Them next door

I bumped into my new neighbour in the lift today when I was returning home from an errand. The flat next door to me has been empty for a good couple of years and I have got used to only having one other neighbour on my landing.

She seems to be a pleasant young lady and introduced herself, commenting that she worked nearby. I welcomed her to the building and got home to a barking Toby who, even half deaf, was disturbed by all the unaccustomed hustle and bustle of her moving in.

I presume she will have a couple of flatmates as it is a three-bedroom flat and would be rather expensive for one person on her own. I was lucky with the previous tenants, three young lads, office workers, who never made a sound and were away at the weekends. The occupants before them were the literal "neighbours from hell" and nearly drove me mad. They consisted of a middle-aged mother and adult son and three large dogs. Mother and son had frequent foul-mouthed shouting matches and the dogs were left on their own for days at a time with someone popping in to feed them once a day. The poor animals used to howl day and night. I knocked on their door to complain once and the son was so aggressive I thought he was going to physically attack me. I complained also to the building manager and they were fined after ignoring a warning letter but the fine made no difference. I didn´t feel I could take things too far as, being a woman living alone, I felt rather vulnerable.

Anyway, that is all water under the bridge now. I shall await developments with my fingers crossed!