Moving, unless you’re a snail, can be something of an inconvenience.

I’ve moved twice in the last eleven years (and one of those moves was to another flat in the same building), and as much as I lurrve north London, other factors have been behind my ongoing residency in London postcodes beginning with the letter n.

Now, it’s not as if those ten years have been marked with harmonious relationships with my fellow man.

The French, the Spanish, the Italians, the Boers, the Congolese: I’ve fought ‘em all.

Yet I thought I’d managed to build up a certain degree of tolerance / apathy to the activities of my various neighbours, or simply that my hearing had degraded over the years, until a pair of residents I christened the “Fat Fucks” moved in.

Worst neighbours ever.

The first weekend they moved in they were up until 2-3am playing what sounded like Zanu PF propaganda tapes at full blast.

Then the parties started (as did my calls to the Hackney noise pollution team).

Then I noticed cigarettes being extinguished.

On the banisters.

I left an ashtray out over one of the patches of ash, hoping this would alleviate the situation, but the next morning I found the ashtray gone.

And another cigarette butt in its place.

Through the looking glass we were, people.

It was impossible to get a break as the Fat Fucks rarely ventured out, and why should they considering that half the world kept trooping in to see them (generally at the more antisocial hours of the day).

The guy in the flat beneath me (and adjacent to them) was having the same problems I was with them, and we bonded over this.

He was convinced they were prostitutes, but I had to disagree with him on this point.

I was of the opinion they were crackhead prostitutes.

The letting agency proved to be of no use, constantly telling me how hard it was to evict tenants (which goes some way to making the case for screening the buggers effectively before you move them in).

About three weeks ago I had to call the police again, but this time it was for another resident.

And on Valentine’s Day, of all days.

And this incident led to me reconsidering my reluctance to find new digs.

When you've got the numbers of the local police station and the noise pollution team on your speed dial, it really is time to move on.

And although my flat may have been shit hot for throwing snowballs at unsuspecting pedestrians, seeing as the next heavy snowfall in London is probably going to be January 2018 then it was time to move on.

There is the small matter of having to move a piano to my new flat, but that may be part of the reason I’m only moving two minutes up the road (and to a building with a lift in it).