Remember my posts earlier this week about my crazy neighbours dangling out of a top-storey window, stating that they were trying to adjust the zoom on a camera? Well there is a bloody camera on the outside wall of my building now. It looks like a webcam - it's very small but it's there...

I saw my next door neighbour, Keith the pot-head in the lobby yesterday and he invited me into his flat for a cup of tea. As I was curious about the camera, I accepted his offer and started to ask questions, nonchalantly.

Right... I live downstairs on my own. Keith the pot-head and his teenage bride, Jackie live opposite me. Above me is the Crack-Whore-Bitch and her boyfriend. Opposite the Crack-Whore-Bitch is Barry the bisexual-ex-burglar and his flatulent bulldog, Mitch.

Barry used to have a girlfriend called Diane. She was a hefty lady, middle-aged and slightly deaf. I think Barry is about my age - maybe a little younger, but Diane was in her late-forties with a 19 year old son whom lived with his father. Diane looked like a cross between Miss Piggy and a... pig.

I met Diane a number of times last year. We'd happily chat in the backyard during the Summer months, whilst I hung out my washing. She had a number of catchphrases which she never grew tired of. Her favourite line would be starting a sentence with "No disrepect, but..." - as in, "No, disrepect, but... I think you're full of fucking shite, Justin." Another neighbour once told me that Diane used to be Barry's parole officer after he left prison, but I don't know how true that was. I often used to see her wearing a nurses' uniform, but I couldn't ascertain if she was a "care worker" as she claimed, or a "Naughty Nurse" Fat-O-Gram.

Well it appears that Barry dumped Diane at some point this year. On Sunday evening she drove to our flats, drunk out of her fat head and ripped Barry's car battery out of his van, threatening to throw it through a window if he didn't come down and talk to her.

She was apparently restrained by the Crack-Whore-Bitch and her boyfriend and sent on her way.

It wasn't by coincidence that the recycling bins have disappeared from our lobby. Barry has removed them so that Diane can't turn up and use our recycled jars and bottles as artillery to lob at our windows.

So, it was Barry's idea to put the camera up, to deter Diane from throwing shit at our windows.

As for the Crack-Whore-Bitch and her boyfriend... It seems that her boyfriend has had a warrant for his arrest active for the last two years in another county. Since the police visted last week, trade upstairs has been brisk, suggesting that they're selling off their stash at reduced rates in case the police come back again - which they will, apparently.

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[Edited 4/20/06 13:59pm]

...but what about the flatulent bulldog?

it's like melrose place with drugs.

i hope you are safe there, but god help me, i LOVE these posts.

You ever hear a song called Psycho Street by Richard Thompson??


This song came to mind when reading your post.....Have a giggle.....


A man sits down to write a letter,
But instead he writes a book
The book begins -
Dear Sir, I don't if you're interested
But you're wife is a whore

A man gets on a train and proceeds
To take all his clothes off
He begins to play with himself, and he says
"In my country, this is definitely not offensive"

A man pours petrol through his neighbour's letterbox
And throws in a match
The house is engulfed in flames
As the neighbours jump from the upstairs window
He films the whole thing on video
He plays it back to them later in hospital
"Things have been pretty dull at home without you" he says

A man pushes a lawn mower
Two hundred miles on his knees
To the tomb of the unknown gardener
"Great one" he cries "I've done my penance.
I bring my offering.
Grant me, grant me, grant me, pest-free roses"

Psycho Street, friendly people down on Psycho Street
Good neighbours down on Psycho Street
And if you need a hand, need a friend, we understand
And if you need a pal, we'll be there, anyhow
Psycho Street, Psycho Street, Psycho Street

A man stakes his neighbour's cat
To the barbecue and turns on the gas
"Now are you going to talk" he says
"Or am I going to have to get nasty?"

A man has an inflatable doll made
That looks exactly like his wife
He murders his wife, dissolves her body in acid
And marries the doll
Three years later, he leaves her for another doll

A man hands his son a brick and says
"Son, throw this brick through the greenhouse next door"
The boy does
The boy next door throws one back
It hits the man on the head and mortally wounds him
"Ah well" he says, as his life blood trickles away
"Boys will be boys"

A thoughtful woman sends her best friend a parcel
Inside, it says, is a free sample, full body beauty treatment
But really it contains acids and chemicals
When her friend tries it, her hair falls out,
Her face is wrinkled and her body scarred
The thoughtful woman turns to her husband and winks
And says "Pre-emptive strike"

Psycho Street, friendly people down on Psycho Street
Good neighbours down on Psycho Street
If you need a hand, need a friend, we understand
And if you need a pal, we'll be there, anyhow
Oh Psycho Street, Psycho Street, Psycho Street
Psycho Street, Psycho Street, Psycho Street

Tom said:

Mitch was left behind by Barry's other crazy ex-girlfriend, Stacey. Now she really was crazy...

Stacey came from Moss Side in Manchester which is notorious for illicit behaviour. Her dad died when she was a child and her mother remarried a man whom used to beat Stacey and her two brothers. When Stacey's mother died of cancer, she and her brothers came home to find that their stepfather had emptied their house to sell all their possessions. Stacey's brothers later tracked down the stepfather and stabbed him to death. The brothers both ended up in prison, leaving Stacey homeless...

I really should start changing names, although I doubt that any of them are Googling...

Well, Stacey entered a relationship of convenience by moving in with a neighbour, 20 years her senior. Unfortunately one of Stacey's Afro-Carribbean uncles came to the door one day and the boyfriend ignorantly remarked (with the front door ajar), "Stacey? There's some n****r at the door, asking for you." Stacey hadn't told her boyfriend-of-convenience that she had a little Jamaican in her genes and both she and the uncle gave him a beating...

Stacey then had a bounty on her head and fearing reprisals, she fled to my hometown. I'm unsure how she met Barry.

Whilst she lived upstairs with Barry, she was forever knocking on my door to borrow my phone. She'd arrange deliveries of "reds" and "blues" to a phone box on the local park. I usually busied myself in the kitchen whilst she placed her orders, turning a blind eye. I felt sorry for her, even if she was a crazy pill-head.

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

god, i can not get enough! MORE!!!

purpledisc said:

Yes, at least one neighbour has jumped from an upstairs window. The Crack-Whore-Bitch's boyfriend broke my washing line upon his descent, at the time. I was not impressed.

Three men wearing black suits and overcoats had turned up in a similarly-coloured BMW with darkened windows. Keith the pot-head told me that one of them had "metal teeth". Whatever kind of teeth they had, it scared the fugitive upstairs enough into jumping through their window.

Justin1972UK said:

Sorry, was not trying to Lessen the problems you have. I actually come from Preston originally (NO I DONT SUPPORT PNE) and I recall walking out of my flat one morning straight into several armed Police Officers - They had those Heckler & Kochs (Is that spelt right?) apparently it was a drugs & guns raid on a neighbours - scary shit.

The song is actually a humourous tune with a light hearted look at the loonacy that goes on in the world.

Justin1972UK said:

justin, you know that you have a screenplay in the womb right there...and you relay it to us so well....have your agent call my people

purpledisc said:

Don't be silly! Even I can appreciate the ridiculousness of it all.

It isn't crazy all the time. Maybe once a week something a little "off-kilter" will happen. I am basically living in an episode of 'Shameless'.

And I know it sounds naive, but I do feel safe here. It's like people say how you don't feel a bomb-blast if you're at the centre of it. These people may all be the strays of the world but they all keep to the golden rule of "Don't shit on your own doorstep". They'd never do anything to intentionally antagonise me because they genuinely like me. I don't necessarily dislike them... They're all damaged people and I try to sympathise with each of them. Even the crack-dealer has her own moral code: She won't sell to children; strangers; people whom are addicted to other drugs...

They just annoy me at times because they're all fucking crazy!!! They don't seem to realise how their behaviour might affect my well-being. Like the police coming around... What happens if there's a shoot-out when they inevitably come back, wearing their bulletproof vests? It's just exasperating at times...

Justin1972UK said:

please be careful...while it sounds like it ISNT a crack lab, where all sorts of flammable chemicals are abound..just be careful, please

You know way too much about your crazy neighbors!

superspaceboy said:

Keith the pot-head is usually my biggest source of information, although some of the stories came directly from the horses' mouths. Stacey told me the story about her family herself, over a cup of tea and a few biscuits. She'd come around to use my phone for a telephone interview, for a job at a drugstore... She didn't get the job.

They had a series of parties in the communal backyard last summer and it was basically 'if you can't beat them, join them'... I sat out back with them all on a few occasions. You've got to get on with your neighbours, I suppose...

It isn't just my block of flats which is insane, it's the entire street. There's a one-eyed alcoholic in the next block whom plays Sinatra full-blast at three in the morning. He annoys me more than all the others put together.

I haven't let any of them borrow my phone or whatever, for about nine months now. I just kept pretending to be out and they got the message after a bit. I saw Barry this morning though, when I was on my way to work and he said "hi" and stuff.

this sounds like it could be a movie

brownsugar said:

It feels like a movie sometimes.

On top of this, I have other issues at work; with friends; family; ex-lovers; money... I'm just glad that I have a sense of humour because otherwise I'd be a nervous wreck.

Justin1972UK said:

damn!



:falloff:falloff:falloff:falloff:
[Edited 4/20/06 16:05pm]

Justin1972UK said:

damn yo, call scorcese and nem this is hollywood material man!

PurpleRein said:

Well, she caused the opposite of a fire last year - a flood. She flooded my kitchen whilst I was away at a friend's wedding one weekend last August. It's another long story and I'm getting a bit sleepy now.

Justin1972UK said:

You shoule write a book...you have plenty of material. Shit, just keep a diary of the happenings and in a year take it to a publisher.

I guess u never watch TV --with all this activity its easier to just tape it and watch it later.