A Rant

Sometimes you just feel like you wish you could summon a firestorm down on your neighbours. These are usually insufferable people that irritate you in ways you never knew existed until you moved in. I have 3 immediate neighbours in my building and all of them do my flaming nut in, quite frankly. The first neighbour is an old dear who means well but comes across as an interfering old bag, mainly because she IS an interfering old bag!

She attempted to force me to agree to having the entire outside of the building redecorated because “It’s in the lease”. I agree, it’s in the lease, but in this current financial climate, it is akin to filling an old oil drum with your money and then setting it on fire by lighting one of your own farts over it. How many people have a spare grand lying about to pay for it? Not I, that’s for sure, so I fought it hard and got the individual price down to about half that originally quoted by cutting out the unnecessary work. This old lady I have generally dealt with by humouring her but my own sense of humour is rapidly deserting me. Did you realise she called the cops at the weekend?

Here’s why:

I went to my beloved Cardiff this weekend for a housewarming. Before leaving, I ensured my cat would be well cared for by entreating another good friend of mine to do me a favour and check on the cat each day whilst I was gone for a period of three days (Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I left on Friday so the cat was fed and watered before I went, and I returned at 2.15am on Monday morning). Knowing what an annoying old cow she was, I left a note for the old lady telling her I would be away until Monday and that a friend would check on the cat Saturday and Sunday and MAY park in my parking space. I had to do this because otherwise the old cow would shout at my mate for parking in my space. Fact is, I left out enough food and water for my cat to survive for several days so it was more a welfare check by my mate than anything else.

ANYWAY. God, this is longer in the telling than it actually was at the time!

So Sunday afternoon I turn on my mobile whilst in Cardiff and I have a voicemail. “This is the Police enquiry centre, can you call as back on xxx”. Fearing terrible news, I immediately rang back and was informed that the ancient hag had phoned the Police because SHE hadn’t SEEN anyone go in my flat on Saturday and she was worried about my cat!! Needless to say, I was furious. I knew my friend would NOT have let me down and she obviously hadn’t. She could give me the exact time she went to my flat and I never doubted her for a second. Fact is, the old lady probably simply failed to notice her, an easy thing to do unless you sit by the window ALL DAY and night to see who is coming in or going out.

So when I returned home, I spoke to the woman and told her I was not in the slightest bit happy she called the Police on me because she was worried about my cat. She responded without a shred of remorse saying she was CERTAIN my friend hadn’t been in that day. How dare she?! Honestly I was, and am, still furious. Anytime she wants money for things that need doing about this place I am going to demand she gets 5 quotes for the work, like she SHOULD do and show me a copy of any bill once the work to be carried out has been agreed. No longer will I simply accept her word for it.

Then there’s the mental cat man at the end of the corridor. Not once in the two and a half years I have been here have I seen the inside of his flat. He is very careful not to open his flat door in anyone’s presence. From within the flat emanates the most god-awful smell that comes out onto the landing. It drives me insane. The stink is nasty and HE is slightly creepy. He works at a psychiatric hospital and I can’t help but think he brings his work home with him. He reckons the smell is because he had an incontinent cat which has since (thankfully, never thought I’d say that!) died and the smell has indeed begun to lessen, but he still stinks. And not only that, but he kowtows to the old lady’s will as he has absolutely no nuts of his own.

Which leaves the swines upstairs. The flat is rented out by the owner, a woman I actually get on well with and who has always been reasonable to me and taken my complaints seriously. Firstly there were two Polish couples up there. Seemed nice enough but had a predisposition towards getting smashed off their faces, thundering flat-footedly around their apartment and up and down the communal stairs whilst whooping and hollering like they’re celebrating their firstborn child. After multiple issues with them, they were turfed out. In moved a bloke who also seemed like a nice guy, if you discount the fact he smoked weed every night and played music loudly after 11pm, often well into the night and had the loudest party ever up there when he filled the flat with 50 people and a full-on DJ to play some tracks. I do not jest. He left of his own accord because of the smell from Mental Cat Man. I shit you not. After he moved out, two young lads moved in and they are the current occupants. Respectful as you like to speak to, they also appear to like smoking weed, coming home at all hours and making a racket whilst walking through the communal area, failing to bin things correctly, spitting out of windows and even smashing in the front door when they forgot their house key.

I despair, I truly do. I sound like a miserable old git and I know that is probably justified, but the combination of all these bloody awful people is really starting to get on my wick. I have this overwhelming desire to up sticks and move but it comes down to a question of need or want. I don’t need to move, I simply want to. Wanting to will incur expense that I cannot afford at the moment. I can’t even rent this place out because it is part-owned by the government (Curse them!).

So this probably the most boring blog post I’ve made but I needed to get this stuff off my chest and it has therefore served that purpose well. I assure you I will post something infinitely more positive next time!!