Barking Mad

Before I moved I was looking for peace and quiet and a calmer existence than I had in the other house. After 23 years behind a noisy estate, the last 12 of which having noisy dogs next door I thought I was due a little quiet. Well the old adage 'you never know what's round the corner' certainly rang true here. I sit writing this to the sound of a dog frantically barking and whining. This will probably go on all morning. I've started recording the dates and times and find it sometimes barks for 5 hours at a time.

A chat last weekend with my neighbour about this only elicited the response that she'd never heard it and it was 'only' because the dog, a Jack Russell, was caged when everyone is out of the house, the reason being it chews the furniture when it's alone. The problem which became apparent when we were building the extension has worsened, we thought it was due to strange noises and builders being around, we didn't realise it's ALWAYS like this.

My hands are now tied on all this, if I take further action, ie. involving the local council noise people I would have to declare this as an impediment to a sale should I wish to sell the house at a later stage, it's part of these new Home Information Packs. Seemingly I may as well talk to the dog as talk to the owner for all the good that did.

How do I get out of this one? Will my ears ever be free of barking dogs? This one is slowly driving me nuts, I can't think and I can't seem to escape it. Stressed out just doesn't begin to cover it.

Studying the natives

I have lived in this house all of 28 days. A few things have been achieved but I still have a rudimentary bathroom and a very basic kitchen, cooker, sink, dishwasher and 2 shelves. We are getting stuff done though, I have repaired almost single handedly a hole in the floor, put up shelves, cut down trees and cooked basic meals. WH has rewired, plumbed in, put up ceilings and generally fixed. Our neighbours find us fascinating with our pot garden, temporary parking space on the front lawn, garage full of tools and missing side gate and fencing. Not however as fascinating as we find them.

We only moved about 400 metres but this neighbourhood (should I say road?) is just soooo different. For a start we have more neighbours, there are 4 more houses and the residents are generally younger, have more kids and and all have driveways in front of the garages attached to their houses. My last abode was one of only 3 which had a front driveway, in my case attached to someone else's house but at the front all the same. Here because we all have front drives much more family life is evident to the casual observer. They also have far more vehicles here, all except 2 have at least 2 cars per house, a couple of houses have 4 cars. This raises the question where on earth do they park them? Mostly in the road, in the turning spaces and on the pavement. The whole place looks like a used car lot. And there's always someone polishing one, or mending one, or cleaning one or just plain admiring one.

EH?? Yes this last one, in fact all the afore-mentioned car-related activities along with a whole heap more are carried out by one of my more immediate neighbours on a daily basis. WHAT??????

I think this guy is a teacher. He's definitely a sad case. Married with one child, he's really in love with his car. He changes his car with extreme regularity we are told although we've only seen 2 in the 12 months we have owned this place. He has a day-van too but that's a whole other story. This guy, a sad, boring, extremely rude (well the way he talks to his wife is, he doesn't seem to speak to any other adult, EVER) cleans his car, hoovers it out, removes the seats and wheels to clean them of any hidden, lurking specks he missed the first time then polishes the whole thing with an electric polisher gadget until he can see his face in it. Every other day. Now the school holidays are in full swing he can spend all day every day doing it, not just the evenings. It's rained a part of most days except for about 4 in the last 28, and he still cleans his car. The polishing and shining are relentless. He must have something wrong with him surely. He appears to have no life away from his car, spending upwards of 6 hours a day on his driveway.

When he got this latest one, brand new about 5 weeks ago, he was still sitting in it at 11.30pm admiring it on the day it arrived. I know, I saw him as I left from a curtain hanging marathon and frightened myself to death as he had all the lights off and as I pulled off this drive I saw something move in his car in my headlights.

All the time this cleaning is going on his 3 year old child is told to stay indoors and behave. His dog is tied up lest it interrupts. He appears to be the main child-carer in the holidays, his wife going to work in the day-van early each day. I heard them arguing at 7 am one morning out in the street, and he told her categorically that she is NOT ALLOWED to drive his car YET, she changed gear too roughly and frightened him, let alone the damage she had done to his beloved gearbox.

Reading this you probably wonder if this guy is for real. Well yes he is and living in my road and teaching some hapless kids at a local school. God help his class. He's a real nutter but he's so, so interesting to observe, a psychiatrist would have a field day.

Ah, now I have a plan to fund my longed-for designer kitchen. Any psychiatrists out there want Bed and Breakfast and the opportunity of some fine behavioural studies? I'm taking bookings now!