Neighbours (neighbors) Key words - friendly, smells, ignorant Neighbours can make your stay in Kuwait or ruin it. Depending where you live you can have mostly expats if you live in an international compound or a United Nations mixture if you live in the city. Don�t expect the behaviour you see and expect from your home country to be present here because people can loose their social manners very easily. Some neighbours of my experience are nice and friendly when you move in but they then go through a transformation into ogres who won't acknowledge you in the street and start rubbishing you to other expats behind your back. Why you might ask? It could be because they realise you are not the "right type" or because you refuse to tow the line and be a spiteful, bitter expat like them. One couple asked their neighbour to remove the rugs they had drying from the fence because "they had some important guests arriving". Who are these people? One thing for sure is that their brown stuff smells just as much as anyone else's. These are the same people who kept cats and would put the part-used tins of cat food in the cupboard at floor level! In a cold climate that is one thing but to do it in Kuwait where you also get cockroaches and ants defies belief therefore these people must be ignorant (I�m being polite) when it comes to hygiene and poor examples of expats on the other. A favourite story is about the wheelie bins which Kuwait has in plenty but not for each house or apartment so when new ones are delivered to the streets it takes a dedicated individual to claim them for their own. Most people act like brainless morons when it comes to these bins and empty the contents of their household rubbish, even cooking pots directly into the wheelie bin � would you do this or be allowed to do this in your own country? In the heat of the day, this takes no time to smell and not even the daily emptying of these bins takes the smell away as the bins are obviously not scrubbed. Often they are not even up-ended into the back of the garbage truck as it is usually too much like hard work for the poorly paid Bangladeshi operators. It is truly a wonder that cockroaches don�t run wild in the streets from the filth that is thrown out by people, locals and expats alike. I once saw a cat playing with a cockroach which may be the answer to that one. This one lady concerned took a proprietorial interest in one bin and kept it clean so when the Bangladeshi man came around to rifle through the bins for tin cans to recycle and slit open the bags, he got a bollocking he won�t forget in a hurry. The problem was of course that the neighbours did the local thing of chucking their rubbish loose into the bin as well which included food waste, cigarette buts and ash and god knows what else. No amount of asking or subtle comments got through to these people so the lady decided on a permanent solution � the house number was removed and the bin taken around the corner and left for some other household to claim. The neighbour came home and when she could not find the bin went for a walk and returned triumphantly with it, later explaining to the lady that it was probably the garbage truck who rearranged the bins and scattered them. Infuriated by the return of the bin (but not showing it) the lady ensured it would not return by dragging it to another street where it probably remains to this day. The expatriate neighbour was unaware of this of course but so dumb about her actions in making the bin foul for all concerned that it never dawned on her what had happened but I am afraid to say, her story is not unique. Another story involved the neighbour who could not (did not) maintain a semblance of looking after their neighbour's place when they were away and the neighbour came back to find that the with the fuses having tripped, the contents of the freezer etc were starting to smell. Lazy ******** of course but they were happy to have their place visited and their cats fed when they were away but could not do the simple thing of visitng next door once every other day or so to check. As I sad, so many expats go to Kuwait from the west and lose their brains, manners and social graces. Brown stuff and smell comes to mind. home