Sunny Redfern The Man Next Door Chapter 31

Mother gets out at Redfern Station and walks along the very familiar street as if in a dream.

The afternoon sun in her eyes, and the wind blowing hair across her face, make it hard for her to see exactly where she is, as she passes the long row of terrace houses

Eventually Mother thinks "This must be the house."

She knocks on the front door after noticing that the next house up has faded green walls and a familiar clutter of  objects on the front verandah.

Alex, who has been expecting her, soon opens the front door and Mother is very happy to see his welcoming, smiling face again.

Alex: ''How are you?" .... "How are you?"
'
"Come in while I get your mail."

"There are a number of things here for you."

Mother notices that the front rooms haven't changed much in the months since she moved out.

The sitting room section looks well used and comfortable.

The walls of the room seem to reach out to her, inviting her back.

There is still a bike in the front section of the room, but now there are also musical instruments.

She notices a piano accordion, a keyboard and an amplifier near the doorway, and along the far wall a line of small drums.

At the top of the stairs a young South American man can be seen emerging from the bathroom, with a towel around him.  He quickly slips into his adjacent bedroom.

Alex has finished going through a pile of mail on a little table and he returns to the hallway saying ....

"This seems to be all the mail, ....some for you, and some for your daughter and your son."

"Thanks!".....  "I guess I should get the mail redirected." ....

"Who plays the musical instruments?"

Alex: "Some of the boys living here."

"The man next door came in one evening to have a jam session with them."

"It was great, and he left some drums here. ".....  "See them there along the wall."

Mother: "How is the Man Next Door going these days?"

Alex: "Maybe he's getting a bit crazier.  He's still been working on his house, but a couple of weeks ago they came and took him away"

Mother: "Who took him away?"

Alex:  "I don't know."

Mother: "Why did they take him away?"

Alex: "He was having trouble with some man and one night he punched the man and knocked him down outside the pub."

"I only know what the Man Next Door's friend Mick, who lives across the road, told me."

Mother: "Oh!"

"I wonder where he's gone, and how long he'll be away?"

Alex: "I don't know."

Mother: "I guess you're busy so I'd better go."

"It's nice to come back here to this house and to see you again."

She walks towards the front door and everything she sees and feels in the hallway, and on the front verandah, is so familiar that she feels as if she still lives there.




A month or so later Mother speaks to Alpha.

Mother: "Has the man next door returned yet?"

Alpha: "Yes, he's back home".

Mother: "How is he?"

Alpha: "He's been very quiet, but we can still hear him hammering away inside his house."

Sunny Redfern The Man Next Door Chapter 30

The gap that the man next door made in our back dividing fence is still there, and I've noticed that it's in a straight line between the man next door's back door and our kitchen window, so that from his open back door he can easily see me, or anyone else, at our kitchen sink,.

When he comes outside and sees me he usually says "Hello" as he walks past down the back of his house.

One day he spoke to me as he returned from his back yard.

He said "I've been making a path through my backyard so I can avoid all the cat poo."

"Besides the ginger cat who makes himself at home here, and knows how to get inside, there are lots of other cats who come to my backyard, to poo in all the sand there, and to meet up, or just to sniff and see what other cats have been around. Many of the cats are from The Block, left behind when the aborigines moved out."



ONE EVENING

As I passed the pub on my way to the shop, I was aware of two men talking outside, in the corner doorway.  I didn't look at them.until I heard my name called out, just as I pressed the button, to cross the road at the lights.

The two men looked somewhat similar, about the same height, but the one with the blue eyes was the man next door.

He called out "My development proposal was rejected. The council SQUASHED it!  I guess you will be glad."


I replied "Thats a shame"


He said "I thought you would be glad, because now you won't have to put up with the proposed extensions being built beside your house."

Then he added, "But if my underground room was built you wouldn't have to put up with all the noise from my music."

"Now you will still have to put up with me playing my drums at night".


The lights had already changed to :WALK", and the man next door had moved over and was right next to me, so I had to think of something to say.  I looked at the tall building across the road and got an idea.


I said "Maybe you could build way up high, where you are too high up for your music to be heard."


The man next door: "I don't know whether I will be going up there, to heaven, or down there, to hell".


I said "I don't think I will go to heaven, or hell. I don't believe in them."


The Man Next Door:  "Where will you go then?"


I think I will turn into a flower....or a tree."


The Man Next Door: "That sounds nice."      ...Can you give me some pointers to how I can end up as a tree?"


I replied:  "Be happy".   Be able to sit quietly on your own, thinking and meditating.


Really look at a tree, feeling its presence.  That is how many great men have reached enlightenment. 


Who knows whether you will eventually become a tree.


Of course, when you die, you could be buried in the countryside, in a vertical grave, with a tree planted on top.

That way elements from your body could be incorporated into the tree.


"Thanks!" he replied, and I crossed the road because the lights had changed again.





A COUPLE OF WEEKS LATER.


Daughter:  Did you notice the "For Sale" sign that's appeared in front of the extremely fat man's house?


Mother:  "Yes, I got a shock when I saw it. I didn't expect that he would ever move. 





A WEEK LATER.


Mother: The extremely fat man's house has "SOLD" on the sign out the front.

I wonder what he's going to do now.



Daughter: I heard a lady in the street asking him that, and he told her that he's moving to Maroubra, and when I spoke to him in the street later he told me that he's bought a unit there, about ten minutes from the beach, which he intends to walk to every day, to get fitter.

He's been out in the street a lot more than usual, talking to all the people who want to know what he's going to do.


Alpha: He told me that he got over $800,000 for his house, and that the same estate agent organised the purchase of his unit at Maroubra, without him seeing it.

I hope he wasn't ripped off.



Within days a removalist van was parked outside the extremely fat man's house, and a mattress and other items had been thrown out on the footpath.



THEN A FEW DAYS LATER:

DAUGHTER: Some older men have already begun work on the extremely fat man's house.


Mother: Yes, through the open front door I've seen rubble on the red carpet where they've begun to demolish a wall.


It won't be long before the house has been renovated and new people live there, and the extremely fat man will be all but forgotten.


Meanwhile I see the man next door from time to time coming and going in the street, and helping with renovation work on a couple of houses.



Daughter: But work on his own house is at a standstill.



Mother: The only noticeable changes are in the jumble of clutter on his front verandah, the cement mixer, old doors, signs, photographs of the house before he bought it, etc, which are rearranged from time to time, in a slightly artistic way, like an ever changing still life.

The Man Next Door. Chapter 29. How To Save The World

ONE DAY.

As I returned home on the train I once more thought   "How can we save the world from environmental destruction?"


What to do first?


I know there are lots of people who care about the state of the world, and who are trying to take action.

But they are not yet working effectively as part of a major force with power to effectively oppose the very few richest and most powerful people and corporations in the world, who currently get their way, deliberately destroying the natural environment in their ravenous hunger for more and more resources to plunder and use, so they can get even richer, as people continue to consume more and more, CO2 levels continue to rise, and the climate changes.


Our world is dominated by corporations and the global 0.01%.


If the super rich and most powerful people in the world are in such a minority, how are they able to get their way?


I think its because we don't really live in a DEMOCRACY, and also because the majority of people don't care enough about saving the environment.


They are just preoccupied with themselves, and their day to day lives, part of the evergrowing, all consuming,  BULLYGREEDOCRACY we live in.




LATER.

I got off the train and walked towards home, late that night.


The only other people I had seen in the street had turned off at the corner, so I walked alone, and came across a very large spectural looking figure standing on a front verandah, his very white face the same colour as his huge white shirt, as he leaned forward grasping his front fence.


It was the extremely fat man, outside his house.


I glanced at his face as I hurried past, not wanting to rudely ignore him, but not wanting to stop to talk.


He looked confused, either not recognising me, or wondering why I was going past with my bags at that time of night.


I was now almost at home, but I could see something strange and interesting hanging on the front fence of the house beyond our house. So I continued on to have a look.


The man next door had draped crumpled items of clothing all along his cast iron front fence, and also on his window and on the cement mixer, bikes and other items on his front verandah.


I thought:: "Has he hung his washing out here, or are the clothes for sale, or for people to take?"


It was too dark to see the clothes clearly, and I was aware that the extremely fat man was probably still watching me, so I walked back to go inside our front door.




NEXT MORNING.


Mother:   I was very tired when I came downstairs this morning.

I was hungry, and really looking forward to a cup of coffee.

I boiled the jug and put hot water into my cup, intending to just heat it, then replace the water.

But next thing I accidentally put a spoonful of coffee into my bowl.

I washed the bowl, and put muesli in, then put a cinnamon stick in my cup of hot water.

Still no cup of coffee!

This time I put a spoonfull of coffee onto the muesli in my bowl.

The next spoonful of coffee went into my cup.



Daughter: I hope you felt better after you finally drank your cup of coffee.



Mother: I'm still feeling tired.

Do you know what the clothes on the man next door's front fence last night were about?


Daughter: He just hung his washing out there.


Mother: But anyone walking by could have taken his clothes!


Daughter: But would anyone want to?


Mother:  He must have hung his washing out there because his clothes line is no longer along his side of our dividing back fence.


I expect he removed his clothes line when he began to remove palings from the fence.


I was surprised when I saw him doing this, close to his back door, just one paling, then another.


So I called out to him through our kitchen window..."Are you demolishing our dividing fence?"


He replied... "Yes", and added ... "I'll soon build a high brick wall in its place!"


A little later, enough palings had been removed from the fence to allow the man next door to come onto our side deck, where he was busy hammering down loose nails.


I saw him there as I was hanging out washing on our back deck.


He said..."I hope you don't mind, but I have to create a safe working environment, wide enough to move around in, on your side of the fence, while I build the new brick wall.


I hope you won't mind the wall. It will be as high as your back upstairs window, and it will slope down to 2.7 meters high where it reaches my back fence, adjacent to the back lane.


See the high measuring stick attached to the corner of the back fence.


I'm going to build an underground room where I will be able to make as much noise as I like."


I asked..."Why does the room have to be so big?", and he replied ....


"Because it will be full of lots of drum kits. People have complained about the noise I make when I play my drums, but when the extensions are finished you won't be able to hear a thing."


Daughter: I'll believe it when I see it!"

The Man Next Door. Chapter 28.

ONE  DAY.

Daughter (looking very serious): Today I got a note from my sculptor friend.

Remember you met him at his exhibition opening.

He's upset about what he said a mutual friend had told him you had written about him, about him having bloodshot eyes, and looking drunk.

He prides himself on drinking very little, and not getting drunk, so he's very upset, and he wants to know exactly what you wrote.
 

Mother: Oh dear! That sounds bad!

I really liked your sculptor friend, and I loved his sculptures.

And that's not what I wrote about him anyway.

I thought I wrote nice things about him, but I did say something about his eyes, about how surprised I was by them.

I didn't expect anyone other than friends and family to read what I wrote.

It just shows how careful you need to be when writing about what you observe, in case you interpret things wrongly.

If you like, I'll write to him to let him know how apologetic I am.

And I'll send him a copy of the exact text that I wrote, and hopefully he won't mind it.


Daughter: He's been a very good friend of mine, and he's always been very kind to me, so I'd be very upset if what you wrote destroys my friendship with him.
 
And what will you do, if the man next door finds out what you've written about him?


Mother: That would be dreadful!

Although I've only written about what I've observed, no one wants some things about their life to be scrutinised.

You know, over time I've grown to appreciate and respect the man next door a lot more.

Who is the hero here?

Certainly not me!

I've come to think that it's the man next door.

He has guts to keep on doing all that hard work on his house, perservering month after month, year after year, in trying conditions, in spite of all the work that's still to be done, and the lack of money, ....in the cold,...and through fire, when his water was turned off,.... visited by rats and cats, and maybe even malevolent ghosts.

He must be sustained by the vision he has of how the house will be in the end, and by the support of his girlfriend, and the friends who appreciate him.

No short cuts for him!

He's doing a very thorough job, no matter how long, and how much work and hardship it takes.

I have faith in him, and I wish him well.

He can't help being someone out of the ordinary!


Daughter: That won't stop him being upset, if he ever finds out what you've written about him.



ONE EVENING.

Singing is heard from the apartments behind the house. 


Mother: I hate the way that woman sings.

Sometimes I feel like singing out to tell her to shut up.


Daughter: She certainly takes herself very seriously.


Mother: Her voice is so monotonous. It's as if she only sings on one or two notes.


Daughter: I think she's making up the music as she sings, and going over and over things, trying to get them right.

You could always get out your violin, and play it in competition with her.


Mother: I wouldn't want to make the neighbours suffer even more.


Daughter: I don't think she would sound as bad if she was singing with a band.



JUST THEN THERE IS A VERY LOUD BANG.

Daughter: that sounded bad, like a gunshot blast.


Mother: She's stopped singing. Maybe she got frustrated, and shot herself.


Daughter: Maybe someone shot her.


Mother (feeling slightly guilty, in case her negative attitude had caused something bad to happen):

She's not singing any more!

Let me know if you hear her singing again.



SOME WEEKS LATER.

Mother. I'm pleased that I haven't had to put up with any more of that woman's singing!

I wonder what happened to her?



ANOTHER DAY.

When I passed the house next door last night there were lights on inside, and the front door was open, so I could see the man next door inside, in the front room, standing on the bare earth, saw in hand, as he worked on putting in place timber joists that will support the new timber floor. He had company. A friend was working with him, and they were talking. In the background music was playing.


Daughter: I heard them working till late.



ANOTHER NIGHT. (Lights on in the house next door.)

Mother: It must be really cold in there, with the glass still missing from the upstairs windows, and the back door open!


A visitor: Surely no one lives there!


Mother: The man next door stays there quite often.



SOON AFTER, ON AN EVEN COLDER NIGHT.

The man next door could be heard chopping firewood.



ANOTHER DAY, AFTER MOTHER RETURNED HOME.

Daughter:  The man next door spoke to me today.

He's found out about your Blog, and he's very angry.


Mother: Shit!

I'll have to move!.


A KNOCK AT THE FRONT DOOR.

Mother: Who's that?

Oh no!  .....Oh no!


Daughter: Yes. It's the man next door!



LATER.


Mother: Although you were only pulling my leg when you said that the man next door was angry, and that he had found out about my Blog, ......and you were pulling my leg again when you said that it was him at the door, ....I've learnt my lesson.

I mustn't keep on writing about him, in case he does find out, and he is upset.


Daughter: That's probably a good idea.


Mother: So that's the end of that!

No more Blog about the man next door!
.
Now my readers will never know what becomes of him.

And they'll never find out whether or not he finishes all the work on his house, and whether or not it evolves into something wonderful.

What can I write about now?

The Man Next Door. Chapter 27.

Mother: I went for a walk today, to Broadway Shopping Centre, but it was a wild goose chase because the shopping centre was closed for Easter.  I had expected that at least a supermarket would be open.

But who did I see when I was nearly home? .... the man next door, wheeling a bike towards his front door.


Daughter: It's nice that he now rides a bike.



Mother: When I reached the front of his house he was just standing briefly ouside his front door, looking broad shouldered and relaxed, so I took the opportunity to be friendly, and said "Hello".

He turned and smiled, and then I wondered what to say, so I asked how his house is going.


The Man Next Door, (indicating the inside of his house) : There have been changes in plans!

I've now taken up all the front floor, and the joists and bearers, and I'm replacing them all, and putting in new foundations.  (He pointed at shaped pieces of concrete that were going to be used.)


(Mother could see that right across the front of the house, including where the hallway used to be, floor level is now the ground itself, and chairs and other furniture, and a jumble of other things, now sit on bare earth.)


The Man Next Door: Some people have suggested that I should make a new concrete floor at the level of the ground, but I don't like the idea of being lower down than street level, and having to look up at people when I open the front door.

Excuse the smell of cats. Cats come in through my high windows, and now they go to the toilet in the dirt floor.

Haven't you heard the cats on the roof?


Mother: Yes, I've heard them rushing around on the roof, chasing birds, scratching as they hang on with their claws, but I haven't got to the window in time to see any cats.

One day my daughter heard the same noise, and saw birds chasing a big brushtail possom on the roof, till it climbed your chimney, and disappeared down inside.


The Man Next Door: Really!

Yesterday a cat came in my open upstairs window and walked straight towards me.

It carried itself in such an aggressive, macho way, that I thought...

"Is this cat going to attack me?"..... "It's only a cat!"

Then it walked straight past me, and down the stairs, and it went to the toilet in the earth front floor.


(The man next door began pushing his bike over the door step, so mother quickly took the remaining opportunity to comment that he had missed Daughter's exhibition.)


The Man Next Door: Yes,....I've been away.

I came back once, planning to see the exhibition, but it was raining at the only time I could go, and my girlfriend didn't want to go out on bikes in the rain. So we didn't go.

My mate from across the road is a great fan of your daughter's paintings.

I believe he drove the van bringing paintings back to your house.



A COUPLE  OF WEEKS LATER.

Mother: It's been very quiet in next door lately.

Some nights I notice the upstairs bedroom light on, and when I crossed the road on my way home tonight I heard talking, coming from inside the man next door's open front door.

I could hear the voice of a woman who sounded drunk, and the man next door was talking gently to her.



ANOTHER DAY.
Mother: Thanks for hanging out my washing.

It wasn't finished when I left this morning and I forgot to ask you to hang it out.


Daughter: Did you put your washing in with Alex's, or did he put his washing in with yours?


Mother: Oh!  ....I saw some washing in the machine and I emptied the dry washing out of the clothes basket so I could put the finished washing in there.

In my haste I must have forgotten to take the finished washing out, before putting my washing in.


Daughter: When I looked in the washing machine I wondered whose washing was in there.

I saw your tops and funny fluffy blue and white sox, but I also saw Alex's jeans and tops, and his undies and your's all mixed up together, so I just pulled everything out in one go because Alex's jeans, and everything else, were all tied up in your pairs of panty hose, as if there was an octopus in there too, with it's legs entwined around everything.

Goodness knows what Alex thought, when he went to hang out his clothes!


(Alex is the young Chilean student who moved into the house, when Pierre left, to return to Germany.)

The Man Next Door Chapter 26.

Mother: I wonder what's going on next door?

I saw a young woman all dressed up in a cocktail dress and high heels
come out of the man next door's house.

I could hear people inside the front door giving her instructions, then she appeared to be hurrying to the pub on a mission, maybe to fetch home the man next door.

Maybe he was being given a surprise birthday party.


Daughter: Yes, I saw the man next door's girlfriend arrive at the house a while ago.

She was all dressed up too, and carrying a big plate of food.



ANOTHER DAY, AFTER THE EXHIBITION OPENING.

Mother: It's a pity the man next door didn't come to your exhibition.

I really thought he would come. He seemed so keen to see it,.... but I think he's away.


Daughter: His friend Phil, from across the road, didn't come either.


Mother: It's good that so many people did come to the opening.

It was all very pleasant, wasn't it, and the paintings and drawings looked great.

It's a lovely gallery.


Phillip, (an old friend from Darkwood) : When I saw the painting of two little girls on one bike, riding away from a military tank emerging from the bush, I thought ... "How cool is that!"

I'd heard you talking about sleeping in the tank room, but I hadn't realised that you actually slept in a tank!


Daughter: No, we didn't sleep in a tank! The tank was just something ominous I dreamt about.

The tank room where we slept was just a big room built under two high water tanks.


Andy (Owner of the Gallery): As usual Joe was at the opening, mostly hanging around the door.

He usually turns up at openings, for the free wine.


Daughter: Yes, we know Joe. He once sold Alpha a stolen bike.

Mum once wrote about him in her blog.


Andy: Joe is really very bright, yet he seems to be a real mess. I think he's schizophrenic.

What's your mother's blog called?


Daughter: I'd better not tell you that.

Anyway, after Joe left I saw him poking around in a little garden bed outside on the footpath, and I heard the clinking of bottles.

Maybe he was retreiving some bottles of wine he stole earlier, and hid there.


Mother: It was wonderful to see all the Key's there, all the way from Kalang and Bellingen, and lots of other friends of ours that we haven't seen for years, particularly Liz, Nickie and Jackie Thompson. It's a pity Dick couldn't come too.


Daughter: Even the lovely family that lives the other side of us came.


Mother: It was so good that Leo came along with Libby and Branco. He's now 6'4", and last time I saw him he was only 4 years old.

There were so many interesting people there, but I'm disappointed that I didn't notice Rex Irwin.
I would love to have spoken to him again.

Andre kept his word and brought along lots of  very nice, intelligent, exotic looking people, mostly from Salsa Cafe.
It was really great when Peter arrived, then Genevieve and Godwin.

A man I once used to dance with introduced himself, and he stayed quite a while and talked to lots of people.

I've no idea who some of the people at the opening were, but you seemed to know a lot of them.


Daughter: Yes, there were lots of people I know, but who was that weird, eccentric looking guy wearing a shoulder bag, white jacket and pink scarf ?  He looked like some artist, and I thought that maybe I should go and talk to him in case he was someone important.


Mother: I saw you, and other family members, talking to a middle aged man who I didn't recognise.

So I asked him if I knew him, and he said "No".

He turned out to be your rich Buddhist inventor friend Tom, who collects paintings.

I reminded him of the occasion you told me about, when you first met him, at another exhibition.

He had introduced you to the friend he was with, and then they had pointed out to you the paintings they had just bought.

You thought they were just joking, so when they asked you which painting you had bought you pointed to the best, and most expensive painting in the exhibition, and said ..."That one."

Then it turned out that Tom's friend had in fact bought the second best painting in that exhibition, after missing out on the one you said you had bought.

He began trying to persuade you to swap paintings, and when you owned up that you hadn't really bought the one he really wanted he was so disgusted that he walked out, whereas Tom wanted to get to know you better.

Now, at your exhibition, Tom told me that he hadn't actually bought a painting that night, either.


Daughter: He told me one day that he would buy one of my paintings, but so far he hasn't.



ANOTHER DAY.
Daughter: I was talking to Andy today, and he asked me again about your blog.

I didn't want to tell him, but he got it out of me, and later he said that he had read it.

He doesn't think that he looks like the man next door, and he said that if the man next door finds out about your blog you will have to disappear from this house!

Mother: That's scarey!



ONE EVENING, ABOUT A WEEK LATER, speaking to Andy at the gallery.

Mother: I guess you had a quiet day today.


Andy: No, it was quite busy. Lots of people came through the gallery, including P.J. and his wife, who live in the lane named after your daughter's grandfather. They were here for quite a while.

Do you know who "P.J." would be?


Mother: Yes, it must have been Peter James, with his wife Lynne.


Andy: I read your blog and I thought it was good, and quite funny.

But I don't think I look like the man next door.


(As mother looked at Andy he seemed to be growing taller before her eyes, and it became apparent to her that he is much taller than the man next door. And his face appeared to be quite different too. It seemed that just the striking blue eyes were similar.)


Andy: I used to socialise with the man next door, and the others who drink with him in the courtyard at the pub, but I found that some of them get too argumentative and nasty when they're drunk.

So I don't go there any more, and now I seldom see "the man next door".

The Man Next Door. Chapter 25.

ONE DAY.

Daughter: I forgot to tell you. The other day the man next door visited us, for the very first time.

He was rather pissed, and he came to show me something.

He came inside carrying a long frame with drawings in it.

"An artist friend of mine did these." he said. They're good aren't they."

"Maybe you could do something similar"

In the frame was a series of pencil drawings of jazz musicians, side by side, playing trumpet, saxaphone, drums or piano.

Alpha had let the man next door in, because I was busy painting, and I kept on working. 

He didn't take any notice of any of my paintings, apart for one, my portrait of you.

When he looked up and noticed it on the wall, he exclaimed "That's your mother!"

"You've really captured the way she looks!"   "She's so beautiful!"

"I love your mum, ..... she's such a lovely person!"


Daughter: Maybe because I didn't stop painting, or go out of my way to be friendly, he suddenly began to look uncomfortable, as though things hadn't gone as well as expected, and next thing he retreated out the front door.


Another thing about the man next door, he's had a hair cut, and it makes him look quite different.

He looks younger, and more fit and energetic.


ANOTHER DAY.

Alpha rushed inside, dropped off his bike off, and hurried out again.
When he returned he explained why.

Alpha: I was on my way home, passing the house a few doors up that is being renovated, when I saw the man next door standing in the doorway.

He called out to me because he was looking out for another strong man to help.

He and another man had already been recruited from the pub by the owner of the house, to help lift a heavy beam up into position. 

It was very heavy, and we had to climb up onto a platform with it, before raising it into position above an opening in a wall, but with the four of us, we soon got the job done.


LATER.

Daughter: Its good the way Alpha and I now feel as though we are accepted, and part of this street.

Now there are lots of people I talk to. And there are others I recognise, and smile at.


ONE MORNING.

Mother: Last night and this morning there have been drilling noises, and banging, in next door.

And there seems to be a man there helping the man next door.

Just now, when I walked past, I could see inside his front door, and it seems to be very dark and cavernous inside. There's still a big hole the length of the hallway, and floorboards have also been removed in at least part of the front room.


Alpha: Yes, the floorboards have been removed so holes can be dug in the ground underneath for concrete piers.

And floorboards have been removed from the upstairs rooms too, making one big space of all of the four main rooms of the house.

Now the man next door, and his girlfriend, sleep on a mattress on the floor in the back section of the big downstairs room, and you can see his motorbike there too.



THE FOLLOWING MORNING.

Daughter: There were people in next door last night, talking and laughing.

At first there was banging and drilling going on too, then they settled down to party.

There wasn't any music, but what was worse than loud music was the voice I could hear.

A voice I recognise. The voice of a friend of the man next door.

I hate this man's voice. It jangles my nerves just to even think of it.

It's so loud, and on top of that he shouts, and says stupid, annoying things


Alpha: After the party next door ended at about three am, the people moved out to the front of the house, and I heard an argument start, between the man next door and another builder.

The man next door was accusing him of making a mistake in another house, and making it unsafe, and charging too much.

The argument developed into a fight, and there was shouting, and threatening, and maybe violence, which ended when the police arrived.