The bells, the bells.

I am 58 years of age. I am neither especially proud nor particularly ashamed of this statistic, but mention it in order to remind my reader(s) that my once proud liberal tolerance and forbearance of the foibles of my fellow humans is, inevitably, worn now a little thin, and my general attitude to those same fellow humans more Genghis Khan than Gandhi these days.

For many this long year now, I have, from both choice and neccessity, lived in rented flats of various sorts, various qualities, in a variety of types of neighbourhood, and with a wide variety of types of people sharing the same building and, in some cases, parts of the living spaces. Some of these have been fairly dodgy characters, and not the sort of person you would take to your mum's for dinner; drug addicts, thieves, whores and even Estate Agents, but none of them have ever caused me as much irritation and annoyance as the folk who are the subject of this week's rant. And it is a rant; I make no claim to reasonableness or tolerance here, I'm just gonna go for it and get the bile and hate off my chest.

My issue is with people who come to a building which has flats in it, and ring my bloody doorbell when they want to see someone else!!!!!! What causes this is that some character who wants to see Dave* (or whoever) has rung Dave's bell, or knocked his window, or shouted up at it, and got no response. This will be because Dave is a) out, b) in prison/on the run/on holiday/away working, c) dead, d) doesn't live here, e) doesn't exist, all of which should, in my view, be obvious to anyone who has borrowed a brain cell for the day. Then they see my doorbell, which has my name and/or my flat number on it, so they press it. When I answer the door, they say something like 'is Dave in?'

Why should I know, or care? How should I know, or care? Dave lives in a different flat, with a different life, and because we live so uncomfortably close to each other, he keeps himself largely to himself and so do I. So 'I would have no idea' I reply. Looking a bit annoyed (oh yes, these morons think they are the ones being inconvenienced here), they inevitably now say 'well, I thought you might know, seeing you are his neighbour'! When I was young, and lived in a house which was occupied entirely by my family in one household, I cannot remember anybody, ever, ringing or knocking the door and asking if Mrs. Ress 3 doors away was in, because they would not have expected any of us to know. Living in a flat should be like that, but it never is.

I blame that 60s sitcom where Robin Nedwell shares a house with two attractive girls for all this (was it called 3's a Crowd?). It has engendered amongst people who live in entire houses a myth that flat dwellers are always in and out of each others' tenancies borrowing cups of sugar and such. The reality is nothing like this, and while I sort of generally look out for the well being of those who live in the same buildings as me, and they generally do the same, and we bid each other 'good morning' (morning-who am I trying to kid!) when we pass in the communal hallways, that is as far as it goes. Living in smaller, and partly shared, circumstances neccessarily means that personal boundaries are more strictly observed by default, on top of which we are British, dammit!

Also, it is the nature of things that flat types are fairly mobile (and not always upwardly) and in houses where there may be more than half a dozen occupants in separate homes, it is not easy to keep track even if you felt the need, and I don't.

Entry communication systems are not the answer either, although they may save you the walk to the front door. 'Beeblbeep' goes your little intercom phone, you pick it up and say 'yes?', and there it is, the same inquisitve idiot voice asking 'is Dave in, mate'. 'Have you rung his bell?', to which the response is either 'Yes, but he didn't answer' or 'No, mate, dunno his number'. The safe distance imposed by the intercom gives me full licence to let rip at the fool.

Please, if you want to contact someone who lives in flats, find out which one they live in, and knock on thier door or ring thier bell. Stop bloody ringing mine!!!!!! I am considering replacing the bell with a note asking callers to phone me instead and I will come to the door, but not including my phone number. This would have the advantage that people who don't know my phone number wouldn't be able to call me, and if you don't know my phone number you have no legitimate business speaking to me anyway!

Rant over (for now).

*generic flat dweller not intended to represent any real person, especially Dave.**

** whoever he is.***

***and I don't know if he's in either. Have you tried ringing his doorbell?