Monday meanderings

Monday yawning

To get an idea of how I feel this morning, picture this: The fire bell test rings at 10:10 in the office as usual. My first instinctive reaction? I stretched my hand out to switch the alarm clock off.

Oh dear.

More neighbourly fun

Annoyingly, I missed the most entertaining part of this story. It was relayed to me by a neighbour on the other side, but hey ho.

Having gotten rid of ratboy, I suppose my luck couldn’t hold out. The house actually attached to mine (it’s a semi) is number 17. The guy who owns it, Dean, moved out about 18 months ago to live with his other half in Wetherby. Sensibly, he kept hold of the property and now rents it. Which probably covers his fuel for the commute to Bradford for work.

Dean missed all the fun with ratboy, but the family who rented the place from him until recently were pretty nice. A very young couple, their little baby girl and – I think – their granny. Very quite, in fact I barely even heard the little baby cry or anything. When they moved out, Dean said he didn’t even need to get a duster out as they’d left the place so clean.

Cue the replacements. Oh dear.

They’re not as bad as ratboy. Well… maybe in different ways. I’ve spoken to the gentleman of the household (about them dumping their rubbish in Kim’s paper recycling bin – an honest mistake and they were only trying to get rid of binbags that were blowing around which is fair enough), and it seems there’s him, his girlfriend and two teenage lads living there. The two boys I’d guess are about 14-15. Yeah – that age. I’ve already seen them round the side of the house nicking dad’s fags cos they’re "well ‘ard and smerk tabs" or whatever the Yorkshire equivalent is.

Anyways, dad works nights. The kids get up early, and I think they share the bedroom through the wall from mine. And they like dance "music". ********. 7:30 on a Saturday morning – "dumph dumph dump dumph woooeee wwoooeee" etc. Not all that loud, but loud enough to wake me. A return salvo of the entire God Hates Us All album by Slayer at full tilt and it seemed to scare them enough to turn it down.

This is small fry stuff, though. Since they moved in – about a month, give or take – there have been four visits by the police. Sadly, I’ve missed them all bar one including the other Friday night’s apparently highly entertaining offshoot from "The Bill".

I went out for about an hour. The boys in blue arrived 10 minutes after I left, and left 10 minutes before I got back. Grargh.

Two vans of them, banging on the doors asking for some person or other. Steve (the nice neighbour) was obviously somewhat interested so had a word with some street urchins about what was happening. "He’s stabbed someone," quoth they, "with a potato peeler."

Sorry, but if I walked into a kitchen looking for a weapon, my eyes would most likely fall up on the bread knife. Or the carving knife. A potato peeler is a little unambitious if you ask me. If you want something small enough to fit in your school shorts, take a flipping steak knife or something. Pointy and serrated. Anyway, I digress.

Police barge into the property and yells of "Get out of there!" and "No!" abounded. A decision was made to "Kick it in and get the ****** out", a task that was duly accomplished amidst great thumping and splintering.

Said sprog was dragged out into the street yelling about having bare feet (diddums). Someone was sent in to retrieve his Reeboks and he vanished in the back of a van, (hopefully) never to be seen again.

Funnily, it’s been quiet next door since so I’m wondering if it was his stereo that was waking me up. In which case, good riddance ya ****.

Dean was a little perturbed. He asked me to keep an eye out after the first innocuous police visit so wasn’t too chuffed when I told him what had happened that Friday.

More fun next door yesterday. I was just getting ready to head out to watch the match when there was a bit of a commotion heard through the wall. Some yelling, a bit of screaming, a few thuds. I’ve heard nowt from them in 2 weeks either.

I think the lass that lives there chucked someone out – a lad about 15 years old. He stormed off, yelling about wanting to borrow a pound for the bus into town. Then he came back a couple of minutes later wanting to borrow a coat – loudly. "And I suppose you’ve called the police again, haven’t you, you bi…."

*BBRRRRMMMMM* WOO WOO WOO *SCREEEEECH*

Bang on cue. The little scrote shot off like a rat out of a pipe round the back of the house and the two coppers chasing him didn’t seem to catch him up. The second police car to arrive didn’t cut him off either. Shame.

I spoke to Dean and he’s not been able to find out what’s going on yet. The police won’t give him any info until he attends a West Yorkshire police station with details proving he’s the house owner and not just Joe Nosey Public. He’s popping down on Wednesday when they’ve said they’ll be able to tell him everything he needs to know.

With any luck, they’ll be out of there in a week. Happy happy, joy joy.