Basil was already old, angry and aggressive when I bought my house in Banyo. He must’ve been about 75. Long retired, he lived in a pathetic, run down besser brick home.
‘You look like you’ve done alright,’ he said after I introduced myself. ‘You look like the kind of man John Howard likes.’ He stared at me. ‘Howard wants to gas us old people.’
fanta on the fence
The next word he said was no to my suggestion of paying half for a dividing fence I intended to build. Then it got worse.
‘I don’t want dogs here,’ he said.
‘They’re coming when I finish the fence.’
‘No,’ Basil said. ‘I don’t want dogs next door.’
Half an hour later another new neighbour, Brett, agreed to pay $200 for the fence that would separate our yards.
‘You’re going to have trouble with old Basil,’ he said.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I get on with everyone.’
It took about two days to discover how wrong I was. All I was doing was whistling, a tuneless sound that can barely be heard beyond the fence, but he came outside and told me to shut up.
It took three weekends to finish the fence. Days after it was done Basil said he’d gotten what he wanted.
‘And you paid for it,’ he said, grinning.
The next morning he threw a three foot length of timber at it. The bang woke me before six. It became part of his modus operandi. For no reason at all, almost every weekend Basil would throw that lump of timber against the fence to wake me up.
Occasionally he repeated the timber trick when I got home from work, just to let me know he was alive.
About a month after moving in Mirth (my dog) was barking madly at the fence. It was dark and Mirth usually didn’t bark at night. I went outside, seeing Basil with his little torch and the lump of timber, which he hammered into the fence.
‘What are you gonna fucking do now,’ he yelled at Mirth, hitting the fence again.
‘You want me to let him out,’ I yelled, shooing Mirth away. Basil and I had an argument, one I’d been rehearsing for a few days.
‘All the neighbours told me you were an old bastard and you’d cause trouble,’ I said.
‘What did you expect them to say?’ he yelled back.
The following morning, a Sunday, was interrupted by Basil’s one-speaker radio at full volume and aimed at my bedroom. The radio was so old it vibrated off the station emanating static.
It woke me up, the sound so loud I couldn’t get back to sleep.
The next week I received a letter from the council suggesting my dogs were barking uncontrollably at night, which was patently untrue.
During a phone call to the council, a woman said Basil had complained for years about every dog living nearby and I shouldn’t worry.
‘We have to send you the letter,’ she said.
‘This guy is nuts,’ I said, giving her a detailed description of his antics. ‘And check your work register. You have to mow his nature strip. He refuses to do it because it is council land.’
‘I know,’ the woman said. ‘If it gets too long he calls us and complains.’
For the next three years Basil blasted me with the radio on weekends, particularly if there’d been noise from my house the night before. He also used the radio at various times throughout the day if he thought the noise from my house was too loud.
Noises he objected to included barking, the whipper snipper or use of power tools. If I was talking outside he’d put the radio on. One morning I put my radio against the fence, Triple J, and blasted him. An hour later the police arrived. My radio was off by that stage.
The cops went next door but Basil wasn’t home. He’d turned off his radio in surrender, called the cops and fled.
When I wasn’t home Basil would stand at the fence, hosing my dogs or throwing small rocks at them. It might’ve been happening for months, but Brett witnessed it one afternoon and yelled out to Basil, who scurried inside.
Later Brett told me what happened. I went next door, calmly, to chat to Basil.
He opened the door and frightened me. ‘WHAT DO YOU FUCKING WANT,’ he yelled.
Completely frozen for a moment, I muttered something about leaving my dogs alone.
‘FUCK OFF,’ he yelled before slamming the door.
I went home, eyes wide, heart pounding. Brett, who heard the yelling, was at the back fence.
‘That went well,’ he said. ‘I told you there’d be trouble.’
Trouble came in different forms. Basil’s kitchen and lounge windows look out over Eastern Street. If he saw me walking past I’d get the finger, maybe an air punch and silent obscenities.
I ignored that kind of trouble.
About six months after moving in I witnessed something late one night that couldn’t be ignored. I was in the backyard when a cat walked out from Basil’s back door.
‘Way you go,’ I heard him say. It left me feeling the old man actually had a soft spot. Although he didn’t get on with humans, he was kind enough to feed a neighbourhood cat looking for food.
I never saw the cat again, but that didn’t mean anything. Cats are nomads and not to be trusted. If they’re not getting adequate care at home they will roam and adopt another servant.
Dogs, on the other hand, are loyal, trusted lieutenants. Mirth barked during the day when I wasn’t home. He’d bark at people walking past, the postman or the garbage truck. It wasn’t excessive, according to other neighbours.
A sane, rational person would put up with it. Basil seemed insane. He went nuts at me one afternoon for driving on the storm drain grate in the street. What was all I could say.
‘The grate in the street, it makes a fucking noise when you drive on it.’
‘What grate?’ I said. ‘What???’
His fury was stunning. I stood and watched, totally shocked. Such a short, skinny old man Basil walked with a limp. When he was angry, he was scary. The diatribe was funny, you couldn’t find a mate from Caboolture to the Gold Coast because you’re a fuckhead and I piss on your veggie patch.
Then Basil’s voice lowered and he revealed his sinister nature.
‘I’m going to kill your dogs,’ he said smiling at me like he’d found a cure for cancer. ‘I’ll put a can out like I do for the cats.’
Basil didn’t have a soft spot for cats. He had poison. I had a phone. I called the police, telling them with great accuracy what Basil said. The cops paid another visit. They didn’t seriously believe he was going to kill my dogs.
I didn’t either, but poor behaviour can’t be tolerated.
Whenever Basil and I had an exchange, I’d chat to Brett, who invariably heard the old man yelling. I mentioned the cat strolling out from Basil’s backdoor and the can out comment.
Brett asked for a description of the cat and sighed afterwards.
‘It might’ve been our cat,’ he said. ‘We don’t know what happened to him. He just disappeared.’
‘I reckon he fucking poisoned it,’ I said.
Fleeing their territory to die is common feline behaviour. My dogs couldn’t flee the old man, not if he wanted to poison them. Most dogs will eat anything. For the next three years I fretted about their safety every day, driving home at lunchtime to check on them.
Later that year Brett’s dog became frightfully sick, enough for a frantic visit to the vet. The diagnosis suggested kidney or liver failure. The dog, just seven years old, was put down to end the suffering.
Brett was distraught. We discussed Basil and poison and despite the lack of proof, I called the police and told them Basil might’ve poisoned another pet.
In three years Basil threatened to kill my dogs six times. He just didn’t learn, because each time he threatened, I called the police and they paid another visit. I wasn’t making frivolous phone calls. I truly believed he was capable of poisoning my dogs.
The last death threat, in 2003, roused my anger. I’d had enough of living in fear of a crazy old man.
‘Whatever happens to my dogs happens to you,’ I said. ‘If you kill them I’ll kill you, even if I have to drive through two fences to do it.’
I called the police again. The cops were sick of refereeing the fight. Over the phone, a sergeant suggested mediation through the Department of Justice. After visiting Basil, he came back and gave me blunt advice.
‘If he hits the fence with that length of timber, do it back,’ he said. ‘Or rock his roof with ice cubes so they melt before we get here.’
I just wanted it to stop, but didn’t listen to their advice. When Basil began slamming the lump of timber into the fence again, I resisted the urge to throw ice cubes on his roof. It might make me feel better but it would just reignite the obscenities, his radio or that length of timber on the fence.
It had become neighbourhood war, tit for tat, and I wasn’t the only sufferer. Basil waged war on everyone living nearby, complaining to a young woman who regularly parked in the shade beside a tree growing on his nature strip.
‘You get your bloody car on your own side of the street,’ he said. She did.
Basil called the council about the rat-catchers two doors up, complaining about their barking.
The owner of those irritating dogs was fined because they were unregistered.
When the old man across the road locked his house keys inside, he asked to borrow Basil’s ladder.
Basil laughed at him and called him a fool. ‘It’s my ladder,’ he said. ‘Get a locksmith.’
During an argument with Brett about the fence line, Basil went into his shed, emerging with a pitchfork. He walked towards Brett, thrusting it and crooning come on, come on. When Brett, who is built like a front-rower, told him to settle down, Basil faked a heart attack, clutching his chest, my heart, my heart…
Keeping his distance, Brett asked if he was okay. Basil started giggling like a madman, brandishing the pitchfork menacingly before wandering off.
Anecdotal evidence from long-time Banyo residents suggests he was banned from the lawn bowling club for arguing with the patrons and using poor language. He moved the agro to the Kedron Wavell RSL.
In 2003 I moved out and rented my house. All of my tenants had the same issues with Basil. There were arguments. Police were called. Two tenants lasted just six months. Two threatened to kill him.
When I moved back in 2007 those old issues were still there, the radio, the timber thrown at the fence and his abuse. I couldn’t have a quiet gathering of mates without Basil’s radio waking us all at six the following morning.
When mates were over I routinely went outside, listening to the noise then turning the music down and telling everyone to shush.
By 2009 as he went past 85 the outbursts diminished, but every morning, no matter the day he would slam his back door just after five then do it again just before six.
I didn’t bother setting an alarm for work.
Not long after six he would go somewhere in his car, occasionally hitting the horn to let everyone know he was alive. In five minutes he’d be back, carrying nothing, slamming his door again as he went inside.
He was a contradiction, fighting his neighbours for total quiet while making the most noise.
For years he stood on a milk crate and trimmed the trees hanging over his fence. The trees were already short and neat, but Basil reached as high as he could, cutting mainly leaves, short lengths maybe four or six inches long, which he threw into my yard.
At least it gave him something to do once a month. Occasionally I threw them back into his yard, to give him something else to do.
By late 2010 Basil was slowing down. The outbursts had almost stopped, as had the morning radio. He’d gotten old without grace but the anger remained.
Despite telling Kristine to ignore him, one afternoon she was sitting on the back steps and waved. ‘Hi,’ she said.
Basil glared at her. For such a small, withered old man, his glare remained fierce.
The last time we talked I knew Basil was faltering. My house was silent, no radio, no tools and my dogs had been dead for years. I wasn’t whistling either.
Suddenly, without warning, Basil disturbed the calm. ‘Shut up you fucking prick,’ he yelled. ‘There’s too much noise.’
‘You’re the only one making noise Basil,’ I said. ‘Crawl back in your box mate.’
He slammed his back door. A few weeks later a man turned up at his house, just the second visitor I’d ever seen beyond the fence. He banged on doors, windows and called out before Basil opened his back door.
‘I’ve been calling for days,’ the man said.
‘Maybe I didn’t hear the phone,’ Basil said.
‘You can hear it,’ the man said. ‘Just answer it and let me know you’re okay.’
Basil didn’t invite him inside. The man left soon after. I never saw him again.
A few months later, in March 2011, I called the police and asked them to check on Basil. I hadn’t seen him for about a month. His car hadn’t moved for weeks. He could’ve been dead inside his house and though no one would’ve cared, I wanted the cops to make sure.
‘Why don’t you go next door and check on him?’ the cop asked.
‘Because he’ll tell me to fuck off,’ I said. ‘He’s an abusive man who hates everyone. If any of the neighbours went to check on him he’d say the same thing.’
The cop was exasperated at my refusal to do a welfare check but took my details. He phoned back soon after. Basil was in the care of the Royal Brisbane Hospital for an indefinite period. What was left of his angry mind had been lost.
Last I heard he was in a nursing home at Redcliffe. Hopefully the residents were the quiet type but it probably doesn’t matter.
Basil might be dead by now.
His last years could’ve been spent drinking home brew and playing pool. I might’ve given him vegetables from my garden. He might’ve enjoyed those years. Instead, for whatever reason, he hated the world and wanted to fight with everyone in it.
Basil isn’t missed by anyone. Not one person living nearby liked him or spoke in fond terms. Everyone who came to my house when Basil was alive was witness to his antics, the radio, abuse, timber on the fence and the baleful glares.
Looking back, I can’t believe one old man could wage war on a neighbourhood by disturbing the peace to demand quiet. Basil refused to listen to reason. He refused all attempts at conciliation, and there were a few. He refused to be remotely social, and though I can’t prove it I am sure he killed Brett’s cat and dog.
He behaved in such a disgusting manner at times he seemed a caricature of the angry old man. When I thought things couldn’t get any worse, they did.
If a character like Basil popped up in a movie, no one in the audience would believe a man like that could even exist.
It’d be a horror movie…
Thanks for sharing your story about your the guy next door. Sadly I think this story can be a common one. I have friends who suffered in a very similar way and had to move from the rented home. Another friend moved into a housing commission unit with her small son. She was a very private and quiet young women, yet the elderly neighbor was a night mare. I have had a similar problems, with a male and female neighbor who lived opposite sides to me. Not to mention the nutter who lived down the back who would go into a screaming rant in the very early hours of the morning and play extreemly loud music..all before 5am. It is sad knowing that people do everything in their power to make your life miserable just because their life is in that state. Good luck in the future. Time to relish in those good times when the neighbor you have either just keeps to themselves or are just nice people because you don’t know how long it will last.
