Wanna live in a fancy neighbourhood?
I live in a complicated neighbourhood. Why? Because not that long ago it turned from one of the cheapest and seediest places to live in, into the zone where every high-profiled businessman, politician and high-society moron wants to have a home. This means the neighbourhood has ‘improved’ (sort of…) but it also means there’s a great deal of residents from the old days still stubbornly dwelling here.
What is so wrong with my neighbours? Well, let’s see:

- Multiple murders have occurred in the last years (specifically I remember one about a gay popular-song preformer being axed to death by his lover and a man who used a shotgun to kill his wife, daughter and cat, shooting himself immediately after);
- Several suicide attempts (one very notorious amongst the neighbourhood in which the man in question didn’t actually die the first three times he tried because he couldn’t quite get himself killed by jumping from his 4th floor apartment or the one about the girl who slashed her wrists twice or the guy who was found by his 12 year old daughter hung by the neck in his bathroom);
- We’re ‘protected’ by a guild of drug dealers who roam the streets but at the same time make sure no other ‘gang’ gets in their turf, so we even feel safe because of this (go figure);
- There’s a huge amount of immigrants living in bunches of up to 20 per apartment (imagine the noise) because the rents are astronomical and only gathering up can they actually pay. Among them there are Ukrainians who get drunk on Sundays and sing all day long at the top of their lungs, Brazilians who sit on the windowsills (legs on the outside) speaking on their mobiles with their families back home, local and foreign students (German, English, Brazilian and …whatever) having parties till 5 am (and they don’t even INVITE me), an African couple who have arguments so severe in the middle of the street that one day I saw the woman throw a pan of boiling water on her husband’s arm while their kids were screaming in panic zealously protected by a very young girl (I think she’s their aunt) who was trying to get them out of the way- of course, police and paramedics were involved;
- The owner of the market downstairs constantly arrases my mother (because apparently she’s one of the only women in the neighbourhood whom he hasn’t bagged (she’s 59 and he’s about 45);
- There’s an opera singer who rehearses on Sunday mornings, a cello player, a piano player and a saxophone player who practice with their windows wide open;
- It’s one of the few streets in the vicinity in which the traffic goes ‘up’ and so there’s dozens of cars going by all day and all night. Of course, this is an excellent excuse for fights among taxi drivers, lorry drivers and regular Joes (let me just mention one time I saw a man trying to defend his right to park in that extremely busy street with a HAMMER while his entire family – including baby- waited in the car, or the taxi diver running up the street crying for help while he was being chased by another driver after being punched in the face);

*Sigh* I could go on, because there’s a lot more (the pantless drug addict, the old ladies picking up fleas from each other’s legs during a freak infestation, the drunk who hid in your stairs and pissed in a plastic bag – which sometimes ruptured…

And why do the rich and glamorous want a home in this neighbourhood, you ask? I can’t tell you. Maybe it’s because you can see the river.
But I will say this: my house is worth a lot more now than it was when I was a child.
Which is good, I guess.
(Mikash, Mon 29 Aug 2005, 11:37, Reply)