A Neighbourly Affair

I love where I live.
I do. It's close to the things in life I need. A pharmacy, a map shop, a shoe shop, a homewares store, a furniture store, a supermarket, a bottle store and a great fruit'n'vegie store. Life’s' necessities.

It's set back a little from the street, behind a high gate. The gate is so simple to open it confounds door-to-door salesmen which amuses the shit out of me. My apartment building has no security whatsoever, but that’s never given us any cause to be alarmed before we were alerted.

There are four apartments in my building. Just four. Two in each - which makes eight residents.

They who lived directly beneath us when I first moved in some time ago had lived there for years. The head tenant went through flatmates like I go through - um - sports socks. Not that I have a problem with wearing out sports socks, I do – occasionally wear them out as in outside the house, but I’d rather euphemise with the sock here than the undie – I think you get my drift.

Yes – many flatmates in and out – same one guy though. Might have been his taste in music – an ackerdacker fan of the highest enth – or it might have been his very stinky sneakers. For a time he did leave them reekersneakers outside his front door (in our stairwell) of an evening. Of a morning I would step outside my front door and gag.

Them sneakers were vile. Horrid. The cause of great fear at first sight of them sitting innocently minding their own laces.

One day I noticed he had a broken arm and was wielding packing tape with the other. He moved out a few days later. Sorry folks – no further detail.

The next people to move in were a lovely young couple from Perth. We knew they were from Perth because that was the return address on their moving boxes that they left outside their front door for three weeks after their arrival.

I am going to assume that they had never lived together until they arrived downstairs all the way from Perth.

Their first argument was a humdinger. I spent an entire Sunday practically with a cushion over my head trying to block out the horrid arguing that was going on underneath me. Neither were prepared to let it be. In the Beatles sense.

He would settle and she would wind him up, and he would respond with the lowest comment he could dredge up from beneath the pond scum of nasty comments, and fling it back. She would slam a door, and then he would slam a door, and so it went.

All . Day. Long.

Eventually Dear Flatties mum rang for a chat, I said it was so bad that I was thinking of buying them flowers, leaving on the doorstep with a note that said ‘sorry to hear you guys aren’t getting on, hope it gets better soon’.

She said not to be so ridiculous. Advised me instead to write the number for Relationships Australia on a post-it and stick it to their front door.

The pot boiled over so to speak very shortly after that when I heard a very loud ‘let go of my arm, bitch’ and then front door slam, and the gate slam (nearly off its hinges five seconds later).

She phoned a friend right after that and spent the next half an hour laughing and chatting. Bi-zarre.

This frustrated me just the teensiest bit. So I post-it noted their front door with no qualms whatsoever directly.

Alls’ quiet on the fightin’ front for a bit.

Which is lovely. Me’n’Dear Flattie are fingers-crossed hopeful that maybe one or both of has gone off to counselling. Or just aware that we can hear them fight. Plainly.

The peace lasted for another week when one night me and Dear Flattie were made very aware that he was trying to call her and not able to reach her on her mobile.

Every message he left for her was increasing in the length (for a time) and volume. Eventually the messages got very short. If you ever get this voicemail message left on your phone:

‘Bitch. Fucking call me. Ok?’

What are you most inclined to do?

I know!

A mate turned up, they pulled a few cones together. Clearly the acoustics between our apartment and theirs are excellent for carrying sound.

He seemed to settle in.

Then abruptly lost the plot.

We then realise he is no longer inside the apartment but out in the street in charge of his mobile. And none too happy about it.

He’s talking to someone else – not her – a relative or friend of hers may be – apparently she hasn’t been the same since she got back from Bali. And he doesn’t know what to do about it.

He goes somewhere – all is quiet – and we go to bed. At 3FUCKING-AM she comes home. And it starts all over again. The shouting. The banging. The slamming of doors. I am fed up at this point. Generally I’m a compassionate person, and do what I can to help – but these two – ran out of clicks on their compassion pass a while back. So no compassion for you (them I mean).

I get up because they’re not stopping. Thump on my slippers, fling on dressing gown and slam out of apartment. I stomp down the stairs and knock at their front door.

No answer.

I knock again.

No answer.

So I knock so hard my knuckles should be bleeding and eventually someone inside asks who it might be.

I’m very tempted to answer ‘Ronald McDonald. No, wait, Bill Clinton, just thought I’d stop by and say hi – seeing as you were up’.

But I’m too mad for even acid-vapour-dry humour. So I answer ‘Your Upstairs Neighbour’.

He opens the door – and I tell him that they either shut up or I call the cops. Their choice.

He whines that she won’t stop hitting him – I say it’s not really my problem I just want my sleep, and re-iterate his choices.

And go back to my apartment without a backward glance.

They decide quiet is probably best. And stick to that decision. Thankfully.

Peace reigns again for a time. Eventually their packing boxes appear again and Flattie and I decide that we can finally quit with the wearing of the high-heels with the pyjamas first thing in the morning. (Our revenge for being kept up all night is to get up and put our heels on with our jim-jams – best on a Sunday morning).

It is only after they leave that I notice they’ve etched their names in to once-wet cement outside our gate. J---+ A--- 4Eva. 2006. They were right about that – for that’s as long as I’ll remember them.

The new people downstairs are absolute angels in terms of cohabiting with each other, and underneath us. They make no noise. None. She gets up very early Monday-Friday, I hear her walking around and the gate shutting, but that’s IT. We’ve barely seen them, and we never hear them.

But they wash their clothes like I’ve never seen.

Ever. Before.

Each day they do a full load and hang every thing out on the washing line (taking up ALL of the available space) on coat hangers. Everything. Even his y-fronts. Which I know he owns 26 pairs of.

I guess the concept of pegs is for all the other people.

As is actually sharing the washing line.

For some it’s a concept that is not easily grasped. Prior to them downstairs moving in, even during The Season of The Couple Who Fought, we never had to battle/jockey for washing line space.

Now Dear Flattie and I have had to resort to Washing Line Contingencies. Which is surprisingly a very convoluted process.

We actually have to peg out (bad bad pun – how did that get in there?) the space we want to use at the weekend, by hanging out linen that actually hasn’t been washed during the week so that come Saturday we can actually haul our laundry down the stairs and even hang it on the washing line, knowing in advance that there is space already reserved for us to do so.

A friend of Dear Flatties has been driven nearly mental on several occaisions by her 80-something year old neighbour who is surprisingly well and truly retired – but insists on doing her entire weeks worth of laundry on a Saturday AND Sunday – so they are unable to do their washing at the weekend, even though they both work all week – and clearly the weekend is the time that people who work all week long to do their laundry.

The habits of others that drive ordinary people to acts of madness huh?

And that’s a topic that I feel is reserved for another blog at another time.

Even *I* can’t segue that.