Entente not very cordiale

Our new student neighbours moved in while we were away in the Peak District. Their landlords, who had spent most of the summer turning a dilapidated semi-wreck into a seriously nice house, told us they were postgraduates and would be well behaved. We figured they would need to be fairly rich postgraduates to be able to afford the rent that a house like that would be commanding, and we also figured that postgraduate status would not necessarily be sufficient to guarantee good behaviour.

Depressingly, we were right on both counts. They'd been in less than a week when they brought home a horde of pissed, braying idiots. It was 11.30 on a Thursday night, and we wanted to go to bed. I went out the back to try and get them to close their windows and back door, and there was a fully fledged drinks party going on. I got their attention by chucking pebbles over the wall, and a girl came flying out the back door saying 'what the fuck?'

'Hi,' I said, 'we're your neighbours'. God, she said, I'm, like, so sorry. They were all supposed to be gone by 11. Fine, I said, could you try and keep it down and close the windows? 'We're Masters students, she said, we're not Freshers or anything'. Fine, I said, could you try and keep it down and close the windows?

Ten minutes later, there were another bunch of them roaring in the garden. M went out this time. They couldn't go inside, because, like, it wasn't their house. Super posh boy emerged the third time we went out, by which point one of his charming friends was pulling branches off one of our trees. 'Yah, he said, I'm so sorry, we'll keep the noise down, I hope you can trust me on that.' I've no idea if I can trust you or not, said M, you're not doing too well so far. I'll set the hose on the next person to touch that tree, I added, you can trust me on *that*.

We went to bed, and heard them bringing people in from the garden several more times, so I guess the message sunk in at some level. They came round to apologise the next day, and assured us that they were postgraduates so would be working far too hard to make that kind of noise ever again.

We'll see. But I don't have a great feeling about it. They also don't have a bike between the four of them, so I suspect they are contributing more than their fair share to the predictable-yet-still-oppressive termtime parking chaos. Still, on the bright side, in nine months they'll be gone forever.

joella