I am sure we all have one or two stories to tell about the neighbour that we did not choose but who seem determined to destroy the peace we find at home after coping with the stress of workaday life.

In recent times however, this estate has received its share of unwanted tenants who have in addition to their bohemian ways, set up inappropriate businesses for a residential area. These businesses have in their turn attracted various levels of undesirables characters personified by drivers and guards who choose to use the gutters as their urinals and food hawkers that serve them and dispose of uneaten meals and packaging in the same gutters. Some of their clients are also of a shady breed that only come to case the joint in preparation for burglary or armed robbery.

These ‘new’ tenants with new wealth have no regard for an environment that must have attracted them for reasons they now seem determined to destroy. One of them, a Christian outfit selling bibles, has built what it calls a guesthouse, using up all available space on its premises. In constructing this guesthouse and given the level of awareness expected of people living in certain circumstances, it is only natural to expect that all facilities attendant to what in reality is a hotel would be duly considered and appropriate attention paid to them in design. In this instance, no provision was made for the management of sewage or even for parking by guests. What we have happening is that effluence from the guest house is piped in the gutter originally designed only as storm water drainage and this flows freely and openly to pool conveniently away from the guesthouse in a slimy green pond in which all sorts of vermin breed and fester to plague neighbouring houses. The attendant smell and millions of mosquitoes put paid to days in the evening sun enjoying the cool breeze with guests in your own garden drinking a cool something you cannot even pronounce.

Visitors to the guesthouse park all over the narrow street, trampling hedges planted to beautify houses and even blocking entrances to other residences. Rude guards determined to shield their employer from the justified anger of his neighbours deal with complaints by either raining insults on the complainer or trying to prove that if you were a skilled enough driver your vehicle should still be able to pass or dismissing the damage to your hedge as after all they are only plants. These same guards throw dead rats all over the streets. And no wonder there are rats. A giant repository for refuse sits at the gate of the guesthouse where the rats feed fat and the guards go to toilet. The strange thing is that they also eat sitting next to this toilet cum refuse depot.

And Noise! Workers in the hotel-guesthouse and the guests must all have a hearing problem. That being the only plausible explanation for the shouting matches they consider conversation. These go on at all hours of the day and night and they see nothing wrong with fixing a door from midnight till 6 a.m. in the morning hammering and whirring away with pneumatic drills even as the workmen chatter among themselves. Of course, their once sound proofed giant generator is not switched off for hours on end even when NEPA/PHCN is being good. Its doors are left hanging open making nonsense of whatever sound proof that may still be present on the poor overworked tokunboh machine.

The Christian outfit is not alone in being a nuisance factor in the estate. There is another, further down the road, where the head quarters of a popular orphanage is located. Cars belonging to the orphanage are parked to impede free flow of traffic and sometimes deliberately, it would seem, to block the gates of neighbouring houses. The neighbours after much pleading have resorted to putting up concrete cylinders to prevent parking but these have not in anyway been effective. The drivers just park next to the blocks further narrowing an already narrowed road by leaving their doors hanging open while they go to sleep in the cars. As with the guest house, the founder of the orphanage and her husband have built up every inch of available space on their premises, letting offices and apartments to all and any takers. Trucks for their freight business are permanently parked and repaired right there in the street while the mechanics water neighbours’ hedges with urine. The stench has become part of the landscape.

An Asian group is another close contender for creating the greatest nuisance only not on a daily bases like the preceding two cases. This group have their cultural centre on the estate and during festivals that have been coming up more frequently they come from all corners of Lagos to descend in their droves on the estate, entirely blocking streets and access to residences, causing a traffic situation of humongous proportions right there on the small estate. The unwanted traffic snarl up is topped by verbal abuse from a group of people that consider themselves a superior caste when residents dare to complain. Their drivers and minions believing there employers to be superior also join in the effrontery and carry on in a manner reminiscent of colonial rule.  One incidence that gave me utmost pleasure even though it should not occurred on one of their festival days. An estate resident returning from a walk requested politely that a car blocking his entrance be removed but was asked by the Asian rudely to go tell his master that his compound did not reach up to the road. This resident a normally cool-headed cultured man totally lost his cool. He made to go into his premises then turned round and slapped the smirk off the foolish Asian’s face. The Asian was so confused at the reaction that he stumbled, and then took to his heels leaving his car unattended. He must have reported the incidence because the leaders of the community came round to apologise to the resident who by then was mortified at what he had done and was only too happy to let bygones be.

There is no end to tales of woe at the hands of neighbours whose values just do not meld with yours. I often wonder at the stench that assails you in tenement houses and how people that have to live there cope with that, sharing sanitary facilities and with all the noise from TV sets, radios, pepper grinders etc. clashing on each other. A colleague once told me that he stopped using the communal kitchen since the dodo (fried plantain) he left to fry while he went for some salt in his room disappeared with no trace, frying pan, oil and all. As it happened, he cadged the plantains off a senior colleague and it was the only meal he had for that and a few more days to come pending payment of salaries. Needless to say, he could not sleep that night for hunger pangs made worse by smells of neighbours cooking in the corridor. He however came to understand and now tolerates other tenants cooking in the corridors in spite of the acrid smell of kerosene fumes that clung to everything including his clothes.

Yet neighbours are not all bad as we all know but it is the ones that bring you grief and lower the tone of your life and neighbourhood that are talked about the most. If only, if only we could have some say in who moves into the house next door or the flat upstairs? And what can and cannot be done by these neighbours? People in Lagos have had to become inured to their air getting fouled by indiscriminate burning of refuse, to all forms of noise at all hours of the day and night, to stalls haphazardly put up every which where, to poor hygiene and personal practices that want to send you stark staring mad with hair standing on end. Yet we come out each day and say hello, smiling politely to the same neighbours who would sooner see us locked up in mental homes or laid down with some debilitating disease than change undesirable behaviour and habits that may lead to such unfortunate conditions. At least it will give other people something else to talk about, apart from their own neighbours from hell.

Robot  Villager

# 1 neighbours are not all bad as we all know but it is the ones that bring you grief and lower the tone of your life and neighbourhood that are talked about the most. If only, if only we could have some say in who moves into the house next door or the flat upstairs? Yet we come out each day and say hello, smiling politely to the same neighbours who would sooner see us locked up in mental homes or laid down with some debilitating disease than change undesirable behaviour and habits that may lead to such unfortunate conditions. At least it will give other people something else to talk a...Read the full article. Posted by Robot| 04.03.2006 13:06

Obugi  Villager

# 2 Mutti, Wetin? Who b them *****s wey dey mess up your neighborhood? Tell them say ur "junior husband in cyberspace" dey vex 4 them O! :lol: Seriously though, I fee 4 u. Back 2 u later, gotta go now. Obugi. Posted by Obugi| 04.03.2006 14:46

Visitor

# 3 The funniest thing is that the neighbours causing the rancor will be the first to say how organized Accra, Jo'burg, London, , are but they refuse to follow the rules to maintain such an environment. There is a huge disconnect between cause and effect in the reasoning process of Nigerians. Posted by Visitor| 04.03.2006 21:03

DeepThought  Villager

# 4 Mutti, Excellent article. But.... I need to establish an Ifa shrine. Yours is a peaceful environment that seems ideally suited for my purposes. Can you please give me your address so I can build right next door to you? Thanks :D Posted by DeepThought| 05.03.2006 10:49

emj  Villager

# 5 Interesting article mutti, is there space for a terrorist network in your neighbourhood? I promised that we will not become a nusiance, we will be as quite as possible, you will not have cause to fear nor be disturbed by noise like you have at the moment. If you agree to have neighbours like us, we promise to help silence all the trouble makers and those who have constituted themselves to a nuisance to you.:cool: Posted by emj| 05.03.2006 15:36

whales  Villager

# 6 dearest mutti, wonderful article, i happen to have a rough idea of wat u r talking about, having being thru the same experience. But then like u rightly said, we can only wish we could chose our neighbours and trust me we would really pick and select to our very taste and if possible design them too. Also we can't all say the same for all neighbours cos we r one ourselves. :twisted: Posted by whales| 05.03.2006 17:32

Obugi  Villager

# 7 Mutti, But can't u and ur neighbors undertake some kind of collective action to effect change? Hire security guards/monitors? Post signs like "NO PARKING HERE". Organize a delegation 2 the local govt council? Truth is, ppl need coercion 2 do the right thing sometimes. Obugi. Posted by Obugi| 05.03.2006 17:56

Mutti  Villager

# 8 DT and emj, Ifa Shrine, terrorist network! You guys are all welcome, it will give me more to talk about. As you know no laws in Nigeria O! na who get power pass. Obugi you want us to organise a delegation? to LGA?! You have been too long in that oyinbo country! The fences are so high you don't even see who your neighbours are. When the usual 'security' meetings are called on environmental days, no one turns up because I guess that is when we all want to sleep. And if you go knocking on doors they look at you like hen hen that is your problem. If it affects you so bad do something about it. That is if mai gadi lets you in to see oga or madam. Look I could go on but this is Nigeria. ... and thanks guys for the good responses. Posted by Mutti| 06.03.2006 01:43

N.A.R.  Villager

# 9 Ifa Shrine, terrorist network! You guys are all welcome, it will give me more to talk about. As you know no laws in Nigeria O! na who get power pass. Mutti, I am glad you took up the bastion to represent the homefront. A truely apt story! But still visiting Obugi's idea, you guys need to collectively get more "power" then, ("get yours")and probably get some "Operation sweep" (do they still exist?) to come by and harrass the offending neighbors, only problem is that you must part with some "Kuza" for that to happen on a regular basis. Sounds to me like you live in Ikoyi GRA. I used to marvel at the place, I hope it stil retains its peacefulness! Posted by N.A.R.| 06.03.2006 09:14

LSU

# 10 Hmmmm! On some of my trips to Lagos, I have encountered similar episodes. In fact, I thought I would have to separate two people. I had gone to pick up some clothes from my tailor somewhere off of Awolowo Road. The owner of the fashion boutique is one of those sophisticated Lagos ladies who comes to her shop dressed as though she is going to an owambe party. Lace, gele, shoe and bag to match et al. Anyway, her boutique is on the top floor while some Lebanese company is renting the downstairs part. Apparently, they have always had parking issues, and this particular day, one of them had parked in this “suzie mama’s” parking spot. She simply pulled her car into the compound and blocked in one of their company cars. That is how, when one of the Lebanese bobos wanted to go out, he found out he was blocked in. He asked his driver to come upstairs to ask the suzie to move her car. The lady in typical Lagos fashion first of all abused the living daylight out of the driver not forgetting to include the fact that it would not be better for his entire household, his ancestors, and generations to come. The driver quickly turned around and went to tell his oga that the madam upstairs will not come and move her car oh! After about 20 minutes, the Lebanese oga charged upstairs shouting at the madam telling her to come and move the car. The madam balanced in her chair and continued conversing with me as if the Lebanese guy did not even exist. Example: tell your friends in Yankee to come and sew with me when they come to Naija oh, se o ti gbo! Anyway, the Lebanese guy continued and was insinuating something to the effect of the madam being impossible, stubborn and why was she doing this, etc.? The madam looked at me and a couple other clients and asked us in vernacular: “Is it me he is talking to?” The guy who of course understood Yoruba replied that he was talking to her and who else would he be talking to. That is how she went off on him and told him the story of his life. How first of all not only was he trespassing in her country, he was trespassing on her property. She told him to never address her in such a manner and that if he knew he wanted peace to reign in that compound if he ever came to her shop again, he would be in trouble, because she would call the cops. The long and short was that, she had no intentions of moving her car since they had violated her own rights, by parking their car in her parking space. The guy just stood and was looking at her and couldn’t say a word. After about five minutes, he said: “Madam, okay, please, move your car.” After about 30 minutes of the guy really toning it down and begging and even throwing in a smile, she got up and went to move her car complaining throughout the duration of the effort. In essence, I am happy that women with tough skins like that still exist in Nigeria. Especially since she was only standing her ground. Posted by LSU| 06.03.2006 09:32

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