So, the UK's most famous neighbours - Messrs Blair and Brown from numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street - have allowed their private squabble (or should that be power struggle?!) to escalate into headline news. Big time! The consensus seems to be that we can't say for sure who will be living there 12 months from now. Let's hope it doesn't descend into a Scotland v England bunfight!
Whenever you move, however much research you do, there is one element of the whole equation that you can’t predict and that is what the neighbours are like – unless you stay within the same street, of course.
I’ve mentioned how lovely our neighbours are; we’re a real community in our block, which is pretty rare for central London. But clearly this mutual love is not nationwide; this week there have been several “neighbours from hell” stories and they have often included or been about the dog!
First was an 83-year-old grandmother (Mrs Elizabeth Sterland) who – allegedly - set fire to her neighbour’s home while she was on holiday because the neighbour (Mrs Ebsworth) had complained about the dog. When Mrs Ebsworth returned, her front door had been damaged and she explained to the court that she had written “a very polite letter about two weeks before I went on holiday asking her to keep the dog quiet”. The verdict has yet to be delivered.
And then there is Colin Watts from a Dalton cul-de-sac who made his neighbours’ lives “hell” for months; he has, apparently, breached a restraining order and kept calling out his neighbour’s dead dog’s name. Imagine that. How spiteful! How mean!
Sadly, these nasty neighbours are not restricted to the newspapers. The Mistress’s mother lives in a small village; I go there from time to time, particularly in the summer. It’s a fairly dog-friendly place – the local pub has dogs, loads of neighbours have dogs and they all, more or less, get on. One young couple lived with their two pet dogs next to a more senior couple (he was a former man of the cloth – Anglican, of course!) The senior couple, who tried to ingratiate themselves with everyone when they first arrived, are now fairly unpopular in the village; they treat their horses badly and let their own dogs run riot.
The young couple – who shall remain nameless – started to receive complaints from Mr and Mrs Ex-Vicar that one of their dogs was barking when they were out. The complaints started off in an informal, “friendly” way but soon escalated to the point where the young couple decided they must part with their beloved Labrador and give him a place where, should he feel so inclined, he could be as vocal as he liked. The couple were devastated but kept the smaller dog and this dog went to work with his mistress or master every day.
And then the complaints started again. The senior couple wrote a letter saying that the one remaining dog had been barking. So, when they met face to face, the younger couple questioned when this noise occurred and slowly but surely it became clear that the complaints were spurious. On the days that the dog had supposedly been barking his head off and disturbing the former man of god and his lady wife, he was, in fact, at work with his mistress.
And then the horrible truth dawned on this lovely young couple; their other dog had probably never barked to the level alleged by the nasty neighbours – if at all. After all, no-one else had complained. And they had given him away because they felt they had no option.
Imagine that! Of course, in that case, I wouldn’t blame them if they felt compelled to retaliate but, sadly, they are far too nice and would never resort to such tactics. In the meantime, the ex-clergyman and his wife continue with their aspirations of grandeur and like to “lord” it over everyone else.
Caveat Emptor? Yes, indeed! But remember, check out the neighbours as well as the bricks and mortar.
Woof Woof