I have neighbours. This is normal for those who live in some form of accomodation in any small to large urban conurbation, so clarification is probably needed. In all my previous London abodes, neighbours have been things that I have occasionally bumped into while leaving the house, seen doing some gardening or heard loudly shagging each other at certain strictly timetabled periods during the week. However, in my current pomme-de-terre they are actually people who have on occasion interacted with me. The people upstairs have wisely stayed true to previous form and apart from an abberant conversation on the day that I moved in, due to an impending visit from the gutterman who needed to stick up his ladder in my garden - this was not a good thing, as they left my washing line untied and my "garden" covered in gutter sourced crap - they have not said a word to me and have gone to great lengths to avoid any chance meetings. although I have now worked out that the strange "broken pipe" trickling noise that I occasionally hear from upstairs, varying in flow intensity, length of sound and time of day, is actually them peeing.The people in the house next door are a different matter...

The buildingnext door, similar to the one that I live in, is a two storey house with a flat on each floor. Unlike mine, the downstairs is populated by a family of indeterminate number and the upstairs by a lady of unknown central to eastern european origin - she of the post title. My interaction with the downstairs people is minimal - moving from a dog that barked every time that I moved to within a few feet of one side of my house, to the lady looking at me accusingly while she told me of the death of her dog, and now to an occasional nod and a "hello" when we accidentally bump into each other in the small alley between our doors. The lady upstairs is more in control of our meetings, totally ignoring me until such a time as she has something to say - a grand total of three times in the last 9 months. As time has moved on her contact with me has slowly changed in its tone.

Interaction the first: December 2006 - Informing me that I should shut the shared gate of our shared path (which I did anyway) as it would stop rubbish blowing in from the road. It became apparent shortly after this talk that it was either her (unlikely) or the fabled people downstairs who seemed to have many children rumbling into and out of their house at the time, all of who seem to have have born in some form of barn-like building, or at least some sort of farm related structure. I start to feel singled out as the bad influence in the area, where I feel that it could all actually be the work of children. The interaction continued with some small talk about the recycling policies of Ealing council (which I am quite aware of) and the various things that I will need to do with my rubbish bags. This can be summarised as "put them outside".

Interaction the second: early summer 2007 - Informing me, with the lady downstairs next door in tow, that my garden was getting overgrown and that they would really appreciate it if I could help out in keeping the houses tidy by cleaning it up. I expressed my apologies and promised to cut back the trees at the back of my house. "Oh no," they said, "you need to clear out the weeds at the front". This was a shock to me, as I had no clue that this was a part of the property that was anything to do with me. I dutifully cleared out the weeds and left them to mulch in a washing up bowl until late summer.

Interaction the third: last night, 2007 - A more interesting interaction this, prompting the Machiavellian tag. It started simply, with some further discussion of what to do with my recycling box and how she has so graciously moved it from the front of the house to my garden before I can get home as "the binmen throw them around otherwise". As ever I am gracious and thank her. But this is not the true purpose of her talk, oh no, it is much more insidious. She then swiftly moves on to a deeper discussion of binman politics: the removal of garden rubbish. I spotted her true purpose at this stage, but continued to play along. It seems that you must place garden rubbish in a pink bin liner, and it JUST SO HAPPENS that she has a half full one at the back of the garden that she had recently filled, or at least had filled for her by some willing minions suckered in by her advanced age, and she's happy for me to fill it up if I had any need to. Maybe, if I wanted to tidy up my front garden it could help? The conversation continued, with me fully aware of her plans. Shortly after, I closed my front door and realised that through her concern that I was taking too long to travel to work and maybe was not spending enough time at home, that I had somehow agreed to spend my free Saturday morning cleaning up both my front and back gardens. Nicely done, old lady. My new foil, that you now are.

Anyways, I shall continue to monitor the situation and report back. I suspect that my front garden, when cleared, will reveal some form of missile silo from which the lady upstairs next door will command her laser cannon that will fire a laser beam, as laser cannons often do, at the sun. However, she is quite frail and can't open the silo door when it's covered in weeds.

I for one welcome our new germanic overload.