Moving House Is a Lottery
Are neighbours aliens from heaven or hell?
Walking past a small block of flats in our neighbourhood, I often hear heavy metal (or equivalent noise) droning out from a top floor balcony. Whenever the weather is fine, two men sit out there, sipping cans of beer, watching the world go by. They sometimes converse, bellowing loudly to make themselves heard above the row. I feel very sorry for those living in the same building, as I assume that, when they moved in, they had no idea what kind of neighbours they would have. They took pot-luck and lost out. Moving home is a lottery – be it to a flat, semi-detached house or free-standing villa, you have neighbours. And you don’t get a chance to find out much – if anything – about those families living nearby until it is too late. My first apartment in London was a third-floor bed-sitter, in a Victorian town house, with traditional wooden floorboards. Sandwiched between two equally tiny flats, I lived below a heavily decorated British WWII army officer, Colonel Winslow, now retired, and above an elderly widow, Mrs. Oakley-Rice. Both were hard of hearing. Mrs. O-R was partial to port and soap operas while Colonel W. gambled regularly at an exclusive Knightsbridge club. You may wonder how I got to know these fascinating facts about my neighbours?In the evening, Mrs. O-R used to park her empty port bottles by her front door before installing herself in front of her TV, for her favourite TV serials, all watched with the volume on full. The port did its soothing work and she fell asleep, leaving the TV blasting away. When the late news bulletins came on, I could have watched my TV upstairs, with the volume off, as I could hear every word from below. Winslow was a night-owl, getting back from his gambling sessions very late. By the time he returned I, protected by ear-plugs, had usually just dropped off to sleep. The big man, with an elephantine step, noisily climbed the stairs past my front door, to his flat above mine. Whenever he had lost, he would march up and down, swearing blue murder, the wooden floor creaking menacingly. At first I thought he was on the phone, long-distance, with a bad line. I then realized that he was talking to himself at parade ground volume, damning every in existence. The Colonel did wonders for my swear-word vocabulary.
Unless you live in a lighthouse or on an alpine “Alm”, neighbours are a fact of life. You may be lucky in that lottery and win good friends. I am grateful for that cup of flour, that extra egg, those green tomatoes (for my home-made chutney) from my pal over the way. When it snows, snuggled under my duvet, I bless the nice man next door with his snow plough, who clears our driveway along with his. He simply does it out of good neighbourliness. And I know that, in an emergency, I can always turn to several families close by – a comforting and very pleasant feeling.
Less pleasant is the „let’s party through the night boy” across the road. As his parents are often away, spoilt junior likes to mix-it. Loudspeakers on the terrace face in our direction. Bass notes boom, rattling our windows. Oceans of beer, spiked with spirits, flow. Cars block the roadway. The police are called in twice in one night. When we moved here it seemed to be a quiet neighbourhood. Maybe the raver will move away soon? Until then, it’s ear-plugs and living in hope.
There’s a long-running Australian TV soap opera called „Neighbours”, with a great following in Anglophone lands. It began in 1985 and currently tops over 8,000 episodes. So who says neighbours can’t be fun?