Neighbors, for better and for worse!

Unless you live in a really isolated place, you probably have neighbors. They can become your friends, acquaintances, just someone in the street whose name you don’t even know or menaces who affects your sleep or mental stability. We live in a new development with townhouses, meaning the houses are connected and there are no big trees and bushes to obstruct the view or to muffle the sounds and noises. Our house happen to be a corner house with very large windows, windows that could function as large TV-screens showing the Real Life of a Melbourne Suburb. 

We have an interesting mix of people in our little community. Some are really lovely like the expecting family of three and the petite woman who is really a tough fire fighter and chief of her station. From our reality show screen, i e panoramic window, in our dining area we have full view of three households. In two of the houses live two ex-spouses with one teenage child each. They are both in new relationships. The ex-wife sweeps outside her door as well as her ex-husband’s, she pulls out the weeds and waters the plants. I don’t see him doing anything outside her house but then again, I’m not constantly monitoring the activities of our neighbors. The divorce was clearly very amicable and that they can live next door to each other is wonderful and yet so strange. At night time, the TV-screen by my kitchen counter is more of a peep-show only without a curtain going down. That’s when the otherwise so correctly dressed Asian father takes his clothes off and walks around in his underwear for the rest of the night. When it actually happens for real, why can’t it be someone handsome and fit like Hugh Jackman who struts around in his boxers, why does it have to be a Danny de Vito look-alike in washed out jockeys with Y-fronts who is shuffling around his living room? 

The house behind us is for sale and while waiting for a buyer, the house is now rented out to a gang of barely 20 year old girls. They have lived there for about three weeks now, meaning that we’ve had very few nights with peace and quiet. Loud music, drunken chatter and hysterical laughs have kept the street awake until four o'clock in the morning. We’ve asked them repeatedly to keep the volume down, my husband asked diplomatically, I shouted furiously. No results. Not until we filed a complaint with the administrative office who handles the legal matters for our community. Australian law is very strict when it comes to being a disturbance to the neighborhood and the fines are high. We have been instructed to call the police if the disturbance should start again. Apparently that’s what you do in Australia when your neighbors are being loud after 10 on weekdays and 11 on Saturdays, you call the cops. The word "cop" comes from Constable on Patrol by the way. We can finally sleep at night again and we wake up well rested in the morning. Thank you, Australian law makers!

                          This has to be the best company car I've ever seen!