Remember my gripe about neighbours?

There were lots of reasons the various neighbours that lived in the small house across the shared driveway gave me grief.  Booming stereo and 12 - 15 hour parties.  Stereo played outside at a volume that would have entertained the stands at McLean Park Napier.  Bad language used as several forms of speech, that is, noun, pro-noun, verb transitive, verb intransitive, adjective...  In total, just a general lack of consideration for anyone else.  Michael Laws recently made a remark about 'feral' Maoris in an article.  On the face of it it seems an entirely derogatory way to describe people but, when I paused and considered the literal meaning of the word 'feral', it was entirely accurate. 

Of course it goes without saying there are feral types from all races and social strata, and happily feral individials are the exception and not the rule.  But my word!  When you meet a feral individual you quickly appreciate how such individuals produce an effect on others who in short order also become feral.  True?  Well, that's what I've observed so far.

Back to the "neighbours".  Stereos.   Parties.  Fighting.  Feral visitors who hurled things on our roof and at our fences.  On and on it went.  What about noise control?  Well, I felt after our second or third foray with after hours noise control that they just weren't interested.  The council wrote to one of the tenants and that improved things slightly but only for a week.
There were times I fet like burning the house down just to be rid of them.  But what really disgusted me most was the plight of the poor elderly woman living on her own on the other side of these creatures.  That poor woman was trapped and tormented in her own home for the last remaining years of her life.  The disregard she was subjected to by these people was shameless and contemptible.

Finally, after six to seven years the remaining feral Maoris in the house left for Masterton, or so I heard from my neighbour out in the front house.  What is it about Masterton that attracts such types I wonder?  My colleague working at Masterton gets all the really ugly antisocial intra-familiar violence at the Masterton Court, poor woman.

Anyway, not only was it my opinion that these people lived a lifestyle without restraints, but they also lived a lifestyle that had a lot more in keeping with lawlessness as existed in medieval times particularly in terms of what they did with their household refuse.  Here's some examples of what they did not take with them...

 This is what was left in a car port where the boozey parties were held and the stereo sat out here somewhere probably not too far from the stash of dope and practically endless supply of beer.  God alone knows where he got the money from to pay for it all.

 Here's another view of the detritis left after a group of feral Maoris quit the tenancy for other parts.  The fellow that lived here changed his ways after he was seriously assualted and hospitalised during the night about June 2010.  The rumour was that it was a "hit" paid for a by a disgruntled parent of a school-kid who had been expelled for taking cannabis to school that he'd bought from the drop-kick living here.  I don't know whether the story is true or not, but what I do know, is that after he was hospitalised his whole demeanour and conduct changed.  The boozey parties stopped and there were no more streams of late night comings and goings in noisey cars.  Hurrah.

 This was the view that greeted me one day when I looked over the fence.  I looked in disbelief!  This was in 2010 for crying out loud!  Goodness only knows how many months of accumulated household rubbish was here but the rats and mice must have done nearly as well as the feral cats that lived at or near the premises.  There were plenty of feral cats that reproduced at an alarming rate.

And this is what the rear of the property looks like....  overgrown with piles of rubbish interspersed through it.  Yesterday (10th January) before I left the property for the final time, I looked over the fence and nothing has changed.  It is still the same even though the property owner has been and mowed the lawns.  He hasn't been back since.

On the other side of this fence about five meters away was our bedroom.  Do I need to say more? 

Am I glad to be gone?  Huh!  Is the Pope a Catholic?