Dodgy Neighbours.

I mentioned these guys in a previous post. When we first moved into this house one of the bonuses we soon found was that we had absolutely lovely neighbours on both sides and we soon made friends with a few of the more gregarious people living on the road. However, about a year or so ago, two families related to each other have moved in, one on the opposite side a bit further down and the other behind our lovely next-door neighbours (their back gardens touch). I hope I don’t sound like a big snob, but boy are they rough! At first they just hung about on the road smoking and blocking the way for my pram to get through, then they started speeding up and down the road in their old banger cars at night (rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…clunk..clunk). Since then there has been a big rise in car radios and other items being stolen from parked cars at night. I maintained that it probably wasn’t them and despite what they look like, they seem harmless. My husband on the other hand was adamant it was them. He never leaves his car radio in the car at night, the one night he forgot – yep, it was gone.

Soon after this, I was performing my Isha salaat at about 12pm and some crazy 70’s disco music started up really loud from the house behind. My husband ran out into the garden and I could hear him shouting at them (OI SHUT UP!! SHUT UP!! OOOIII SHUUUUT UUUP!!!!!!! – I tried not to giggle and break my salaat astaghfirullah), they carried on regardless, until about 12.30 when they suddenly stopped and my hubby came in and went to bed. In the morning I found out why he was looking so pleased with himself. When they ignored him, he pulled some pears off the tree that overhangs into the garden and started aiming them at the revellers, after about a minute of this pummelling they switched off the music and all ran inside.

Didn’t think much more of this except when walking Little Lady to school saw a nice car parked on the road round the corner to us with its front passenger window just smashed out (my husband noticed the radio was gone). Still didn’t want to think it was them. Then yesterday hubby spoke to the guy who lives directly behind us; he is truly fed up of them. On one side he has one of the families living next to him, on the other side he has an empty plot of land with a creaky old shed in it, which said merrymaking family have been using as a social club. He decided to have a look one day and found it full of purses, handbags and other items like condoms. One of the wallets contained a number on an invoice and on calling it he found the wallet belonged to a brother in a nice part of town. He said that someone had smashed his front window a year ago and whilst he and his family were sleeping, burgled his house, took his wallet and the car keys for his Mercedes and stole his car CD-player and other items from his car.
Hmm, I don’t think we should go stomping up and rounding up the two families up, but nor should the whole matter be ignored. Think I might just e-mail my councillor, who is a very good helpful man, not about the families, but about the plot of land being misused and the items being found there.

In the meantime more and more of these guys happen to be congregating on our road and the main road it adjoins, during the day, I think they come in from the next borough and a few from other roads locally (what you thought they worked? pah! What’s really worrying though is their kids don’t seem to go to school). They drink all day, race their cars and talk very loudly (although can’t complain about the last bit I’m Punjabi). Up until now just been ignoring them thinking even if they are different they are no trouble to anybody, not so sure now.