Dealing With A Difficult Neighbour.

As I write this, both my beloved and I have to endure a noise coming from next door, at number 49.* It's hard to describe this noise accurately, but I can come as close as possible by saying it's a cross between a whine and a hum. The annoying sound can continue for a long time without interruption, before a relieving quiet break lasting anywhere between a couple of minutes to several hours.

Moreover, the noise can have an effect on my wife, being in her present state of health, the noise, which itself isn't very loud, can still generate a penetrating annoyance which leads to a headache. Then her resort to Paracetamol, Ibuprofen, or even Co-Codamol if the pain is unusually severe. I thank God that we have access to these painkillers. Because had this happened only two or three years earlier, her throbbing headache meant an ambulance ride to the nearest Accident & Emergency for blood-pressure tests and even an X-ray scan to ensure there is nothing serious going on, such as internal bleeding or even the possibility of a tumour.

In addition to those tests, she was given intravenous feeds of such drugs until she was well enough to be sent home, normally between four to five hours after admission. And to avoid another such experience, the Consultant ensured that she had access to these medicines at home, prescribed by our own General Practitioner. How wonderful is our National Health Service!

When going through such stresses, it is tempting to bang on the neighbour's front door and to let him know that the noise is driving us up the wall! It's not that the noise was confined to just one or two days. Rather, we had to endure such nuisance for over a week and there's no sign of it ending. Eventually, with my curiosity spilling over the source of such noise, I knocked on his door.

By asking whether his wife still needed the old toys once owned by our daughters, I made the issue of the noise more of a side issue than the main one, hence allowing him to fill me in with the facts without anger. Since the couple runs a school-term childcare business in their own home, the issue of unwanted toys is a good icebreaker, to start a conversation without the need to zero straight in on what's on my mind.

He's that type of working-class Englishman who loves DIY for its own sake, and whenever there is no school, as in this case due to the Coronavirus lockdown, he will always take his tools out of his shed and start work. Most of the time, what he does is well within toleration and any unwanted noise, such as using a handsaw on a piece or a sheet of wood, this can be easily drowned out by playing soft music on the laptop. Ah! Thanks to YouTube, despite those annoying ads slotted in between videos.

And it was only yesterday when a card dropped through our door. It was from the neighbour from #45, the house on the other side of ours. They had just moved out. On the card was written a thank you for being such a patient and a considerate neighbour. They thanked us for our patience with them when they played their loud and deep-sounding music centre which can be heard across several back yards. They also thanked us for our patience with them when their lively children often kicked their football and even their other toys into our garden when they fought among themselves. Either Alex or I tossed the items back into their garden without a fuss. And I will never forget the little girl say with some hesitation, "Thank you" and my response of, "it's a pleasure" in a reassuring tone.

I have always got on well with the family at #45. He was a black African married to a white Englishwoman. When their third child was born, a daughter, she had the pleasure to show the newborn to me, and I wished them all well.

That is until one day when their son's football flew over the high fence and landed in our garden, I gently tossed it back over. Suddenly there was this angry, vehement torrent pouring out at me. But it wasn't spewed out by the African. Instead, I was told off by the wife's brother who had called in to visit. It was he who upbraided me for letting the returned ball fall on their coffee table, on the other side of the high fence.

Sometimes I just can't win.

These set of events has made me think back to my domestic window cleaning business. Throughout the years I received hospitality from a few of my customers. Let's for argument's sake, at any one month I had a hundred clients (actually I had more than that, but to illustrate, this will do.) Of the one hundred, ten of them offered me a coffee. Also, five of the one hundred were from an ethnic minority. Of these, two of them offered me coffee. With a bit of number crunching, of all my clientele, 10% of them were generous. But the percentage of those of an ethnic minority, a staggering 40% of all non-white customers were generous, compared to the actual 8.4% of hospitable Caucasians.

Going back to my next-door neighbour at #49. My main reason for knocking at his door was to find out how long this noise is to continue. But I had to make the main point a side issue. If I hadn't, he could have answered with a frown. Instead, I was told with a level of apology that since there is more gloss paint to be stripped off, he needs to use that machine for "a couple more days". Well, so far, it was longer than that.

Never mind that old paint can be stripped off using a brush and Nitromors paint stripper. Or better still, to rub-down with wet-and-dry the old interior paintwork to a smooth, matt surface then repaint. A job I know can be done in one or two days without all that noise, effort and the use of power, taking up to two weeks to complete, as well as bringing unnecessary stress on the neighbours. 

But my fear of making enemies of my neighbours stem from past experiences, especially from working-class men. On one occasion, I was passing by when this customer up on a ladder looked to be in distress. He called me over. When I asked what was troubling him, he pointed to a bolt which held the old TV aerial in place, and he was trying to turn the bolt to remove the aerial, and he felt ill-at-ease up on the ladder. He gave me the wrench and with it, I turned the bolt with apparent ease. On the following month, when I approached to clean his windows, in no uncertain terms he angrily told me to take a hike and never come back.

Or at another time and place when I left my own ladders overnight concealed in a narrow alley near the back gate of this volatile fellow's garden. As I lowered them into place, it was the clanging of the metal against concrete which set his dog barking. He came to the gate and angrily challenged me for leaving my ladders on his property, causing all the dogs in the street to bark, along with a threat that if he saw the ladders there again, he would take them and throw them across the street and ensuring maximum damage to them. I replied that the ladders were not on his property but outside, they were concealed from view and their presence cannot cause the dogs to bark once I'm gone. I then thought better, picked up the ladders and carried them away, despite that it was that time in my life, nearing retirement when carrying such heavy equipment around became more tiring.

Then there was the time, more than fifteen years ago, when a loud birthday party in the apartment above ours was threatening to wake up our baby daughter at two in the morning. So for the second time, I knocked on their door with a request to tone the music down. A young blonde woman whose birthday it was, arrogant and partially intoxicated, answered and rudely told me to beat it. I answered back. Immediately a group of men whom I knew to be England football fans shot out of the door to beat me up, but I ran into my own apartment and closed the door. The angry mob, all partially drunk but all were aware of what they were doing, tried to beat the door down but the lock held well before retreating back upstairs, leaving a strange silence through which my daughter slept peacefully without waking up.

In point to note: If it looks as if I had a very turbulent life, then the reader must consider that all these events occurred over 35 years when I was self-employed. This means there were long periods in between when I enjoyed peace.

But as the whine from next door continued, Alex asked me to turn the music on, which was very helpful for both of us. Then as I pondered:

Why do many English working-class men have such volatile temperaments?

That, according to my experience, I once put to a good friend of mine, a fellow Christian who graduated at Loughborough University and held a successful career in computer programming. He agreed with me that a working-class man is subject to physical violence at a level greater than the middle-classes, and suggested that he has a greater need to reassert himself. Then today I was asking myself:

Instead of feeling angry, anxious or frustrated, how can I love this guy in the same way God loves me?

That is where I need the infilling of the Holy Spirit. For only he can work out within us the situation as a means to strengthen our faith and to enable us to persevere. And in this area, I'm not totally without experience, having learned from my previous mistakes.

I have discovered, especially with the family living on the opposite side, not to knock on their door when their music centre is playing loudly, which is usually during the day rather than in the evenings. Instead, I turn off my own music, whether from the HI-FI or from the laptop, and allow their music to entertain us. It's free and I don't have to contribute towards their energy bills!

When one of their children throws or kicks a ball over the fence, all I need to do is to gently toss it back over. No reprimanding. Rather, no matter how many times the ball may land in our garden, just toss it back without any ado. If I hear a "thank you" - then I should regard this as a bonus and not out of expectation.

The same applies to the neighbour living on the other side. Knocking on his door whilst busy at work would only aggravate the situation and could make an enemy out of him. Instead, if my curiosity throughout his project needs to be met, as already happened, to greet the fellow and to turn the main issue into a side issue seem to have brought more positive results.

Often I see him standing in his front yard smoking when I enter or leave our house. I found that greeting him a good day with a smile goes a long way, even if we don't have much in common. On one occasion, after Alex called the ambulance at my absence, the crew had to call the firemen to let the ambulance crew into the house. The door was repaired shortly afterwards while I was still out. When my DIY-loving neighbour saw everything that happened, he afterwards approached me with an offer to keep one of our spare keys. After agreeing with Alex, I allowed them to keep our back door key for the sole purpose of letting the ambulance crew into the house if I'm out. This building of trust will go well towards having a good relationship.

Then there is something which I consider to be the most difficult part - praying for them! This is due to experience challenging my faith that the adult working-class Briton is nigh impossible to bring to Christ for salvation. The sauna is one good example of where this attitude is found. I once asked a bulky, hard-boiled builder what he thought of Jesus Christ whilst alone with him inside the sauna cabin. He burst into a rage and told me how the Catholic Church, in which he grew up, had been a letdown. Another bather, at a different time and place, avoided my question by bringing up something altogether different, then walking out of the sauna. Yet, throughout my Christian life, I had never shied away from insisting that this Jesus of Nazareth is the risen Christ, especially in the workplace.

Now the African neighbour and his family have moved out. I have no idea where they now live. All I have from them is a card thanking me for being patient with them and showing consideration. Now the house stands empty, one in a line of suburban terraced homes which is very common here in the UK. Who will move in?

It is my hope that the new occupants will not be the typical English under-thirties couple, bringing into their lounge massive HI-FI speakers, each the size of a small cupboard, and having the habit of all-night parties. And hostile towards anyone who raises any issues with them.

Yes, with those sort of people I have had my fingers burnt already. 

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*For privacy, the addresses are changed.