Do you find your neighbourhood rather gritty? Perhaps a little too urban for your liking? I wouldn't say ours was exactly East LA, but it has its moments. I think the problem is living in a cul-de-sac. You can hear a pin drop, which means anyone talking within 50 feet of our house sounds like they're under the window about to firebomb/rob/murder us, when in fact they're passing the time of day with the postman or putting out their rubbish.
We have very pleasant neighbours as far as I can tell, they all seems normal and nice - SO WHY DO THEY LEAVE RUBBISH EVERYWHERE? I have never known a street to be covered in so much rubbish so often. And as for the fly-tipping - people come from miles around in the dead of night just to leave a couple of scabby old sofas right in the middle of the road. How thoughtful. I think it's because there are a lot of flats, mainly populated by young people who don't stay that long, so the constant movement generates a lot of crap.
The other problem is that there is a small(ish) joinery business who treat the road like their own private industrial estate. We did win the battle of the towering skip, a magnet for other people's rubbish/taxi drivers pissing in it, etc. The council took one look and it was no more skips for them. So that's gone, but with them now it's noise rather than rubbish. Their ancient van that needs revving up at 7am on a Saturday morning - when I complained they got almost tearful, about how they HAD to work. But then I pointed out the the hour and they stopped doing it. Still noisy though. Their over-sensitive guard dogs chill me to the bone.
Oh how I long to live in a quiet, leafy street, far from the urban sprawl, where rubbish goes in bins and no one feels they must shout at the top of their voice when they walk down the street at 2am, vans don't jolt to life in the wee small hours, dogs don't bark when a butterfly floats by or poeple don't graffito silly words like Enzo or Spitati on every available surface.
I love our house, but I've done four years in that road and it's enough. But who can persuade my wife to ship out? She won't hear of it. Looks like we could be there for some time.
3 comments:
Well, tell me about it. All I can do is recommend building a good relationship with one of your local Councillors (invaluable) and with your council's Noise Team. And, like me, moving.
The corner of the street next to mine, and indeed the back of my house, is a well-known dumping ground, and I thnk it's made worse by the fact that the council remove everything left there, so everyone knows to dump there old mattresses/car batteries/ancient tellies there.
Let's pool our resources and buy a commune where, to gain entry, you must own a copy of Uncertain Smile by The The. That'll sort out the riff-raff.
But it's a lovely, lovely house! We lived in Muswell Hill for a year, which was indeed leafy and quiet. Relatively rubbish free. I'd walk down the road at night and hear the mild strains of youngsters learning piano recitals.
Mind you, there was the constant low level hum of power tools. Everyone was into DIY.
Try living around here. We live in a cul-de-sac and everyone apart from us seems to live in a world that's a cross between The Stepford Wives and Footballers' Wives. We're the social outcasts because our drive doesn't have a Porsch parked in it. Honestly, some of these people must be in hock up to their eyeballs, and all to 'keep up with the Jones's'
And if I catch the bastard who's letting his dog defacate on my front lawn, then I won't be held responsible for my own actions.
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