Nasty Neighbors
One day a couple of months ago, my little boy asked me why I was calling the police. I wanted to reply that it seemed easier to hold on to our block now than to try to take it back later. But, since my son's only 5, I said, "Oh, there's some stuff going on that we don't like."
The stuff centers around a certain apartment near to me...Noisy, hostile kids and their overburdened mother, including a suspected thief lord teenage son. Put all this together in the same pot with unemployment, poverty, drugs, alcohol. Eish...
There are nightly gatherings of loud, often drunk, and increasingly nasty people.
The noise, mess and unsavory atmosphere is perceived as a problem by a lot of the neighbors, I for one called the cops perhaps 5 times to complain. Eventually, when the situation is getting worse rather than better, I hope to lean heavily on the owner of the house to get rid of his tenants.
In a middle-class way, I aim to "take back" our Peace and Serenity.
It will be great to have the local order restored. But it's not great to be involved in getting people kicked out of their home, especially if you consider yourself liberal and humanistic, as I do. Because, in abstract terms at least, this family and their friends are classic victims of modern society--of failed economics, of cyclical child neglect and abuse, of a welfare system that creates dependency. As such they should deserve our help and our sympathy.
But the combination of early middle age and mothering (with the emphasis on the latter) can, it seems, bring out the conservative in a person. When we were awakened nearly every night by the rowdy Mother and her kids next door, when their front lawn became a huge ashtray, their back yard a retirement village for gynormous rats, when every morning I had to pick up the trash they had thrown in my garden or near my house the night before, when they called me an unprintable name, I remember thinking: "Not in my back yard."
My "back yard" is a neighborhood that is tolerant and eclectic, socially and economically okay. The very soul of modesty, Our neighborhood is somewhat diverse and pretty unpretentious, a popular place.
But my tolerance is really tested by the behavior of these new neighbors, despite the fact that they are so clearly casualties of the system. Because I'm proud of my liberal-Democrat heritage, I have to ask myself why I dont feel more sympathy for them. Is it moral disapproval of their family structure (lots of kids, no dad)? NO I've lived in unconventional situations.
Their loud, abrasive style, conversations littered with shocking language, I don't think so. I was a rebel once. Racism? No. They are the same race as me, "Classism?" Maybe, although there are other people in the neighborhood who don't have college degrees, sexy professions or fat paychecks.
What I do know is that two very simple things really pushed my buttons: the theft, crude behavior and trash.
You can't legislate ugly behavior. Still, though I cherish freedom of expression, deep in my heart I also long for standards. Although it may throw me into camp with the Boy Scouts, I still believe in using manners, being considerate of others and cleaning up messes. If my erstwhile neighbors had lived by these unfashionable principles, we would have gotten along fine.
It was lucky for me, in one respect, that our neighbors turned out to be not just hostile and destructive but possibly lawbreakers. Not wanting them on the street became much less complicated once I had my gates stolen by their son in broad daylight, in full view of the community that lives around me. Although I realize that they may just move on to become someone else's problem, I would definitely feel more relieved than guilty.
Until we manage to rebuild a sense of community and make Social Programs that work, I wish that everybody could simply pitch in, do what's right and play nice, whether they're in mine or somebody else's back yard.
xxx Mwah
SameTribe
Johannesbug