by Ascen Arriazu

Created on: October 05, 2008   Last Updated: October 07, 2008

Queen Road seemed nice when we moved in but after three nights unable to sleep for the noise coming from the pub in the corner, we realised that we were not going to have much peace in there either.

I had always been lucky with my neighbours, until I left home to live with my husband.

The first house we shared with other ten people and so, not really neighbours but roommates, we experienced the first taste of companions from hell. Steve was strange and moody, one day it was a broad smile, the next the longest face. But things got worse when he started to get paranoid about our TV. He kept telling us to turn it off in the evenings and during lunch time on weekends. We would have agreed to do so only that... we didn't have any TV set in the room! We tried to make him understand this without any luck at all. Once he even called the police who carefully search in our wardrove and under our bed for the ghost set.

Then we moved to a one bedroom flat in a quiet cul de sac. The gardens were well kept and the roads around were not very busy but, guess who was the funniest neighbour in the block? our next door neighbour of course! He worked during the night so he had to sleep during the day, but then when he arrived back home from work at six in the morning he would play music at full volume until he decided to go to sleep, which was exactly at the same time that we had to get up. We all got together to try to arrange something but, after two hours of trying to convinced each other of changing jobs, we just gave up.

It was then when we moved countries and ended up in Rome. The flat was espacious and the neighbours lall ovely but for one. Just on top of ours lived a lovely couple with two young children, they were nice a communicative so we got on well with them straight away. We invited each other families for tea and coffee and the ocasional dinner until one Saturday morning the police knocked at our door and asked us to testify as witnesses. "What for?" we asked surprised. "Well, you are known as part of the group of friends of the family in the third floor, so you must know something about their businesses," they said. It turned up that our wonderful upstairs neighbour was a member of a mafia group, and he had killed somebody just the day before we had moved in there. The police believed us when we said we didn't know anything about it but we then understand why everybody in the block tried to avoid us in the lift and in the garage.

After many struggles, we managed to change jobs once more and move back to England. It is then when we ended up in the house by the pub. The rooms were great and the garden wonderful. But we could not sit outside in Summer because the music coming from the pub was too loud to stand. Then the road became one of the most populars around for motor-bike races and finally, one night, our next door neighbour decided to stab her husband 14 times. Surprisingly he survived and decided to forgive her so they went back together. We enjoyed theatrical dramas every other night with the police turning up and our porche acting as an emergency refuge for the long suffering husband.

Now we are better, we have moved again. At the moment there are no neighbours next door but when we arrived a Chinese young couple used to live next door. We met them and find them polite, nice and quiet. We had a happy but impersonal relationship with them until the police paid us a visit again to tell us that they had found a cannabys factory in their house. So... aren't we lucky? we cannot say our life is not exciting. The next door house is now for sale as the Chinese couple ended up moving to jail. Let's just hope the next occupants are better this time.

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