Love thy neighbour

One of my neighbours is a heroin addict. I have no problem with that. He is also an occasional thief. He normally does not work, I guess he must be on the dole, that wonderful English institution, but when he needs to supplement his addiction, he engages in some wealth redistribution. He started out redistributing bikes. He kept them up at his flat, and at first I thought it was pretty weird that his bike looked different all the time. Finally I caught on. Our bikes got stolen from outside the flats, but they didn't appear outside his door, bummer.

But when his girlfriend got pregnant he moved on to shops. He wasn't too good at it though, both times he got caught and gooied in jail. He was in jail while his son was born, poor guy.

He and his girlfriend have had some scary fights. They fight daily. Twice she smashed her fist into one of their windows, and there was blood all over our building for days. Hell, weeks. And the second time, they never replaced their window, just put a black plastic bag over it all through winter.

The thing is, he is a nice, friendly, genuine guy, and he means well, and uh, pity about the career choice and all. But he even asks us if his music is too loud.

Can you complain about your neighbours if they are polite?

There is a person who apparently (I have not witnessed it, thank god) poos regularly on one of the sets of steps up to our block of flats. I can complain about that. I hate to sound like a snob, but perhaps the area I live in is a bit dodgy.