2003 My wife and I just scraped the money together for a starter home, didn't do enough research on the area, totally wet behind the ears -
Morning after we moved in the neighbours 4 scrotty kids (4,7,9,13 roughly) knocked on the door to ask me "giz a quid for our TV, my mam needs it" (for their coin slot tv).
There begins the realisation that we had bought into a horror house + street. The mum was the scragliest, dole cheating, dirtiest woman I have ever heard about or seen. She ran a brothel from her house(the other side of my semi) including actual red light in upstairs window! loads of horror nights with music so loud you thought you might die if it went on any longer, they trespassed into our garden and vandalized stuff whenever the drunken mood took them, dangerous dogs loose outside our shared front path, police helicopter chase centred on our house at 3am. I had to ring the police on 2-3 occasions when she was getting beat up by customers, random women, drunk boyfriend/pimp. We had to sell the house at a massive loss & were really flukey to con some other first time buyer into taking it :(
2010 - We now live in a lovely quiet street, young couple with a 3yr old on one side, chats to me over the garden fence, lends we tools etc. Other side a really quiet strange old couple, she wears a pink housecoat most days and picks up cat poo off her front lawn every morning using little plastic bags, whilst the bloke potters in the garden (yet the garden consists of a 100% grass square + 1 normal sized garden shed) no idea what he does to pass the time, but hes always outside. Total bliss compared to how we lived.