Musings of a Displaced Yankee: May 2009

Tuesday 26 May 2009

Another Then and Now...

Just a quick few pics while I snatch a few minutes to myself.

(By the way, we're moving next weekend to a 3 bedroom apartment with underfloor heating, a garden, and no stairs.)

On Halloween, in his "costume." He was almost 3 months old here.

At just over 9 months, having fallen asleep in our bed.

Wednesday 20 May 2009

(Warning, some mildly offensive pictures are included below.)

We have bad neighbors. Obviously, these photos won't depict the horrific music and bass that used to emanate through the shared wall, but we haven't been able to use our garden all year because... well...

Their yard's worse.

We had to call the Environmental Health agency of our local Council in order to actually get the neighbors to clean up after the pit bull they got for Christmas, but the Council didn't act for awhile, so for weeks we had about an inch of feces all over the back balcony. After the neighbors were given some official mandate to clean it up, they let it happen again, and it took another angry phone call to get the new piles cleared away.

Then they had the bright idea that their growing pit bull pup would entertain itself if left to its own devices. They were right. It trashed our yard. We couldn't step anywhere without stepping in feces. Another 3-4 calls to the Council didn't get anything done, but when I escalated it to an ombudsman through a complaint service, the Council suddenly acted and made the suddenly "very apologetic" neighbors sign some sort of agreement about using common sense and not, ya know, letting their dog roam around free and go to the bathroom everywhere. Yes, the dog is pictured there. (By the by, it took several neighbors complaining to get this result.)

That's their yard, in case you were curious. No, there's no fence in between ours and theirs, more's the pity. And in order to get to ours, we have to go onto the shared balcony and down the shared staircase, which are littered with stuff like old broken toys, plastic bottles, tin cans and boards with nails in them.

It's been two years and I haven't dared peek through their kitchen door. Not that I'd want to wade through the filth to get there.

The above represents pretty much the last straw. Garbage... in our yard. I never understood the reason why they were using their own yard as a dump, but putting it in someone else's just takes the cake. We called - again - to complain. This time, the Council gave them 24 hours to clean it up, or they'd bill them for removal.

The final straw was the intimidating way the woman behaved. She stood outside on the balcony and called us all the names under the sun.

Oh, and apparently we're racists for complaining. We emailed our landlords our month's notice after that fun incident.

B and I are looking at new places to live. We saw our first place today. We're going to be staying in the same area, ideally within a mile of here, because it's a nice area. And, yes, we'll be checking out the neighbors, although I hasten to add that the current neighbors moved in at the same time we did, so we had no idea what they were like.

I won't miss the constant screaming or the expletives she shouts at her young daughter and the pit bull, nor will I miss the loud music and the filth.

And, before you ask about eviction, they're on welfare. Evicting them will take years. If it took this long for the Council to act so far, we don't want to see how much worse it'll get before they consider evicting. I just feel sorry for our landlords, who will probably struggle to rent this place out.

But it will be really nice to be able to hang out our washing outside without fear of a dog ripping the clothes to shreds. That goes for the recycling as well. We tried putting a bag outside earlier this week and their dog (yes, they're still letting it roam) ripped the bag open and spread the boxes and glass around.

So the countdown till Move Day continues.