The single worst thing about living where I live is the 'buy to let' phenomenon. Because nobody can actually afford to buy round here, or at least, it's been out of most people's price bracket for a decade, what we get are 'house shares' on short term assured tenancies.
I think they are the single most damaging thing to a neighbourhood. If you have a - surprisingly - settled community with a mixture of owner-occupiers and long term leaseholders, you tend to get a bit of give-and-take. People restrain their natural arsehole tendencies on the basis that what goes round comes around, and you don't know when you will need a favour from a neighbour, or at least expect that they act with respect to you. People want to contribute to a community. But short-term leaseholders simply have no sense of community and no understanding of the complex lives of peole who aren't like them.
When the licensing laws changed to allow pubs open at all hours, it was accompanied by guidance that those in residential areas should respect the residents and close at 11pm. But of course there is nothing that prevents loud parties on residential premises. Civilised people recognise that if you live in a semi-detached house with other houses very close, it probably isn't a neighbourly thing to have a party going on at half two in the morning that involves loud thud thud music inside, people screaming and shouting inside and people shouting and singing off key in the back garden. It is actually the height of bad manners to have a loud party at any time and not forewarn your neighbours.
It is also the height of stupidity, especially if your semi-detached neighbour knows the number of the Lambeth noise squad (although has very little hope of 'an officer will contact you within the hour') but is also a vengeful cow who is currently mulling over ways - legally - of making their future lives unbearable.
You see, one of the things about neighbours, they inevitably come asking for favours. Sometimes it's just small things, such as parcels being taken in, or the lending of tools. Sometimes it's bigger things - I've cat-sat/garden-watered; I've allowed the girlfriend of a previous resident, locked out of the house in the rain, to sit in my place with cup of tea while awaiting the boyfriend to return. The thing is, with any of these favours, you tend to do them because it's instinct to do so and churlish not to.
But there comes a point where you just think - why should I do any favours for those wretches. In fact, considering their attitude why shouldn't I just make their lives miserable in numerous small ways. Things like - if their post gets delivered here (and it will, relief postmen seem to think it's legitimate to deliver the post to all four houses here) I will have a choice of dropping it round next door or popping it a post box marked 'not known here, return to sender'. And of course, refusing to accept deliveries on their behalf or direct people to their house. Perhaps knocking on their door and instructing them to tidy and weed their front garden might be an idea.
The difficulty is making it known to them that they have utterly queered their pitch and shot themselves in the foot without actually saying so, and also not to create a situation where they can seek to get revenge for revenge. I shall have to ponder this one.
The trouble is, people who think it is somehow acceptable to have very loud parties in a residential area (not a council estate, not a holiday camp, not a student hall of residence) probably also think it is acceptable to behave in a generally anti-social and selfish way in other respects, too.
2.42 am: Lambeth noise have called me, but they have two visits to make first. Somehow, I don't see myself going to bed before 4 am. These selfish bitches will pay. And when they are least expecting it. not today not tomorrow but one day and for the rest of their hopefully short stay here.
Id it me, or is there something slightly immature about living in a houseshare with two other friends at the age of 30. I know economics and all that, but you do wonder about emotional insecurity and retardation. I mean, who would seriously want to share a bathroom and a kitchen with two other non-related non-lover women beyond the age of student squalor? Weird.
