Dangerous Flying Objects that Fall From the Sky

A few months ago, some new people moved into one of the flats upstairs. We have a separate entrance to everyone else, so our attention was only drawn to the ‘new’ people because they chose to affect our lives. We generally live in ignorance of those that co-exist in our building, and have no idea of what goes on up there at all. It's like a secret world. While they all get to see me hanging out our washing in my pyjamas and to examine our underpants as they blow about in the wind, we know nothing about them and their lives.

Yes, I know, community spirit is a wonderful thing (in small doses), but we have our excuses. We were stalked by a previous neighbour, in a previous flat, and it sent us a little bit mad. It got to the point of us leaving via the back door, and jumping over a wall, just so that we could avoid this guy. The man in question once climbed up onto the ledge of our bedroom window and banged on the glass as My Geek lay in frozen with fear in bed. Yes, fear of making any noise or movement that could be detected and result in discourse. “I know you’re in there” the stalker shouted, “I heard you walk to the bathroom and flush the loo”. My Geek had just been to the loo and was well and truly busted. Whether or not the stalker had heard what My Geek had done in there is unknown, but he did seem to know our every movement. He lived below us, and we had no way out but to leave forever. He’s the reason that we have caller recognition today. His wife was lovely and ran away to Spain.

I say we live in ignorance now, but we do know the man that shares our floor, and also shared our dry rot a few years back. We even know his name and telephone number. He only lives here at weekends. It’s the weekend now, but I don’t know if he’s there. We’re not quite on those terms. He also has a lady friend, but she’s mysterious and we’ve never spoken to her. We liaised for months and months about the giant mushrooms that lived under the floorboards, but she hid away and never answered the door; not even if she was in and he was out. May be she was stalked once too. About once a year or less, I also bump into a lovely girl from upstairs. She pre-dates us, and has a wonderful streak of red in her hair. If I bumped into her more often, then I might know her name too.

So, how have we been affected by the new people upstairs, when we live our lives so separately? Well, quite simply put, they’re evil. I may be excessive in the use of the term ‘evil’ but, hey ho, what’s typed is typed. See what you think by the end of this post and maybe we can waste our time having a philosophical debate on ‘What is Evil?’ and then all agree that I exaggerate terribly.

We first discovered the presence of evil, when the walkway - that runs along our outside wall - became infested with cigarette butts. The walkway is attached to the flat that My Geek and I live in, and is not a public or shared space. When a multitude of fag butts appeared, it was a violation of common decency; someone was disposing of their saliva soaked, and nicotine stained, waste on our land. It was unpleasant, wrong and annoying, but I guess it’s not criminal. I’m sure it’s exactly the type of thing that neighbours fall out over.

Well, we noticed and we noticed, and we did nothing. When it reached the point that we had about 50 butts outside our kitchen door alone, My Geek wondered about writing a polite note of complaint; but who to? There are 5 storeys above us and some floors (such as ours) are split into two flats. We’ve never been above the ground floor, and we only know about the split flats because of the 'For Sale' signs that appear and disappear from the front steps. There could be a dead person up there right now and we wouldn’t know. We didn’t want to write letters to the innocent, so we left the issue unaddressed and gave those ‘aspiring towards evil’ the chance to evolve.

I don’t know if you’ve tried it, but just dropping a cigarette butt out of an upstairs window can get a bit boring. There are two ways out of this scenario. The first is to give up and use an ashtray, which is conventional and perhaps a little bit boring. The second is to be more imaginative and think up new and interesting ways to expand the activity. Now giving a fag butt a good flick provides for a certain feeling of satisfaction and this is how our neighbours evolved. It wasn’t quite the evolution that we’d hoped for. Discarded butts started appearing further and further afield; on the lawn, in the flower beds and mixed in with the gravel path that leads to the shed. They weren’t being blown from the walkway; it’s a narrow trench that entraps all that falls into it. They were deliberately being sent as far into the garden as possible.

In my imagination the perpetrators - who only smoke manufactured cigarettes with the pretend cork tip - play an intense game called ‘Flick the Butt’. They gather round the window and smoke as hard and fast as they can. Then, as they each draw their final gasp of finely cut tobacco and poisonous additives, they send the butt end of their wasted lives, as far as possible, into someone else’s lawn. Little do they know, but the person that flicks the butt the furthest wins cancer. They’ve played it so often, that they’re all winners now.

Okay, so we’re lazy and pathetic here at Flat 1a, and I’m mean. There was no good reason for us not to politely intervene. Even if we didn’t want to send everyone a letter of petty complaint, we could have used a process of elimination to find the perpetrators and approach them alone. For a start, it’s not the man who shares our floor. He lives at the front of the building and has no access to the garden at all; even if he leaped from a window. It’s not the girl with a red streak in her hair. She is too lovely and has never shown any signs of such behaviour. We can’t eliminate her flat as we have no idea which one it is, so at present she’s just a clue. The violation of neighbourly protocol started in late 2007, so we can pretty much assume that it's a newcomer. Now, all we have to do is find out who is new and which flat they live in. See, we could have done that from the start.

Well, the ground floor is a two bedroom flat, faces the garden and has been recently renovated. It shares our garden and is currently on sale for £480,000. Yes, you read that right, £480,000 for a two bedroom flat. The current owners bought the property last spring and sometimes they visit or stay over. They could be suspects. They’re new to the building and they look like the kind of people that have smoked for years, despite their apparent wealth. I’m sorry, but they do have that certain look. Of the crime in question, they are clean. It’s not them. The property is now for sale and they are rarely there. People that spend six months renovating a property, to sell it for a ridiculous price, don’t flick fag butts into the neighbouring shared garden. It just doesn’t make sense.

On a side note, we do hope that no one ever buys the flat immediately upstairs. We have no desire to hear someone’s coming and goings, or to share the garden. I sometimes cry into the pipes when there’s a property viewing just to deter any interest. I pretend to be the ghost of Old Mrs Matthews. ‘I’m 83 you know’, I cry. Unfortunately, Mrs Matthews really did die two years ago, and what age she truly was is still a mystery. It changed daily when she was alive. She may have reached her nineties, without even knowing it herself. Sometimes, I still see her peering through her front window, watching the road, but it’s just a trick of the light. I don’t really pretend to be her ghost, but she’d probably approve if I did. She never wanted to give up that flat and had a wicked sense of humour. She deliberately, and always, called our cat the wrong name, and I rather liked her for that. It was a brilliant name and I sometimes wondered about using it myself.

Well, anyway, we were still being crap about ‘having words’ with the fag flickers, when I mowed the lawn and swept the path last Sunday. Little did I know, but somebody - up there and above us - was paying attention. Garden jealousy, or my lame attempts to tidy, must have fired up true deliberate malice within the cold hearts of those that live aloft. Now, you may have thought this to be a mere tale about unwanted cigarette butts, but much heavier issues now come into play. This week has shown a more vicious game in action, and this is where we begin to question what is truly evil.

For instance, round these parts, some are of the opinion that the seagulls embody all that is evil. They tear bin bags apart and distribute ‘Wotsits’ packets to gardens far and wide. The black and orange crisp packets appear with astounding frequency amongst various other items of liberated rubbish. They also steal icecream cones from small children's hands. As evil as they may or may not be, as far as I know the seagulls haven’t taken up smoking and nor do they have the strength to do what followed.

On Monday, an oil lamp crashed into our ‘private’ walkway and could have easily knocked me out. On Wednesday, an unused terracotta plant pot smashed into several pieces across our lawn. And most recently, last night, a mirror, complete with stand, landed just outside our front door.

Before you think - well, at least your tormentors now have seven years bad luck - don’t. The glass in the mirror is still in one piece.

The current state of play is that we are still pathetic. Nothing has changed there. Neither of us have the courage to confront someone that throws missiles into our garden. We could easily dismiss it all as extreme weather fallout, and have done with it. Unfortunately, some logic prevails. The heavy plant pot didn’t just crash to the ground from a window ledge; it landed many feet from the window in the middle of the garden. The oil lamp, high winds perhaps, but definitely not the vanity mirror. It is clean, new and an indoor item. We’ve lived here for many years, experienced many high winds, and we’ve never seen anything like it.

In conclusion, we’ve decided that it’s best to avoid anyone who thinks that it’s fun to throw missiles from great heights into other peoples gardens, or is so bad tempered that they resolve arguments that way. Our plan is to carry on as normal and hope that the evil that resides upstairs discovers computer games or blogging instead. If you don’t hear from us, assume the worst.

And just in case you wondering, the internet says that a one bedroom flat was bought very recently above us. We can tell which one it is, as they have new blinds. They also have windows that face our garden. We’re not going to go up for a cosy chat though. We have our trigger fingers on 9 and we listen in silence for the sound of screams.

By the way, we don’t own our property. We rent at £695 a month. We have a one bedroom flat and dangerous flying objects that fall from the sky.