New Neighbours

We are getting new neighbours.

Technically, we’re getting new tenants because we have an apartment above our garage that we rent out, making us a kind of latter day Peter Rachman, but we prefer to think of them as neighbours.  After all, these people will be literally living on top of us.

For the last year we have been incredibly fortunate to have the World’s Best Babysitter, (WBB), and her husband, the world’s Second Best Babysitter,(SBB) in the flat.
This could not have been a more perfect arrangement from my perspective. The BB’s were close, they were incredibly flexible about timing, they would invite the children over to play with their very friendly Corgi – huge, as we are never getting a dog (I clean up enough shit, thank you very much), and we all completely adore them.

Some other fantastic facts about the BB’s:

WBB is an amazing cook but is poor at judging the amount of food she needs to prepare.

This works out very well for me.

At least once a week we would be forced to help them eat the extra portions so as not to let her delicious creations go to waste. (I’m just nice like that.)

WBB is completely incapable of leaving any room untidy.
It upsets her. She likes to clean. I’d go out, leaving the house in an, ahem, less than pristine state and return to find it almost unrecognisable with sparkling surfaces and glistening appliances. Sometimes you would literally have to wrestle the dishcloth out of her hand and make her go home. But sometimes I would stand there and just watch her. (I’m just not nice like that.)

SBB does hilarious animal imitations to amuse the children.
When they have gone to bed we make him do them to amuse us. He does not charge extra for this.

The most important part of having them here, though, is that they have become like part of our family. I have come to regard WBB almost as a younger sister and it’s not entirely clear that One is sure which one of us is his mother.

So everything was going along swimmingly between us all and then they did something unbelievably selfish.

They got pregnant.

Can you believe it?

A lovely young couple, recently married, who adore small children actually had the audacity to think of having their own baby instead of spending all their spare time looking after mine!

I tell you. Some people spare NO thoughts for others!

Disgusting!

At first WBB insisted they could stay in the attic bedroomed, spiral staircased, apartment of 1000 steps until the baby was walking, but we knew, even if she didn’t, that she’d be forced to reconsider.
Then last week SBB came down to tell us they had found a perfect little house to rent just a few blocks away, and they would be going in two months.

For us, finding tenants would not be a big practical problem – it’s a lovely apartment and always easy to rent out. But how on earth could we replace the BB’s?  Four and One were going to be devastated, and seeing relative strangers come and go from what used to be a welcome space was going to hurt.

I put an ad on Craigslist with some photos and within minutes had several replies.

The thought of answering and subsequently showing lots of people the flat made me want to take narcotics and lie in a dark room so I made a policy decision to deal with only one at a time and see what happened.

The first email was from a very nice-sounding woman who wanted to come by and see it immediately.
I couldn’t face that.
I put her off until the next day as I was too busy lying in bed feeling overwhelmed.
She turned out to be a newly single mum with a small dog and a little boy, aged 5, who was with her part of the week and with his dad the rest. She really wanted to stay in our school district and she was anxious to find somewhere affordable, friendly and homelike for them all. I told her about the deathtrap stairs and that the flat was cold in winter and boiling in summer but I couldn’t seem to put her off, no matter what I said.

They came the next day and fell in love at first sight.

She, with the apartment, and the boy with Four , who appeared to reciprocate. One was taking a nap or I’m sure the dog would have been involved too.

They decided to take the apartment and will move in the day after the BB’s move out. 

While we can never replace the BB’s, it seems as if we might just have found a perfect solution all around. The apartment will still be a source of friendship and fun, but of a different kind for the children – they’ll have a new playmate and there will still be a dog. We’ve given a home to some people who are really happy to have found the apartment, and we have gained some neighbours who will enrich our lives in new ways.

 For me, it’s a reminder that no door ever closes without another one opening, and for all three parties involved there are exciting new beginnings.

 But not everything changes.

I would like to reassure WBB that I will still be over frequently to relieve her of her extra portions, so she need not worry on that account.