I call my neighbour the Rottweiler because she does not talk to people - she barks at them. Anyway, she does her laundry during the nights and her washing machine is on the other side of my bedroom wall. The noise keeps me awake and drives me insane. How inconsiderate of her. She usually play gospel music and sing along to hallelujah songs on Sunday mornings and then comes night, she becomes a selfish little devil. What ever happened to 'love thy neighbour'?
I have called the landlord about the disturbance but the Rottweiler ignores it. One night I got fed up of listening to her blooming washing machine and went over in my pyjamas and knocked at her door (at four in the morning). She did not open the door so I told her through the door, with a whisky voice since I had not used my voice for some hours, ‘stop keeping me awake with your laundry’. It probably sounded quite scary to her.
At eight the next morning I got a knock on my door and it was the Rottweiler. She told me not to knock her door in the night and I told her I will, unless she stops waking me with her laundry. She claimed she can only do laundry in the night because she works and have to look after her four children. I told her I am aware of that it might be difficult to be a single mum but that is no excuse for keeping your neighbours awake - I need to sleep!
Things have got a little bit better after that but she doesn't say hello to me any more and she call me the bitch in front of her children. Great parenting skills!
Once when a Swedish friend was here for a visit, we got on a bus in Stockwell to go home and we heard an argument between the driver and a customer. Apparently the customer didn't want to pay and the driver got a fit and refused to drive unless she got off the bus. We were sitting upstairs and my friend got a bit worried, she didn't understand the Jamaican English the lady spoke. We decided to get off the bus and take the bus behind instead. As I got off the bus I realised that the upset customer was the Rottweiler next door. Her poor children had to witness their mother’s bad behaviour and will probably learn to behave in the same when they are confronted with a problem. As I said, the Rottweiler is a lousy mother.
The blooming Rottweiler, kept me awake last night again so I went knocking on her door but she didn't open, instead her little boy asked me through the door ,‘who is it?’ and I replied ‘it is the girl from next door’. I could hear them talking inside and the mother telling her son ‘it is the bitch next door’. Why am I a bitch to her? I have done nothing to her, or?
Her children used to play in the corridor outside my door with the bicycles, scraping my door. Sometimes I opened the door and told them to stay clear of my door. I can see how it must be difficult to stay in a crack in the wall size of flat with four children but she could take them to the park. I went over one day when her door was open and asked her if she have a DVD player and lend her three films for her children to watch. I thought that would give her some peace. A few weeks later the little girl knocked my door and asked me if I had more films. I said, 'they are mostly for older children, but you can have a look if you like’. The girl parked her bike and walked into my flat. The door was open all the time. Suddenly the Rottweiler barked and the girl ran out with a few films. Five minutes later I heard a knock on the door again. It was the girl again but this time her brother was with her (as some sort of protection I suppose) and she was crying. She said she was not allowed to watch the films because she had not asked her mother for permission to knock my door. I felt horrible, realising that she had been physically abused by her mother and been slapped. The children don't dare to say hello to me now. They are scared of me because of their horrible mother.
One day I found the little boy in his robe on a chair outside his door trying to reach the electric box and put the key in. Obviously the children where home alone or the mother would have done it. I asked him if he needed help. He had to accept my help but looked very scared as he did so. This little child gets far too much responsibility for his age. The mother also depends on him as the man of the house, which teaches him that girls and women are lower than him and helpless. It's not fair to him.
The Rottweiler also keeps her children up late in the nights, sometimes as late as one in the morning, even on school nights. The children probably do badly in school because they are exhausted.
At one occasion I heard the boy screaming late in the night, ‘no mummy, no’. I couldn't just turn over and go back to sleep, instead I called the police, which arrived promptly.
The next morning the Rottweiler was at my door and we discussed child rearing. She was upset that I had called the police but I just told her not to hit her children then. I don't want a Victoria Climbie case on my conscious.
The good news is that the Rottweiler is moving out. Peace at last!
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