When home is not so sweet

Running dogs

“Home sweet home” is almost the first phrase that comes to your mind when you arrive home. New emotions to share, new photos to be thumbed up…

Living in the old appartment house

Everything goes fine if you live in a cottage, somewhere in the countryside free from blocks of flats with thin walls. What I want to say is that I am really glad for those lucky ones who are not woken up by the cacophony of a neighbour’s TV every morning, a raging pee sound in the next door bathroom, loud hippo-like voices talking on the phone for hours.

What discomposes more

Stress surrounds us everywhere. After a working day plenty of people find home the very place to relax and escape from hustle and bustle. As for the dwellers of a flat, it is not quite possible. Old flats with brick walls without any noise isolation open a new world of Neighbourland. Don’t you like watching TV? You have to listen to it. Don’t you want to listen to your neighbour’s singing? You have to enjoy it without being asked to. Are you allergic to cigarette smoke? Oh, come on, don’t be so misanthropic. You would get used to the smoke soon as the process of becoming a passive smoker doesn’t take long.

Favourite type of neighbours

What is worse, your home stops being your castle when a neighbour starts thinking that any home is his /her home. First he knocks at the door and asks for scissors which would never see its owner again. Next he greets you like an old friend of his and says something unpleasant about other neighbours. Then he becomes so annoying that you begin praying not to meet him at the main entrance of the block of flats when you leave for work or come home. Surprisingly such friendly neighbours occur to be unemployed or retired. They have no friends, their own children, if any, do not visit them, they are not interesting to anybody except for other annoyers.

‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ To love, or not to love? That’s the question of a simple dweller of the block of flats. 

Home sweet home

P.S.: Not mentioning running dogs, running kids, barking dogs, crying kids… Love me, love my neighbours.