The Neighbors

The Winnie the Pooh wall paper is off the bedroom wall that has a door to the balconey, the one we can really see, and was strewn in the hall all down the stairs and on the balconey. That room is now purple with pink butterflies, guess that means it's the girl's room, and white trim. From what we can tell they painted everything else white. You can see wallpaper on one wall of the living room from beneath. It was most of the first week that men were here taking off the old and this week was putting on the new. Flooring was brought on Friday and on Saturday big items started to be moved in. There are still no window coverings so I'm sure they won't be living there till they're in, or, as some people do when they first move in, they will just cover the windows with sheets or newspaper, let's hope not.

Right there you have learned what is entailed when you rent a place. When moving out your walls have to be left in paintable or wallpaperable condition and your flooring and window covering are supposed to be removed. As a new renter, you are responsible for putting in flooring, putting up window covering, and doing whatever you want to the walls, except taking them down or damaging them. As Arjan said, that may be why it took so long to get renters in there because there's a lot to do in that place and that costs money.

We believe the family who will live next door consist of a mother, father, a son of 11ish and daughter of 8-9ish. How they have typically come is up to five Turks Muslim women with up to 8 children. Then numerous men coming but often when the women are gone. Arjan has watched the women struggle getting up the stairs, stopping at every landing to get their breathe, which they appear to be too young to be doing but probably aren't used to stairs. They typically don't show up till late in the afternoon and have stayed till after 10 p.m. Oh, we have to get used to the noise.

They enjoy ringing the doorbell, which drives me crazy. The kids will just ring the bell, guess they may not be used to it. When the bell from outside rings for them, the kids have run out and yelled down the stairwell, "Wie is het?" (Who is it?) Still trying to figure that one out as there's a phone you pick up and can talk to the people outside and ask who it is. It is unnecessary and if it continues after they move in I'll be going over to talk to them.

Besides the wallpaper on the balconey there is a wide putty knife that was dripping white water and has rusted, an empty spray bottle that has the nozzle screwed off, and molding was out there for days, with unused scraps that got left out there. So Friday afternoon two boys, one being from the family, were hitting a scrap on the ledge of the balconey to break it into smaller pieces. They then found great fun in throwing them over the balconey edge. One of the women found out what they were doing and came out yelling at them in Turks with a lot of Dutch, "Mag niet." That translates to "May not" and what is used to guide children...I learned that one and used it a lot when doing my language internship with the children's activities. When Arjan came home later that afternoon, I asked if he saw the wood on the sidewalk. No, but he did see two Turks women picking somethings off the sidewalk and take them to the trash. Good for them!

There was one piece left on the balconey and last night when so many children were here, that piece ended up in front of our front door. Obviously, the mothers didn't know it or see it, which I can't believe, when they left last night.

Arjan is a baffled because they have not done what good neighbors are supposed to do here. He said here the way it works is...when you rent a place, the first time you go to begin working you are supposed to introduce yourself to your neighbors. It isn't till you actually move in and are living there that the neighbors are supposed to come with a bouquet of flowers to welcome you to the neighborhood. Of course, being Turks, they probably don't do it the way the Netherlanders do.

Now we're just hoping they put up a barrier on their side of the balconey as the last Turks family did that lived there so the little girl could play outside in her bathing suit and the woman could be out without her head covering and Arjan wouldn't see them. Otherwise, we're going to have to do something so the cats can go out on our balconey and not get into their's.