When neighbours turn nosy and nasty

RAVI Govender gets his teeth into daily living challenges that affects all of us in his piece (“Dirty linen being aired in public” – POST, August 16-20).

Like so many, I was born in Chatsworth and spent my teenage years in Phoenix, thus being exposed, at some stages in my life, to the community. Flat life was a boisterous camaraderie of giving and sharing until sulphurous housewives and neighbours began verbal fights, often over petty issues like washing line space, parking space, barking dogs, dog’s poo, loud music and protection over little children.

Squabbling, persiflage and verbal tirades were an uxorious domain, where women left to their own facilities could quickly spread from curry “kafeeklatsch” to piping-hot apoplexy. Husbands, often not present, invariably get drawn into such kerkuffles and so one hears filthy monikers, priapic rhetoric of nuisance and praise, as they viscerally rip into each other – both verbally and physically. Like barking dogs themselves, it takes some time and unknown force to cool down the warring factions from the patios of degradation and ribaldry until the next scene.

But there have been more serious neighbourly fights of recent which have been reported in the media and landed up in court.

These involve boundary disputes, loud music played at religious functions, running a business in a residential area and allegations of practising black magic rituals.

More often than not, these are smear campaigns spurred on by common jealousy and narcissism. A personal vendetta of sorts.

It is the nature of life that some people will always be nosy, wanting to know what’s cooking in your kitchen. Such people are born that way and derive great pleasure from being Scheherazade. They seem trained in suspicion and to peer into the dim interiors of other people’s lives. So the next time your dog ends up dead, your cat goes missing or you discover scratches on your car, take a closer look at your neighbour! KEVIN GOVENDER

Shallcross