Last and previous summers (2004 and 2005) we were plagued by the curse of tenants from hell. Colombian Drug Dealers, Jimmy decided. They held barbecues, initially fired by paraffin. This amused Danny, who used to live next door, a professional barbecuer to Royalty and Filmstars, and Jimmy, an ex-professional purveyor of paraffin and related products.
It was the burnt meat that got to me, especially the smell that lingered in my house. It seemed they only had barbecues when the wind blew from theirs to mine. One day at 3 am I called over the wall "Please could you keep the noise down" and Senora Foghorn called back "Don't call the police, you won't call the police, they won't like your cannabis plant"*
We had a series of petty acts of revenge planned for this summer, to coincide with the barbecue season. We thought about creosoting the fence...woops, still needs doing. We thought about leaving the lid off the compost bin. We thought about burning our garden cuttings, when the wind blew from us to them. And then there's the Noise Squad, the Drugs Squad, Immigration, complaints about the Environmental Health Consequences of Overcrowding, the complaints about a business seemingly being run from domestic premises.
Bastards moved out in March.
The house (at least, I think it's this one - have to keep an eye on the value of one's equity...) has been obviously unoccupied since. Lack of curtains, light coming on for an exactly an hour same time every late evening. Lack of furniture. Yellow Pages abandoned outside. We haven't drawn our downstairs back curtains all summer. We've walked around in various states of nakedness, inside and out.
Summer's over, there are new occupants. It seemed they moved in yesterday. I heard a loud voice and my heart sunk. Although, on further investigation the loud voice appeared to be a sister or friend helping with the move. sounded very Clapham, all a bit if-I-talk-posh-I-sound-intelligent, probably working in the vacuous end of paramedia. The sister that is. the person in charge of box-unpacking was somewhat less stentorian.
* I have been told, rightly or wrongly that having a cannabis plant** in one's garden is not illegal
** it's no longer there - it's an annual
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