Mr Imp, Life columnist at The Banner, writes about his misadventures as a Don Juan-Esque petty criminal, his odd odysseys abroad and his high jinks with his colourful family in Auchterturra. Cartoons by Dod Dunlop.
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Readers of Mr Imp's column, I, unfortunately, have to inform you that Mr Imp is unwell. This week's column is one of his stock articles he wrote some months ago. Unfortunately, we do not expect to hear from Mr Imp until he is not unwell. Thankfully, he has left us a substantial sum of stock articles about his miscellaneous misadventures. We, the Banner's writing staff, hope you enjoy.
Jack Hebert editor-in-chief
Dear Readers, as the title of this week's column suggests, your beloved columnist, critic, essayist and short story writer has had some conflict, although I was not in the literal sense at war against an army or nation; I was at war with my upstairs neighbours who had the audacity to cross me. The conflict had been brewing for some time. You could say the uncomfort began when they moved in; my upstairs neighbours were from some Eastern European backwater and seemed to be culturally similar to Borat as their English was not 'very nice', and they ticked all the boxes for many horrible stereotypes associated with Eastern Europeans. The head of this family of eastern Europeans was short and fat, extremely lazy, and it is unclear what on earth he did for a living. The mother was a housewife, and they had a never-ending cohort of thieving little kids who frequently stole anything not nailed down in the corners of the flat complex.
The flat they lived in was two-bedroom, like mine, and to my understanding, the flat was privately owned but rented to the council, so technically, these neighbours of mine were council tenants; I have had an issue with that particular flat in the past because the idiot that owns it cheaply renovated the flat's plumbing which caused leaks.
My conflict with my neighbours became critical in April during lockdown because my bathroom ceiling started to leak uncontrollably and fused electrics. The leaks got so bad that my downstairs neighbour's bathroom ceiling was destroyed due to the water weight, and I had to get rid of his carpet. I talked to my upstairs neighbours to get their pipes checked, and of course, they didn't do anything. They just tried to do it themselves, which made the leaks even worse, and when a plumber eventually came at my calling, it was concluded that a water seal had burst. So, the plumber replaced the water seal in the upstairs neighbour's bathroom and told them not to use the bathroom for a few days. They didn't obey that request, and the new water seal burst. Even more, water came down, and another plumber was called. This one complained to the council because of the upstairs neighbours' hostilities towards him, for not following the previous plumber's request and for what transpired to be that the upstairs neighbours had tampered with their own pipe. The end result of that madness was that I now had a case to get these bloody upstairs neighbours evicted.
After the second outcome, the council requested that the upstairs neighbours to move into temporary accommodation as their flat had become unliveable. As this was happening, I was in contact with the council, sending them a diary I'd written when the leaks started along with all the photos of the damages; after a week of badgering the council, those upstairs neighbours were officially evicted. Only a few days after finding this out, I learned quite a bit more about my upstairs neighbours. In particular, I found out how many kids they had: six, three boys and three girls; a total of eight people lived in a two-bedroom flat, and I could confirm that the little wretches had been stealing my mail. Also, some rather interesting information came to me via the second plumber: apparently, this family received £200 food vouchers per child and shockingly high benefits, and the kids are still stealing; it was bizarre that they were receiving so much yet were giving back so little.
When I found out that the neighbours were officially evicted, I was ecstatic, I was celebrating with such relish, and when I saw them moving out, I felt so much schadenfreude and amusement; there was never a gladder day for me than the day they were gone entirely because there was pure silence as there was no running around upstairs. The conflict was over, and I had won, and I didn't resort to such underhand tactics like poison sweeties outside their door; since then, the new upstairs neighbours have been no problem, but the unique situation of the repairs to my flat was going to dominate the rest of the year for me.
