Everybody needs good neighbours...

When it comes to neighbours, I don’t seem to have much luck. As it happens I would like to think that I am a pretty awesome person to live next door to; I don’t throw loud parties or play loud music at random intervals throughout the night, granted you might hear some extremely questionable renditions of chat toppers when I’m in the shower, but other than that I’m pretty damn good. So why is it that everyone around me seems to think that they need to make up for this by pushing the boundaries or what is socially (and in some cases morally and psychologically) acceptable?

This story all starts with the eponymous “Lumber” and more to the point Lumber’s girlfriend. The illusive Lumber was a Computer Science student who lived in the room directly above me in halls. He was the sort of guy to whom the normal rules of social etiquette didn’t seem to apply and he existed singularly in a world dominated by a circle of online friends. He did however make rare appearances to wonder the halls, dirtying our toilets and (even more unforgivably) stealing that one slice of cold pizza left in the fridge that was meant to cure that throbbing Sunday morning hangover. Much to mine and my other housemates’ surprise, it turned out that Lumber did not live a completely solitary existence.

Enter the girlfriend.

Now as Lumber was the shy, retiring sort, I was expecting his girlfriend to be similar in her habits. Boy was I wrong. Enter the drama student with an afro nearing the size of her shapely derrière, and a booming voice to match. I guess opposites attract and all that. Unsurprisingly, Lumber secreted away the Girlfriend in his room and nothing more was heard of them.

(Much later on...)

“Jack”

Hmm? What? I’m sleeping!

“Jack!”

That’s not a voice I recognise?

Then it dawns on me; Lumber is also called Jack.

“Oh Jack!”

Holy Mother of Jesus, this is not happening!

As we all know it’s bad enough having to endure hearing other people having rampant sex, but hearing this interspersed with our shared name being shouted out and a sudden warped vision of the most dysfunctional shagging ever, is simply perverse. If my name is being shouted in relation to some sort of sexual activity, it’s only polite that I should be involved in some way! The fact that was emanating from a couple who most people would be cautious about putting together even if the survival of the human race depended on it, was just rubbing it in!

As luck would have it, (and I’m pretty sure that’s not the best way to describe what is coming next) both parties reached a very loud and excited orgasm quite quickly and I was finally able to get some sleep. Nonetheless, I discovered the next morning that their antics had escaped from the bedroom. I uncovered this fact much to my horror when I caught sight of a rather long and curly hair stuck to the wall tile; the afro was gaining its revenge. Now I’m one of those people who’s a bit OCD about cleanliness, especially in the bathroom. I actually got into trouble at uni for suggesting that the cleaner could leave some cleaning products so we could clean when she wasn’t there only to have to face her wrath as she took this to mean she wasn’t doing her job properly. (But now that I come to mention it, Vera dear if you’re reading, that brush like thing next to the loo is for cleaning it not for decoration; just so you know!) So imagine my horror when I discovered that the Girlfriend seemed to spontaneously shed her afro after sex. (Please God let it have been the afro!) Kind of reminds of that spider that sheds its skin then eats its partners... come to think of it I hadn’t seen Lumber for a while, but then again that was nothing unusual. Anyhow, it was when the little Afro Monster reared its head from the drain and decided to attach itself to my toe that I made a decision; I needed to live alone.

Now before I was able to achieve this I had to grapple with the following;

The Chinese with their smell

The historian with the panty-liners

And last but by no means least; the psychologist with the knife.

This all ends with the fact that now I’m all grown up and soon to be entering the world of the home-ownership, and wonder with much trepidation what the permanency of this will entail following on from my previous spate of bad luck? I’m just waiting to see what the Good Lord of Apartment Blocks has got in store for me, ‘cus let’s face it, I’ve had a bit of a raw deal recently!

I think it’s time to kiss goodbye to the dream of the blonde with the bikini and resign myself to the fact that it’s going to be the serial killer with the chainsaw.

Of course it is.