Tuesday 30 June 2009

Neighbours in the city

We have new neighbours.

Well semi-neighbours. We live in a Georgian terrace house which has been split into flats with the same either side. We're on the ground floor, our new neighbours are in the basement flat next door.

Our first whiff of them being different was the cigarette smoke which drifted through our bedroom window from the little garden they have. Hmmm, this isn't normal we thought. So we closed the window and carried on as before. But it's hot now and sleeping with the window closed does not lead to good sleeping.

So last night we had the window open, and they were outside with their friends enjoying the summer night. We must have gone to bed about 11.30 ish and I dropped off pretty rapidly, but lightly. At about 1.30am I was woken by our new neighbours still outside chatting and laughing. Normally I would roll over and hope for the best but at 1.30am on a Monday night I thought it perhaps best to say something. So poking my head out of the window I just asked if they could be so kind as to be a little quieter. And all credit to them they were and I slept very well. But now I'm worried that I've upset them, even though I was very nice. I'm not sure what I imagine the repercussions to be but I'm worrying about something I really shouldn't be!

Which led me to thinking about living in London. I absolutely love it but we realised that if you live in central London you will live very close to other people. And people who you will probably never talk to, rarely see and even more rarely know. I'd still like to host some drinks for our 'house' but I'm not sure what the response would be. Do you think I should? What are your neighbours like?

6 comments:

Color Me Green said...

i know what you're saying. new york is the same way. we've lived next to ppl for years without acknowledging each other. our current downstairs neighbors hate us because they live below our hardwoord floors and can hear every shoe dropping, dog barking, person shouting at the dogs etc. looking forward to moving to a first floor place next month! well except that our new neighborhood is babyland and i've heard cops will shut down a backyard party around 11. ugh... but if you live in the country instead of the city, no one can hear you scream muhaha

Anonymous said...

I hate this about cities. Where I live, in Toronto, there's a lot of neighbour no-talk, but in my area we all know each other, we all talk, we may not all love each other, but we know who we are.

I hate when I ehar that you've lived next door to someone for 10 years and never have said hello...

ah well.

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Janine / Being Brazen said...

I HATED that about living in London. Not alot of personal space.

I think you just have to try be respectful, but still do what you want :) Just cause theres not alot of space, doesnt mean you still dont have a bit of your own space (does that make sense)

anna and the ring said...

I couldn't tell you who my neighbours are. Although we have bought a bottle of wine for the people we flooded (well leaked into) with a useless washing machine.

We also have a noisy noisy child.

Other than that, I live in a cute little community where people are civil yet anonymous. Although there is a party in our central garden next week, so who knows!

Marie said...

Colour me green - sounds nice but 11pm!! That's early...

Margarita - That sounds nice, to at least all talk. And know who everyone is!

Brazen - You lived in London?!

Anna - I would take smoking neighbours over a noisy child anyday. At least you can shut the window on the smoke...

Thanks all for your thoughts too, lovely to hear from you!

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