The Notice.

OK, this probably needs a bit of explaining; so strap yourselves in... (or don't, it's not very interesting to be honest)

Our neighbour across the hall is mental and hates me: She has what looks like a basin cut she's done herself with a rusty breadknife after a heavy night's drinking, she has the precise complexion of the well worn arm of an antique leather chesterfield and an expression that for all the world looks like a cat struggling to lick urine off of a nettle, through a letter box.

She ALWAYS wears an old pink flannelette dressing gown that looks like it was rescued from a burnt down nursing home and receives more deliveries from QVC than ANYONE could possibly use - I always imagine her swimming around in useless tat, like Scrooge McDuck's money bin - and talks like the anthropomorphic personification of a particularly slow and angry bee, that had been brought up in Barnsley.

Anyway... You get the picture.

I have lived in this flat for 6 months, with non-smokers, as such I am not allowed to smoke inside, I was told that our neighbour (lets call her 'Joan') smokes out of the communal corridor window, which was a bone of contention but one they'd learned to live with and I could do that too. Which, I did, always bringing my tab ends in and putting them in the bin and trying not to get ash on the already destroyed (by Joan) window cill.

This went on fairly amiably for 3 months: exchanging nods, greetings etc. after which 'The Notes' started - which alas I haven't kept - requesting that I use airfreshener as the smell went in her flat, I 'wipe up after myself' (taken out of context, that one's a bit weird) and the like.

In order to maintain civility, I started buying air freshener and leaving it out on the ledge and using it (how bored are you at this point? I told you. Dull, dull dull), which she seemed to take as a signal that this system of leaving passive-aggressive notes everywhere was a winner and started leaving increasingly confrontational ones demanding I replace said air freshener... etc. etc.

I ignored each one, never writing back, continuing to buy new cans as and when I thought to/had the money etc.

Yet the notes didn't stop, they expanded from that to accusations that I'd created a cigarette mountain on the street outside (which there was a fair few, of many different brands, quite a few of them hers) with the last one coming over the Christmas period, repeating this and asking if I'd like to discuss this matter in person.

I duly ignored this, but felt uneasy about leaving the flat; lest she be laying in wait for me, sure enough; the first time I went outside (at 23:00 ) for a smoke she appeared with a hastily put together bag of rubbish as an excuse (I still think she'd been at the peep hole all day waiting) and began to berate me in her grating drawl.

I snapped, swore quite a bit and informed her that I'd be moving out soon, so she could kindly eff off an haunt someone else, it would be much appreciated.

It was at this point, she told me of The Notice... Said with great importance, like a caveman probably would have the first time he saw the moon. I told her in no uncertain terms that she could leave me alone and that I didn't care about The Notice... She just kept parroting it, as though repetition would make me realise that it was actually ME that was mental and in the wrong.

Anyway, it has been 3 weeks since then, I have stopped smoking outside. The notes have stopped, but The Notice remains... I move out in a fortnight.