Brussels
Truly international living.

Highlights include: a hairy German bloke exercising on the decking beneath one's utility-room window. Stark bollock naked, of course.

Trainee opera singers. Pretty good, actually.

A rather rowdy party that went a little too late into the night, and which must have received complaints - only for the proprietor of said party to (very loudly) explain to the darkened houses surrounding his garden the reasons for the party, in a language I sadly couldn't identify. Sadly, because I'm certain his diatribe contained some distinctly colourful language.

Tiny Italian bloke living upstairs, with a never-ending succession of glamorous girlfriends. I only saw him once. Very heavy feet, no carpets, and a terrible taste in music on Saturday mornings.

Unidentified woman who screamed and shouted at some other unidentified person on a telephone for several minutes outside one afternoon, before letting herself into the (one-car) garage underneath my flat, where she sobbed for quarter of an hour or so.

Organ grinder (sans monkey) who trundled along the street, grinding his organ - peering at the windows of houses he went past, presumably in the hope of financial remuneration for his cacophonous stylings.

The ancient ice-cream van which would, without fail, go past playing its tune at 8:30pm every evening.

The sounds of children playing and laughing, only audible from the basement. Belgian Mr. Fritzl?

BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEP-BEEEEP - how I identified that the people living in an flat behind mine were British. Radio Four news!
(Happy Idiot Talk now has an alibi for, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 5:13, Reply)

An then there was the Mountain
After the Highrise of Terror (TM), I moved up the mountain to a house. It was in a supposedly better neighbourhood. One of the first neighbours I met was from a couple of doors down, and I was fairly excited, because they were from Kent, much like me.

Unfortunately, they were the chaviest family imaginable. They all smoked, including their 12-year-old son, who did it openly in front of his parents. He also had no problem addressing his mother as "a fackin' stupid cow," or similar, if asked to do anything. There were five boys, and they all swore loudly, stole from neighbors, and generally menaced the other children in the area. They would all have noisy domestic disputes or parties - or combinations of both - on the front lawn throughout the summer, and the police were regular visitors. The neighbourhood actually had a small party when they were finally evicted.

3000 miles to end up living next to some home-grown chavs. That figures.
(BlackArmadillo Avoided writing that article on, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 3:03, Reply)

Not quite a neighbor per se...
...but bear with me anyway. It was sort of a neighbor in the woods, I suppose.

Last weekend I was in Colorado for the wedding of a friend of mine, and went there with another friend. The wedding itself was bizarre- Luann and Christian exchanged vows taken from Elvis lyrics, officiated by an actual robot (as in, autonomous and electronic and does a good Dalek imitation)- but what was really memorable for me was what came after.

My friend and I had gotten a rental car at the Denver airport to drive to Estes Park for the wedding, and decided that we should go out to the Rocky Mountain National Park. Good call, really- we got to go up to the tundra above the treeline, saw incredible views of the mountains, had locally brewed beers that were incredible, and generally had a fantastic day of it.

As it happens, we were there during the rutting season for elk. In case you don't know, an elk is like a moose with nastier antlers, about 3/4 of a ton of attitude that stands six feet tall at the shoulder. When it's rutting season, the males bugle- a sound that reminds me a lot of the cry of a loon, a ridiculously high pitched squeal coming from something the size of a Buick.

We did the tourist thing of going to a meadow where they congregate and observing them from a nice safe distance of a couple hundred yards, the shrill whine of the bugling carried on the autumn breeze to the crowd of a hundred people with cameras. We watched them for a few minutes, then got bored and tired of the crowds and went to nearby Sprague Lake.

We carried our beers along a lake trail past the outlet, a stream and a swamp that bubbled merrily with the running water. As we walked along we heard a crashing sound like someone going crazy in underbrush, and I spotted a thirty foot tree being whipped around like the branch John Cleese thrashed his car with in Fawlty Towers. "A male elk," I commented. "He's rubbing his antlers on that tree to mark his territory. As long as he stays over there, we're fine. But you don't want to get in his way in mating season- if he can do that to a tree, imagine what he could do to us."

We continued along the path and found a nice bench in the shade and settled in with our beers to enjoy the late afternoon light. We sat talking about all we'd seen that day and how cool it was to see the elks bugling. As we talked my friend stopped me in mid sentence. "Look! Over there!"

"Holy shit! It's a female elk!" I whispered back. "We may need to get going pretty soon here."

Just about then she turned her head, and two young elk trotted over the hill and came up behind her. "Oh shit..."

Then I heard clomping along the path, and my blood went cold. "Fuck! We gotta leave, NOW!" I snapped off a picture and started moving down the path. The elk saw us and started moving faster. "RUN!" I shouted, and we legged it down the path about fifty feet.

Apparently that was enough to get the message through to the elk that we weren't interested in bothering him, and he slowed and walked up the hill where the female and adolescents had gone. He lifted his head and bugled from about thirty feet from me, then started to wander away after the others.

I was still shaky when we reached the car.

On the way back to Denver I had to call my son to tell him about this. I got to the part about this elk in heat spotting us and running at me down the path and he stopped me. "Dad, if this story ends with you getting screwed by an elk I don't want to hear it."

Little shit. I don't know where he gets it from, I really don't...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 2 Oct 2009, 2:48, 6 replies)

Highrise Living
The city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada is quite a nice place, but it's certainly spawned some odd neighbours for me.

I moved here nine years ago, into my first proper flat on my own. It was in a huge highrise building, with eight units on each floor. First day there, I met the mad old woman from down the hall. She offered to be my mother; I politely declined her offer. She was as mad as a hat and probably should have been in some sort of care facility. I felt quite bad for her, as no one ever seemed to visit, and she wore the same clothes every day, it seemed (although they were always clean). Every time she'd manage to corner me for a bit of conversation, she'd complain about how the upstairs neighbours were trying to kill her by boring through the ceiling into her apartment. Yes...

About six months after I moved in, the apartment on the other side was taken over by a young couple with a new baby. No problem, as the units were pretty soundproof. No problem, that is, until they started taking their drug habits and personal problems out into the hall, and would often have shouting competitions with each other just outside my door. One day, I came home to find all of the guy's personal belongings piled outside the door in the hallway. They both disappeared shortly thereafter. Ah, chavs.

Then there was the taxi driver a little further up the hall. He always, without fail, reeked of whiskey and looked like he'd spent the night sleeping in the bathtub: crazy gray hair, wild, bloodshot eyes, consumptive quality cough. Your typical taxi driver, in other words. About two years after I moved in, he moved out to take care of his mother somewhere up north, and left a bunch of his stuff behind. It turned out that he was an artist, and there were about 80 awful oil paintings - a la Bob Ross, only worse (see www.bobross.com for the awful details) - of trees, rocks, mountains, and other poorly executed scenery. There were also over a hundred pairs of ladies' high heeled shoes. They were all in size 12. There was an enormous plastic bin on wheels of them that had to be taken away by building maintenance staff. Some were clearly...soiled.

A little further up the hall was the male stripper. He was extremely fit, but also extremely rude, and wouldn't lower himself to speak with us lowly plebs.

Apart from that, it was mostly Asian students, who were all very quiet and polite. All in all, it was an okay place to live - and surprisingly quiet, despite the loons.
(BlackArmadillo Avoided writing that article on, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 2:45, Reply)

this is a good one BUT
bindun
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 2:09, 3 replies)

A blast from the past...
Not from me, but my long departed (and much missed) Grandad.

Many, many moons ago, my Grandad and his brother Fred were sharing a top floor flat, essentially a large converted loft. Now, this was long before the days of indoor toilets and so as a result if you needed to go, you had to go into the back garden and use the outside toilet. Problem was, it was midnight, it was the middle of winter and my Grandad had no intention of going that far. A bucket was kept for just such an emergency.

Unfortunately, said bucket was full... So my Grandad, ever the utilitarian in such trying circumstances opened the window and threw out the waste water... Which splashed onto the roof which extended over the landlords (a butcher) bedroom. Grandad did his business and thought nothing more of it.

Come the morning both my Grandad and Great Uncle Fred came down to join the butcher for breakfast whereupon the butcher stated loudly:

"It was absolutely pissing it down last night! Did you hear it?"

Ahh I miss him. And the stories of him and my Uncle Fred - those two were I think the best of my family.
(the_leander, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 2:07, Reply)

My university Neighbours.
10 years ago I was all signed up to go to a local university and stay at home, when at the last minute the feeling that I would be missing out on the 'university experience' compelled me to apply at the last minute to a uni half way up the country and move away.

I was sure I'd spend three years partaking in a non stop orgy of birds and booze but unfortunately my last minute application meant that halls of residence accomodation was almost full - and I was given (without my knowledge I might add) a room in the disabled block.

My flatmates were so bizarre that sometimes I'm not sure if I actually lived through this part of my life or just dreamt it.

My first flatmate was a arthritic Yorkshire lad called Dave. He was a nice chap but was completely obsessed with Forrest Gump. Any excuse he could get he would talk about Forrest Gump, do Forrest Gump impressions, ask me if I wanted to watch Forrest Gump... then he became obsessed with Championship Manager.

The only problem was Championship Manager was on my PC in my room and without exageration he spent probably 10 hours a day in my room at the PC playing Championship Manager. Looking back it was so bizarre, but I used to literally go to bed and leave him playing Championship Manager at my desk while I slept. I'd fall asleep to him telling me about his latest signings and his chances of winning the UEFA cup this season like some weird John Motson bedtime story.

My next Neighbour was a deaf guy called Dan. To put into perspective how strange he was he actually lived about 15 miles away but his parents sent him to live in the halls just to get rid of him. On THE FIRST DAY WE MET HIM he told us that he'd had sex with three girls but he couldn't get them pregnant because - and I quote - "nothing comes out". Then things got stranger... he kept dropping hints about how he found men attractive, then told us on one occasion that he'd actually had sex with three 'boys'. When he joined the LBGT society I thought something was suspicious... but when he got drunk and tried to kiss me the penny dropped. I would have been flattered but he was an ugly fucker! Being a strange deaf gay guy wasn't actually the annoying part though... he was annoying because he used to listen to Celine Dion in his room and sing along at the top of his voice. Being both deaf having the Celine Dion cranked up at full volume he couldn't hear us banging on his locked door to shut up so we literally had to wait until he got bored and stopped singing to get some peace. He also had a weird thing about sharing, to the point that he kept things like his toaster and his kitchen utensils in his room instead of the kitchen. We wouldn't have minded but on one occasion he unplugged the freezer to use his toaster then forgot to plug it back in, completely ruining all our food. Convinced he was going to be the subject of a revenge attack he started storing all his own food in his room as well, including an unrefridgerated roast chicken. It wasn't until a week later when the smell of rotting meat started to fill up the corridor that we realised what had happened.

So that was room number two in our corridor of four, but what of the final room?

Well this room stayed suspiciously empty for a few weeks after term began. As time passed anticipation grew... could my next flatmate be be a hot disabled chick desperate for a young able bodied brummy such as myself to give her a good rogering every night??

Unfortunately no - it was a deaf and mute middle aged African man.

I never quite worked out if this guy's name was Seygon, or Seygu or Seygo. Different people used to call him different things. He was literally stone deaf and mute though, so we couldn't exactly ask him. He could only communicate by whistling and chirping which was weird, but perhaps even weirder was that when he moved in he brought 2 of his own matresses - despite the fact the rooms where furnished. For some reason he put his own matresses on top of his uni issued one so when he slept he was about 4 feet off the ground. He also used to sit in the corner cross legged watching TV and looked like a little, bald African Leprechaun.

Seygon/Seygu/Seygo was an alright bloke...or so we thought. One day he was moved out of the halls in what had to be some kind of covert op by the accomodation department as he was just gone without a trace when I came back from lectures one day. It turned out a woman on the top floor had accused him of sexually assaulting her and he'd had to leave the halls. But here's the kicker... they moved him into a flat in the posh halls with seven normal party loving students! I would have been molesting women on my second day there if I knew what the reward would have been!

Well we're almost at the end of my tale, but not before I tell you about my final neighbour who moved int Seygon/Seygo/Seygu's flat after he was removed - Lee Yung. Lee Yung was actually an OK dude. he was a foreign student from Shanghai and used to cook us Chinese food all the time. Being a fan of Hong Kong Cinema I had plenty to talk about with him and generally he was good to hang around with. Of course, with my luck he also had some bizarre quirks that made living with him insane.

Firstly because all his friends were in China he used to sleep in the day then stay up all night online chatting and playing Starcraft. It wouldn't be so bad but he used to have a subwoofer so I'd be continuously woke up in the night by bassy explosions and laser fire. Secondly he used to wear weird Giles Brandworth-esque wooly jumpers... AND NO TROUSERS! He used to wander round wearing Y-fronts and a ridiculous eighties-fied knitted jumper with a fag hanging out of his mouth in classic Chinese style (he smoked like a chimney and simply put wet paper towels over all the smoke alarms to get away with it).

I don't know why but he also became obsessed with eating chips. He'd randomly knock on my door and shout "WANT CHIPS?" in the middle of the night. I'd follow him to the kitchen where a huge pile of chips would be waiting for us.. again not a bad thing but a strange obsession nothingless.

Now Lee Yung's final quirk is perhaps the strangest of all. My room was right next to the bathroom,and when his girlfriend came to stay I heard some naughtiness going on in the shower. His girlfriend was letting out very polite and refined moans of pleasure - but not Lee Yung... for some reason Lee Yung was laughing non stop and singing patriotic Chinese folk songs... WHILE SHAGGING!!!

Well I've been writing this for 30 minutes now so I think I'll stop... but I swear not one word of this is a lie.
(bitchman contains mild peril, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 2:00, 3 replies)

my beautiful neighbourhood
Christ where do I start. Down the road there’s a bloke who I see every morning, only in the morning though. At night he slips out under cover of darkness and presumably also under a lacy slip. He’s a very obvious tranny.

Back up the road the mad bloke has gone a bit quiet – reason? Well he assured everyone for years he was Saddam Hussein – went a bit quiet after the trial and subsequent hanging though.

But it gets worse, further along the road there’s a bunch of chavs that surely must be on housing benefit – never the less every other week some gorilla in an ASDA suit carries out their telly – why don’t they just use the fucking rent cheques to pay the bloody rent?

Further along is a flat that is usually quite quiet – mainly because the family are always doing time.

I can’t understand why we get all this – it’s a nice neighbourhood.

But that’s not all, two doors down from me there’s a big queer bloke the size of a tree. Nasty fucker and far too very handy with his fists, particularly for someone so limpwristed - he’s like a big camp boxer.

At the top of the road resides the local god botherer. Bit of a scandal recently - his last wife died in mysterious circumstances so eyebrows were raised somewhat when; quick as you like his new young wife moves in. For a man of the cloth he’s quite a goer it would seem. She seems to have suddenly disappeared too though. Rumour has it he’s bumped her off.

You wouldn’t think anyone would want to live here. I can’t think why I do, but they have just recently condemned the place, clear the scum sort of New Deal. Well they can fuck off. They can bring the wrecking balls and we’ll still be here. They’ll have to take us out in boxes.

It’s a beautiful in its own quirky way but I still can’t quite understand why anyone would want to live a neighbourhood like this.
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 1:36, 12 replies)

Somebody's building an extra house down the road from me
And they seem to be only doing it on mornings that I have a lie-in.

My current only neighbour is lovely and his wife and kids look cute, though I've never met them.

When you drive near my house, next door looks like a castle, turrets and all :D
( Methylene Blue - electrohead, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 0:56, Reply)

Grandad and Grandma
My grandad. Yorkshireman. Traditionalist. Likes his bitter and his whisky and smokes a pipe. Nice chap, but if we're being honest, he dislikes people who are different...

Combine him with the family who moved in to the house next door a few years back, and you have a problem.

Forty-something single-mother. Four kids by a few different blokes. No man on the scene. Nothing wrong with all that, of course, as my Grandma kept pointing out to him: 'You've got to understand, it's not like the Old Days, let them be, Ray....'

But he had his prejudices, of course. They didn't help by letting the garden go wild, which upset my Grandad more than any amount of promiscuity and childbirth out of wedlock ever could. His garden is his pride and joy - he goes out and weeds first thing each morning and keeps a beautiful terrace of flowerbeds running down his sloped garden from the immaculate patio (this is an ex. council house in Leeds, by the way, he's just a very keen gardener)

He moaned and moaned about this. He felt that their lack of care ruined his enjoyment. He couldn't sit out in the garden and relax while there were feral kids kicking a football round an overgrown garden next door.

Again, my grandma was the voice of reason. 'It's their garden, Ray, and they're doing nothing wrong - forget about it or just grow the hedge high, but stop moaning.'

And so a sort of peace was reached. He bit his lip and got on with things, and all was well.

One evening after a while of this entente cordiale , Grandma's in the kitchen and Grandad walks through with his whisky, his pipe, and the paper, heading out to read it on the patio before dinner. Moments later, he comes back in, whisky in hand, pipe drooping unlit in his mouth.

'June - come outside for a moment dear'
'What's up Ray?'
'Come outside, darling'

So she follows him out through the hanging blinds and in the middle of the patio, squatting just above the floor, is next door's youngest, nonchalantly crimping out a length on the pristine patio, whilst his mum, on the other side of the fence, is trying to tempt him back near enough to pick him up by waving a packet of chocolate buttons at him.

It was such an embarassing situation that everyone involved was a little bit shellshocked, I think (except the kid, who was totally oblivious). But next day, Grandad went over to see the lady next door and offered to sort her garden out if she wanted. So long as she got the kids to stay out of the garden.

He now has two gardens to work on (which he finds a benefit in itself), and next door's not so unsightly as a result, plus no one shits on his patio.

Result.
(SnowyTheWereRabbit the Leporid from Hell, Fri 2 Oct 2009, 0:17, 1 reply)

Bad neighbour?
That would be me. Or more precisely, the people I've lived with. Being in the back bedroom, mine was the one that was drunkenly pissed out of any hour of the day. Well, they were students. But that wasn't the worst bout of urination.

I currently live in a flat in the city centre, and I can't be expected to remember that an entire wall of my room faces the public highway and is literally a gigantic window with a thin strip of wall in between. I'm not THAT forgetful, but still, a man needs his freedom and sunlight is cheaper than lightbulbs. I'll say no more.

But the worst moment was when my old housemates came to visit, and me occupying the bog, they decided to revist the old traditions and pissed out of my window.

In full view of the public. And the restaurant over the road. And over the restaurant I live above. Which has tables outside.

It was between lunch and dinner so no-one was really around, and that can be the only possible reason I managed not to get a visit from the police.
( Doctor Fruitbat wishes fruitbats could really be doctors, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 23:49, Reply)

Living next door to housing association flat
My brief two year stint of single bachelordom was spent living in a tiny studio flat. I'm a big guy and it was sleeping with head in living room, feet in kitchen kind of thing. Anyway the flat next door appeared to be owned by a housing association or possibly the council. Tenants were never in it for very long but often managed to make an impression whilst they were there. There was a cramped hallway outside the flat and a goldfish eye peep-hole in the door and if the door was open could see into the flat. The three standout neighbours were:

1. Pikey Irish couple frequently slamming doors, arguing in hallway. Once peered through me goldfish eye to see him holding her against the wall by the neck before he stormed off in girly stop. She didn't look particularly bothered if truth be told. Answered the door to some baliffs by accident a couple of times, looking for the same couple.

2. Black couple. Watching telly one evening, hear loud thumps and arguing. male occupier of said flat, is arguing with er- 3 other IC3 males in tiny hallway. suddenly lots of shoving and pushing breaks out. I call the police. On the phone trying to explain whats going on looking through my little spy-hole, i can see into the flat next door and one of them is waving a kitchen knife around. Oh fuck, I think to myself, I am about to be a witness to a murder. Anyway the whole thing seems to fizzle out and the police arrive just in time not to catch the trouble makers.

3. Sreaming Pregnant lady. Get a knock on my door late one evening. Black gentleman with strong french accent "Come quick, come quick it is my gilfriend." Enter flat to discover pregnant woman sat on floor screaming her head off. Turns out the guy doens't speak much English and wants me to ring ambulence:

"What? No, I can't see the baby's head!'

"No, I'm not the father. just send the ambulence pleaaaaaaaase!"

Thakfully, ambulance drivers turn up and they transport her down the stairs in some sort of sedan chair arrangment.

Apologies for length, but you love it really, you filthy little minx you!
(Nitrous Nitrous, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 23:38, Reply)

My teenage kids were allowed to play their music as loud as they liked.
We had deaf neighbours on both sides.

I could tell who was home as I turned the corner of the street and heard whatever cacophony of rap, 70s rock, 90s pop and early/Baroque they were taunting each other with.

Happy days!
(Juan Quar is clinging to her front teeth on, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 23:36, Reply)

I've had some right wanker students next door
I need to get up for work in the morning.
They need to drink and play tunes until 5am.

I leave for work when they go to bed leaving Venetian Snares/Aphex Twin playing full volume on repeat, every speaker pointed in their direction.
I don't sleep, neither do they.
Looping one really bad song works too.
Aural warfare. Hoo-ra.
(WOGAN'S WIG FIXER, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 23:24, 8 replies)

Darth Vader!!!
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/north_west/7398202.stm

What a legend!
( TheFinch is getting to grips with the complex plane on, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 23:21, Reply)

Peeping Tom
When you live alone, you get used to certain things - not shutting the bathroom door being one of them. I moved into a ground floor flat, and carried on my usual habits of never shutting the bathroom door - why would I when I lived alone? well, it turns out that I probably should have done so.
I exited the shower one evening and dried off. Standing naked infront of the sink I proceeded to have a shave, brush my teeth and general clean-up stuff. Something wasnt right though - that feeling of being watched. Alone in the flat in a room with no window, being watched was impossible, surely? Well, no. I turned round and looked out the bathroom door into the hallway, where the letterbox on my front door snicked shut with a little clang and footsteps were heard retreating up the comunal stairs.
I wonder who it was and how many times they had been peering through my letterbox watching my willy waving around in time with me brushing my teeth?
(dave likes cheese, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 22:59, Reply)

the good, the bad and the ugly
after my horrendous teenage neighbour got evicted, a young couple moved in above me. jenny and chris were their names. i never really liked jenny, she was clingy, a compulsive liar and, quite frankly, she smelled rank. chris, on the other hand, was like a male version of me. we had the same tastes in music, t.v, junk food, cartoons, films, humour, the lot. i got on with him better than jenny did.
because of this(and because i had cable), chris spent most of his time with me.
no, nothing happened, i wasn't even remotely attracted to him.
we would share everything. if they got 3 for 2 pizzas, i'd get the third one. if chris got a B.O.G.O.F offer on dr. pepper, i'd get the free one. if i bought a new dvd, chris was always loaned it before anyone else or, more often than not, would come downstairs and watch it with me.
all seemed well and i believed i had great friends as well as great neighbours.
one day, i was packing my video collection into boxes before replacing my old video cabinet. i was very busy that day, so chris offered to do it for me. i had left both him and jenny alone in my flat many times, so i gratefully accepted his offer and went out.
when i got back several hours later, chris was surrounded by junk food.
knowing he was broke, i asked him how he had come by this stash of goodies.
"oh, i took some stuff to cash generators and got £25" says he. i knew he frequently flogged his stuff, so i thought no more about it.
3 days later, i began the task of unboxing my videos and putting them in my new cabinet. it wasn't long before i noticed something was wrong.
there were only 3 boxes of videos, not 4.
being a bit anal, i had kept a list of all my films. when i checked the list, i realised 25 of my films had disappeared.
then, it suddenly hit me: cash generators were paying £1 each for videos at that time.
not wanting to believe my suspicions, i confronted chris about my missing tapes. he denied taking them, but his body language clearly told me he was lying.
he was supposed to be one of my best friends, yet he'd stolen from me. if he'd just asked, i'd have gladly lent him the money. he knew this.
deeply hurt by all this, i told my younger sister who, unfortunately for chris, is a bit of a headcase.
she ran straight round there, all 9 stones of her, and punched this 15 stone bloke so hard that he flew backwards up the hall.
three days later, he and jenny did a moonlight. i never got my videos back, but i did learn a valuable lesson in trust.
( Smash Monkey lowering the tone of the whole internet, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 22:29, 8 replies)

I Cant Say No To Mentals
I had a next door neighbour George who has sadly passed on recently, his brilliant skill was always lending me DVD's I had no intention of ever watching.

Example, I'd kick a football into his garden and when I'd knock on his door to retrieve it he'd ignore my lost ball and instead tell me I MUST watch his latest favourite film and it would always be something random and possibly arty.

I still have his copy of "The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover" in my dvd collection and have never watched it and dont intend to, to keep George's memory alive - marvellous.
(whicker, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 22:04, 1 reply)

I might have a few later in the week, when I think of them
But for now, I'll say this. All-male halls of residence. Walls one breezeblock thick. If you haven't experienced it, you wouldn't beleive.

Also, my room shared a wall with the communal toilet.

I think this contributed to my near-descent into alcoholism last year. I'm fine now. Mostly.
( MatJ LOOK, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 21:50, Reply)

My previous neighbours had a Honda Accord in their garden.
It had no wheels, and was propped up on bricks.
(Bear Pookie The Frankly Challenged. Halloween is coming to town., Thu 1 Oct 2009, 21:48, 1 reply)

Here's a standard sex story
I lived next door to a delightful lady in Stoke-On-Trent, she was cheery and jolly and we always said hello to each other.

However, most nights I would hear her having loud sex with Colin, she would shout instruction and approbation in equal amount.

I lived next door to her for 18 months and never ever ever saw Colin.

Ever.

There was never an extra car, extra slam of the door, extra clothes on the line, nothing. Which left me with the disturbing thought that Colin was in the cellar, agoraphobic, a male version of that sexy ghost in "Ghostbusters" or took batteries... but if it was the last one why did she shout at him so much?!?!?!

Please thoughts on what was happening.

**EDIT - Just one last point. Colin never made a sound that got through the wall**
(rockers74 killed a man in Reno just to watch him die., Thu 1 Oct 2009, 21:09, 8 replies)

Noisy neighbours
I'm sorry that this will not be anyway amusing but I'm sure others have experienced this.

I live in a mid terrace house - I won't go into too much detail as to the noise; except to say that one neighbour has a giant home cinema system that makes our lounge shake, it's that loud. Often they return drunk and have kareoke parties that start at 1am and go on till about 4am. The other side the girl who bought the house pre resession has started renting it out to her mates to pay the mortgage. Currently the chav couple who live there love their dubstep music as it drowns out her crying baby. Her 21st birthday party raged from 2pm until 6 in the morning. We can her her shrieking down the phone every night.

We've tried everything from moving our bed to a different room in the house, going to bed wearing mp3 players in bed. When either side are drilling our heads with their music it's bad, but it's the silence that worse - silence that provides a glimmer of hope, and lets our heart rate lower when we think that they've finally stopped, but suddenly it starts again; the whoops and cheers from the partygoers drowning out any attempt at knocking on the wall.

It's the effects that it has had on my wife and I that is the most unsettling. My chest constantly hurts, my wife cries, we argue. I bought headphones, I've looked into having the walls soundproofed (far too expensive). I spent a fortune on Lottery scratchcards in the vein hope of winning enough to have the house soundproofed or for a deposit on a detatched house (yeah yeah - I'm am idiot - but a desperate person will do desperate things) Nothing helps. It's a nightmare.

I bet you're wondering "why don't you go round and complain?" - we tried that at start. When they answer the door, beer can in hand, you know that you're not going to get a polite response. I've given up complaining as they don't care. I'm afraid that making it official will cause them to be worse.

The police? Forget it - "it's not a police issue anymore as it's within their property" the helpful woman on the police switchboard informed me back in may at 4.45am when the music blasted through my walls. My wife crying upstairs, my hands shaking so hard I could hardly dial the number. "You need to phone the council" - fine, but they aren't in the office until 9am on Monday. They didn't want to know either. I have to talk to them but I am too scared confront 30 pissed up kids (I've had a brain haemorrage - a blow to my head could kill me)

I realise that noise is the thin end of the wedge; I've not experienced physical abuse or had my windows broken like some of the stories on here. But unwanted noise is awful. It infests your life, it burrows into your brain, making you lose sleep, fall ill, argue with loved ones. With the Police refusing to help and the council unwilling to help without me possibly making the problem worse I don't know what the best thing to do is :o/

Sorry again for lack of funny :(
( h3donist tryin' to play me out as if my name is Sega.., Thu 1 Oct 2009, 21:02, 15 replies)

Shameless Pearoast
Way back when the missus and I were first married, we didn't have television. We didn't mind so much, we had many other diversions. Books, for instance. Every night at bedtime, I'd read to her for a while. Then, of course, we'd fuck like bunnies before sleeping.

I started with "The Hobbit", but she was somehow bored by Tolkein -- I know, massive character flaw, but what could I do, we were already married. I soon switched to the oddly endearing Alestier Crowley classic "Moonchild". This was apparently a hit, and all was well again.

Until the neighbors invited us to dinner. They were another young couple, although they had a kid already. Their apartment shared a wall with ours, and we realized which wall when we said our goodnights after dinner.

They said they'd better hurry and get the little one to bed, as they didn't want to miss Chapter 16. "I can't wait to hear how Lisa is doing without Cyril", the wife said.

It dawned on us then that they could hear everything that occurred in our bedroom. Absolutely everything. I like to think our newlywed passion inspired them, as they were pregnant again within months of our moving there.
(danalan Pretty good, for an amateur., Thu 1 Oct 2009, 20:59, 2 replies)

a tale of 2 neighbours ... well 3 but 2 of those were in the same place
first one
i lived next to this really sound bloke called ross (names changed to protect the innocent -- or not) we got on quite well as he happened to be into a lot of the same stuff as me music wise (at least at the time) we used to drink together some saturday nights and just chat shit and play music... anyway he got caught selling massive amounts of weed and pills so he got sent down for a while shame really as he was a sound fella.

in the same place a while after (i had a nice indian couple for 6 months inbetween these 2 others) a girl not much older than me moved in .. not long after we had to break the door down after she passed out from drinking -- she went into a nuthouse not long after that

the second lot

i was living with 2 girls in a shared flat (one was my girlfriend at the time and the other was A a bit weird and B my girls other lover) anyhow the upstairs 'bours were both totally bat-shit crazy - they might have been Chinese (we never saw them) just heard them screaming at each other almost all day every day after some time their next door took to playing noise very loud every time they started up (noise kind of like anti music -- if you want to know a little more about this do message me) at what ever time of the day or night it happened to be

after about 4 months they moved on
(imgunnabesick rawr ^ \_/ ^, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 20:47, Reply)

Living as I do in an 18th-century terrace in The North(TM), I have neighbours on three sides.
The Polish couple often argue loudly and aggressively, but as I can't understand a single word they're saying (apart from the frequent "kurwa"s) they're easy enough to ignore. And as the walls between the adjoining houses are thin, in my bedroom I can hear everything on my neighbours' upper floors. When you're trying to get to sleep, there's nothing like husband and wife having a shag and a post-coital argument, or an impassioned "Nnnnnnnnngh! *plop* *plop* *plop*" to send you packing off to the land of nod with the quilt over your head.

That said, they're still a damn sight better neighbours than the students I've suffered in the past. People often complain about anti-social chavs, but at least they don't pretend they're intrinsically superior to you. And if you dare pull up these arrogant, childish wankers on their (occasionally) appalling behaviour, everyone sniggers at you and assumes you're just a shambling prole who doesn't comprehend the true value of education. Bah.
( The Mock TurtIe ™ --- Thinks you are a cunt, on, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 20:33, 4 replies)

Well played
Typical music war between my mother and her neighbours upstairs. It's usually an unspoken "you were too noisy on x night" sort of punishment from the neighbours, but it's a several week ritual that both parties go through for some reason. Eventually one side breaks down, knocks and offers a cup of tea.

Neighbours: *loud music*
My mum: *loud music*
Neighbours: *louder music*
My mum: *Greatest house music hits type CD*
Neighbours: *Oasis*
My mum: *Greatest hard house hits type CD*
Neigbours: "Hello" by Lionel Richie on repeat.

Aww.

She did however, win the round that ended with Simply Red "Stars" on repeat. Woo!
(mmmm curry doesn't really understand this sig lark, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 20:14, 1 reply)

Whenever a friend comes round
and the next-door neighbours make a sound, I go up to my friend and whisper...

"I've got ... neighbours".

( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 19:36, Reply)

Council Estate.
That's where i live.
In a council estate.
And my neighbours are Real wankers.
Loud music at all hours, the volume isn't the problem its the choice of music, Tina Turner and Bon Jovi.

Their Children are just as bad.
I was told to fuck off by a 4 year old in her garden.
Because the child was taking a shit. on the lawn.
There is also a sofa on the lawn of their house.
(Margatemug, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 19:26, 1 reply)

Nosey granny sees The Horror
A quickie this.
The old lady who moved in opposite us was apparently fascinated by the doings of the Clan D household. She developed the habit of standing at her window, staring at us.
I developed the habit of standing at the window in my pants, grinning like a wanking gibbon. Sometimes I waved.
She rediscovered the joys of closed curtains.
There are times when being the same shape as Mick Foley has its advantages.
(Big D, Thu 1 Oct 2009, 19:21, 2 replies)