weekender
07-10-2004, 09:45 PM
This is a rant, sorry.
I live in a suburb of Oxford - home of the oldest university, former Kings' Capital of England and all round tourist attraction. My house is a student house (on account of my recent graduation), let by a local letting agency.
The house next door was being renovated, to be let out to students from September. Squatters moved in. One of them is a hooker, and stands on the corner every single night (except when she's having incredible loud sex on the other side of my bedroom wall) and the two others are crack addicts.
May Bank Holiday weekend, and i'm in Madrid visiting some friends. I come home to find the squatters have left crack burning on the sofa, and the entire downstairs of the newly renovated house has been gutted by fire. My housemate rang the fire brigade, and while stood outside waiting for them, one of the squatters comes out of the burning house wearing pyjamas and asks my housemate for a cigarette. She says "no, your house is on fire". Squatter says "never mind", and goes back into the burning house.
Now when i say the house had been renovated, it had had new carpets, double glazed windows, furniture, plaster, decorating; the works. All wrecked. So the next night the squatters move into the upstairs of the house!
Cut to a few weeks ago, 5am one sleepy sunday morning. I get woken by screaming. Looking out my window, there's a woman lying face down on our front path, with two men sat on her (literally) demanding she emtpy her pockets. I call the police, and watch out the window as the girl gets arrested and the guys get a bollocking. Turns out, the girl was a hooker who had stayed over, then tried to take some stuff with her when she left super early!
Then tonight - I pop out for two minutes, only to get a phone call from my housemate telling me the trees in the garden are on fire. Somebody has set fire to next doors' garage, and the fire has spread to their trees, then over the wall to ours. I rush home, only to find I can't get closer than 100ft because of the police barriers.
Luckily the fire department taking 15 minutes to drive down the road didn't cause us any damage, and the house is fine. While standing in the crowd, I hear that the guy in front of me is our local Labour Party councillor. Somebody asks him for his opinion of the incident, to which he replies "It's not very exciting" and walks off.
Now this month I paid £750 tax and national insurance (approx 1,394.85 USD). This should pay for stuff that actually gets done. I'm not paying that much of my cash just so that the police can kindly ask the squatters to move on, or so the councillor can get bored quickly and go home. I pay because I have no choice, but as i've got to pay, i think it is reasonable to expect some kind of action, see some of what my money is paying for.
Rant over. Sorry, really tired, really wired tonight.
I live in a suburb of Oxford - home of the oldest university, former Kings' Capital of England and all round tourist attraction. My house is a student house (on account of my recent graduation), let by a local letting agency.
The house next door was being renovated, to be let out to students from September. Squatters moved in. One of them is a hooker, and stands on the corner every single night (except when she's having incredible loud sex on the other side of my bedroom wall) and the two others are crack addicts.
May Bank Holiday weekend, and i'm in Madrid visiting some friends. I come home to find the squatters have left crack burning on the sofa, and the entire downstairs of the newly renovated house has been gutted by fire. My housemate rang the fire brigade, and while stood outside waiting for them, one of the squatters comes out of the burning house wearing pyjamas and asks my housemate for a cigarette. She says "no, your house is on fire". Squatter says "never mind", and goes back into the burning house.
Now when i say the house had been renovated, it had had new carpets, double glazed windows, furniture, plaster, decorating; the works. All wrecked. So the next night the squatters move into the upstairs of the house!
Cut to a few weeks ago, 5am one sleepy sunday morning. I get woken by screaming. Looking out my window, there's a woman lying face down on our front path, with two men sat on her (literally) demanding she emtpy her pockets. I call the police, and watch out the window as the girl gets arrested and the guys get a bollocking. Turns out, the girl was a hooker who had stayed over, then tried to take some stuff with her when she left super early!
Then tonight - I pop out for two minutes, only to get a phone call from my housemate telling me the trees in the garden are on fire. Somebody has set fire to next doors' garage, and the fire has spread to their trees, then over the wall to ours. I rush home, only to find I can't get closer than 100ft because of the police barriers.
Luckily the fire department taking 15 minutes to drive down the road didn't cause us any damage, and the house is fine. While standing in the crowd, I hear that the guy in front of me is our local Labour Party councillor. Somebody asks him for his opinion of the incident, to which he replies "It's not very exciting" and walks off.
Now this month I paid £750 tax and national insurance (approx 1,394.85 USD). This should pay for stuff that actually gets done. I'm not paying that much of my cash just so that the police can kindly ask the squatters to move on, or so the councillor can get bored quickly and go home. I pay because I have no choice, but as i've got to pay, i think it is reasonable to expect some kind of action, see some of what my money is paying for.
Rant over. Sorry, really tired, really wired tonight.