The
best neighbour I ever had was an Italian restaurant. Emergency lasagne
available night and day, change for the launderette on Sundays, a
permanent door-keeper against gatecrashers and policemen with parking
tickets. Even if our fourth floor bath water did run dry every time they
filled up the Expresso machine, I miss them still.
Bad neighbours can blight a house worse than dry rot but there is no
insurance against them, no effective barricades in the compulsory
intimacy except a decent caution and conversation ruthlessly
restricted to matters of meteorology. And it only takes a tiny breach
in the wall of platitudes to unleash appalling dramas of persecution and
passion.
And
what can be done if the people next door breed maggots or wake up to
the Body Snatchers (or some other punk group) in quadrophonic or poison
the cat with their slug doom? What happens when
one man's trumpet practice is another's thumping headache, when two
neighbouring life styles are just incompatible? There are three basic
responses to what the law calls Nuisance:
surrender, retaliate or sue.
Joan
and Andrew live next to a couple who have been having screaming,
shouting and banging fights two or three times a week for the best part
of five years. 'It sometimes gets
so bad that our whole house shakes, pictures rattle on the wall,' said
Joan. She has tried sympathetic chats, face to face confrontation and
even recourse to the local social services department
and the police when she feared that the child of the family might be at
risk. 'Every time I say something, she is apologetic but says she can't
help it. I don't think the child is subject to physical
abuse, but the verbal onslaughts are frightful. It's worrying as well
as infuriating but it seems there's nothing to be done. There would be
no point in bringing an action against them, it's just how they are. '
Retaliation - or crash for crash - is a dangerous game which calls for
nerves of steel and considerable perseverance. It is a winner take all
strategy from which
there is no turning back, because it becomes a war of escalation and the side which is prepared to go nuclear wins. Michael's neighbour in Surrey made every summer afternoon noxious with the sound
of his motor mower. Negotiations got nowhere so Michael bought an
electric hedge trimmer and plied it right where the neighbour's wife
liked to sunbathe. Neighbour opened up with a chain
saw. Michael lit bonfires full of wet leaves when the wind was
westerly. Neighbour left his car engine running with the exhaust
pointing through the fence. Michael served an ultimatum: either
an end to hostilities or he would sow a plantation of ground elder
right along his side of the hedge. Legal, but a lethal threat to
neighbour's well-tended acre and a half. Mowing now takes place on weekday evenings and the weekends are silent.
There are two main areas where the law has a role: in boundary disputes where the tide deeds are not clear and in cases
of nuisance from noise or fumes or some other persistent interference
in someone's peaceful enjoyment of their home. The remedies available in
case of nuisance are either an injunction -
a court order to stop it - or damages in compensation for the victim's suffering.
There is only one thing worse than having to take your neighbour to court,
and that is letting your fury build up so long that you lose your
temper and end up in the dock yourself like Mrs Edith Holmes of
Huntingdon who was driven mad by her neighbour's incessant hammering, drilling and other DIY activities between 7.30
and 11. 30 every night. She ended up throwing a brick through his
done-it-himself double glazing and had to plead guilty to criminal
damage. A merciful magistrate gave her a conditional discharge and
allowed only £35 of her neighbour's £70 claim for compensation. The
neighbour, he said, was an expert and could do his own repairs.
But
judges and ten-foot walls and conciliation and bribery can only do so
much. In this one vital area of living you are entirely at the mercy of
luck, which may deal you a curse or a blessing regardless of any
attempts to arrange things otherwise.
Artykuł pochodzi z książki przygotowującej do egzaminu CPE.
Vocabulary:
- laudrette - pralnia samoobsługowa
- gatcrasher - nieproszony gość
- blight (a house) - niweczyć, niszczyć
to cast a blight on sth - to spoil sth
- insurance against sth - ubezpieczenie na wypadek
- barricades - barykady
- decent - przyzwoity, porządny, skromny
- ruthlessly - bezwlędnie
ruthless = cruel
- it takes a tiny breach in... - a hole in a wall for protection (wyłom)
be in breach of sth - to be breaking a particular law or rule (naruszać, łamać prawo)
- platitude - frazes, banał
- unleash - uwolnić, wyzwolić
- appalling - przerażący, straszny, obrzydliwy, wstrętny
- breed - hodować, wychowywać
- persecution - prześladowanie
- thump - walić, grzmotnąć, walnąć
thumping headache
- retaliate - odwajemnić
to retaliate against sb with sth
in retaliation for
- the best/better part of = most of
- recourse - uciekanie się do czegoś
without recourse to
- onslaught - a very powerful attack
- noxious - trujący
- maggot - larwa (mięsna), robak, robal
- slug - lazy person
- mower - kosiarka
- electric hedge trimmer - elektryczne nożyce do żywopłotu
- ply - posługiwać się
- open up - ujawnić
- sow - siać
- elder - czarny bez
- lethal - zabójczy, zgubny, śmiertelny
- boundary - ograniczenie
- deed - czyn
- persistent - trwały
persist in doing sth - trwać, utrzymywać się
- interference - wtrącanie się, ingerencja
- nuisance - niedogodność, udręka, niewygoda
- injunction - nakaz, zakaz sądowy
- to lose one's temper - tracić panowanie nad sobą
- be driven mad by - oszaleć przez coś
- incessant - bezustanny, nieustający
- double glazing - podwójna szyba
- plead guilty to - przyznawać się do winy
- merciful - litościwy
- conditional discharge - zwolnienie warunkowe
- conciliation - pojednanie, postępowanie pojednawcze
- be at the mercy of luck - być na łasce szczęścia
- regardless of - niezależnie od
