The small detached garage over the road is no longer home to an abandoned car, a fox/cat tunnel and a broken up-and-over door. Now it sheilds various piles of old crap from the elements….its change of use was presumably not approved by the council.
I pointed the development out to Michele who then directed me to the back window. Beyond our shabby mud-pit of a garden we are boxed in by a broken-down fence to the right separating us from an overgrown garden and and yet another broken fence directly ahead which borders the house of the junk-hording pymaniac. [sadly the pictures really don’t convey the true picture]. This bloke slowly fills his back yard with a huge variety of old crap, for example amongst other things, it contains

• office chairs, various
• plastic canteen chairs
• a wardrobe door
• plastic crates including bread crates
• a radiator
• wood, assorted
• gigantic metal rack
• plate glass
• loft insulation

Once enough crap is piled he sets fire to it, oblivious to any laws of chemistry which may prevent certain materials burning, or cause others to give of posionous fumes. During each blaze our house smells like chemical weapons research establishment. I’m waiting for the day when Hans Blix turns up with with a team of inspectors.

Then, in the most Philly accent you can imagine, Michele screamed “Look at this motherfucker out the back. Then there’s the smell of shit coming up the stairs…We’re paying nearly 700 quid a month for a place that’s basically in the fucking ghetto”…

Laugh ? I nearly leaked.

The “smell of shit coming up the stairs” she mentioned is a story for another day.