There Goes the Neighbourhood

The Marine and I were fortunate to buy our house when we did. We got into an up and coming area just before the house prices started to sky rocket. “Up and coming” however, is usually a nice way of saying “high yobbo factor” and that has certainly been true of our neighbourhood. Over the six years we’ve been here, we’ve noticed an increase in young families moving in and a decrease in teenage boys with boom boom cars. Still, there are some vestiges of the great unwashed that still remain.

We’ve had neighbours, or as I like to call them the “banjo brigade”, two doors down from us since we moved in. The only saving grace is that they have two very nice little cats who visit us frequently. The Marine and I joke that in the summer, our backyard is “the cottage” for them since it has a garden and the absence of any loud booming voices denoting the various pluses or minuses of “effin this” and “effin that” or “yeah, I got a dog and then I’ll get another dog and then I’ll breed the dogs and we can sell ‘em.”

Our neighbour “Tim” owns the yobbo enclave and has let them rent there at an unbelievable 500/month for the last several years. This was to support an elderly woman who was staying there with her family. She died just under two years ago, about the same time as our neighbour’s husband.

We knew something was up when the cats didn’t seem to be hanging out at our place so much as outright living in our yard. In the warm weather, we like to leave out a bowl of water for the neighbourhood cats, and both of the yobbo’s felines were guzzling it the first time around, as if neither of them had seen water for days. On various other occasions I’ve noticed each of them smelling of cigarette smoke and mould, respectively. Then they started to beg to get inside.

I remember about a month ago I was gardening out back for about 3 hours. That entire time, a woman was essentially yelling at a little kid. I mean non-stop. For 3 hours. She was saying things like “Be quiet!” and “Look you either want it or you don’t! Make up your mind!”

And hey, I’ve no illusions that looking after children is by any means an easy job, but I guess what bothered me about this incident was:

1. By the sounds of the child, he/she couldn’t have been older than 3
2. which makes the rationalizations above a moot point
3. and well I guess her “piece of sh*t” tone of voice just put me off
4. and the aforementioned “piece of sh*t” tone was relentless. Like I said, three hours.

Then things got quiet. Real quiet.

A little while later I bumped into Tim. He’s been staying at his daughter’s house because his wife was very ill, and his daughter has a bungalow. He was back to cut the lawn. He said he’d basically wrapped things up and told them to get out. He’d been getting complaints about noise. Funnily enough, he also mentioned the cats. He said he thought they’d leave without them. I mentioned that the Marine had said the same thing.

And then there was yesterday. King Yobbo as I call him was back. He’s one of these loudmouth guys whose voice you can still hear at the end of the street. This jerk used to pull up with his car blaring, go inside for tea and crumpets, and leave the car stereo on. Unfortunately he underestimated the wrath of the newly arrived yuppie dads. They started coming outside on WTF expeditions. The Marine had also mentioned it to Tim whose reply was “it’s THAT guy??” Needless to say, there has been blessed vehicular silence ever since.

But you can’t keep a good yobbo down, and in other respects his voice has continued to boom across the neighbourhood like a volcanic twitch. He was particularly vocal the morning he discovered all his tires had been slashed.

BWAH! HA! HA! HA! HA!

I’m sorry. I should be more charitable but like I said, those regulatin’ yuppie dads will gitcha.

He kept staring at the Marine who was out working on his car at the time. It was all the Marine could do not to pummel him right there and then. Still it was a reasonable assumption on King Yobbo’s part. There was no love lost between him and the Marine given their various exchanges over the years.

So yesterday, King Yobbo held court as a 10 x 20 skip was dropped off in front of the house he had occupied. Hours later, it was filled to the brim with utter crap. The Marine and I are still trying to figure this one out. You’re renting so you’re going to dump all your stuff in a skip? Is it all Tim’s stuff? Did Tim pay them to dump it? Are they dumping it out of spite?

Who the hell knows? But it does look like the end of June shall see our neighbourhood that much quieter. And as for the cats? Well of course I’m torn, because I can’t keep them but I don’t want them going off with the yobbos who obviously don’t give a flyer. Their collars have been frayed for months and one of them has had fur mats inches thick due to a lack of brushing. I’ve been doing my best to try and tidy them up. It’s a hands of fate situation. I’ve told them that if they’re left behind they’re not to worry because I’ll find them a home. Why I talk to cats as if they understand me, I don’t know.

I wonder what the yobbos’ life must be like. I wonder if they feel hopeless and being a jerk is a small attempt to gain a sense of power. I wonder if they behave in such an excruciating manner on purpose or if the impact of their behavior on others even registers? I think of that little kid, and what chance he/she has.

It’s a strange thing to experience the ebb and flow of people and economics in a city, to be a part of gentrification as it happens and to see one echelon of people essentially shoved out of their neighbourhoods by the arrival of yuppies and their street sales and festivals [don’t get me started.]

I really try not to judge people, but honestly the banjo brigade has lived up to the white trash cliché in every possible respect and as much as I hate to admit it, I don’t want people like that in my neighbourhood. I don’t want ignorant, loudmouth, racist, inconsiderate jerks for neighbours.

I’m glad they’re leaving. But I’ll miss the cats.