air, lest anyone be disturbed.

The leak has stopped. Seeing as a plumber would probably use the lockdown to extort even more ridiculous sums of money than usual, I haven't yet called one out/taken one to the offending door. But I will - I'm not paying for the damage done this time.

However, I think the occupant is a hooker. The sound and sensation of rhythmic grinding in roughly five to fifteen minute bursts has become a feature of life in this flat. Twice this afternoon and again now.

I don't object to someone making a living really, and most importantly it never happens at night so that works for me.

We've had everything here from the aggressive mistress of a notable Serbian warlord to the wife of a general who went missing during the Arab Spring - in her distress, she blocked the pipes with jewellery and banknotes, and painted her flat with her diarrhea. It was only once the communal areas were awash that anyone noticed.

So I can't object to someone making an honest living during reasonable office hours. I'm just desperately hoping the leak/redec doesn't turn into another four figure cost at my expense while the culprit walks off.

To end with a positive, the dog must've died because that noise has ceased entirely.

I am very worried about the leak considering what happened the last time. It made me long for the days when the most trouble was finding out that a horrifying crashing noise had been made by a woman who looked not unlike Jocelyn Wildenstein, attempting to commit suicide without factoring in the conservatory that jutted out a couple of floors below her chosen window. Sadly for her, but happily for the field of plastic surgery, she survived.

I had thought this thread might be more popular. What with the diversity of antisocial happenings next to Fangirl, and those Nightjar has to beg plungers from, there should be lots to discuss.

Those were the days, when neighbours kept themselves to themselves until the 'News of the World' peered through the letterbox. At least three of mine have made the front page, one in an international surrogacy scam (with rumours of a sideline selling human organs) - a very glamorous lady, gracious manners, made Joan Collins look like something you'd see in the supermarket.

God, she's at it again. It's like living through the wall from a zoo.

Jealousy is a terrible thing.

You're not kidding.

I had a telephone session with my therapist this morning - we are working on intimacy issues. Namely why is it that orgasm is no problem with people I don't intend to see again, and something that disappears at the last second with Sean. It's a newish problem I've never been troubled by before. Whether he should be told this or not is another chapter we have only tentatively addressed. It's not really his fault, so my instinct is that he shouldn't have to concern himself about it.

I just went down there with a bag of rubbish and a plan to have a fag and a little wander to the end of the road and back. An unknown man came out of a door on the first floor, and I allowed him to walk ahead, by gesturing and saying 'please, after you'. At the main door, he let the thing shut in my face. I called out to him "you f*cking a*sehole, what kind of sty were you raised in to have ended up with such dreadful manners?". Even then, not a hint of an apology forthcoming.

From rather loud interactions heard clearly from my own terrace, one of the neighbours is called Elmo - and he hasn't done the washing up, again.

On a similar note, through my shared terraced house wall, I gathered that Ollie had to be shouted at several times that dinner was ready.

You should've banged on the wall and then shouted through 'come on Ollie, don't take the p*ss, I'm trying to relax in peace and quiet here'.

Banging, slamming, building vibrating activity, a suitcase in the middle of the road with the contents strewn about, a woman outside screaming something distorted over and over, and a man booming out in response 'I am phoning the police right now'. I thought this had potential to kick off from the somewhat slurred criticism of Elmo earlier on.

As I've been the only adult of the household for a decade, I'd forgotten what a full on domestic row can be like. Mine had a tendency to develop in that kind of direction too - it's only due to this lifestyle choice that I have any matching crockery at all. Maybe I've made a mistake by agreeing in principle to live with someone.

In my not especially limited experience, unless I'm very much mistaken, that is the sound of a door being monumentally kicked in.

In the very first flat I lived in, my next door neighbour had a liking for drum & bass, and lots of visitors. One morning he had some very determined visitors, who made a lot of thumping and banging as if furniture was being tipped over, and in the subsequent silence said 'Now you know the score.'

After which the drum & bass stopped and was replaced by him playing Yesterday over and over.

Not long after he had an extension cord coming out of his letterbox into the communal electrical socket that the cleaners used, and visitors joshing him with 'It's us - we've come to do you for abstracting electricity.'

Then he vanished; he still left his abandoned broken-down car in my parking space (it hadn't previously mattered cos I didn't have a car, but now I had a new job in Fanchester, and had borrowed a car to use to commute there, and needed somewhere to park it) and the next day two lady police officers came round enquiring after him, and the day after that an unmistakeable bailiff.

'He left in a big hurry on Monday,' I told the latter. 'Sorry I can't be more helpful.'

'You've been very helpful,' replied Mr U.B. in tones that boded badly for my former neighbour.

I moved away to Fanchester 10 days later, and good riddance.

When I first got a flat of my own (my Roman interlude and student halls don't count) I made everyone I knew faithfully promise never to enter me into 'Changing Rooms' or the like. I said, really don't do it, I won't see the funny side, I'll cry on camera, I might get done for knocking you out cold, and any mutual whatever our friendship rested on will be over for ever.

I lived on the edge of dread that one day I'd arrive home to find Lynda Barker and Handy Andy had ruined my house with MDF furniture and assorted pieces of garishly patterned tat, perhaps finished with a 'Regency style' mirror made from cardboard and spraypainted gold by Lawrence Llewelyn Bowen, all ideally suited to black binliners, a large skip, and a can of petrol.

Worse than I remembered. I'm surprised they didn't start a trend in the late 90's for protective window bars and industrial padlocks on external doors across the nation.