It’s always depressing to lose somebody who is relatively close to you. It doesn’t matter if he’s close emotionally or is just a neighbour – when this person is in your life and you’re comfortable with them, then you feel like something is missing when they leave.

This is the thing I’m going through right now. My neighbour, Brandon, is leaving. He’s changing jobs and his new one is too far away from here to travel so is moving closer in. He doesn’t want to cross the whole city to get to work and I get that. But I really feel that something is changing for the worse and I don’t like it. Brandon and I weren’t very close but he was a good neighbour – quiet, shy and I knew that he was a good guy. I have never had any problems with him and there was nothing wrong with him at all, as far as I could tell. I pride myself as being a good judge of character so I think I wasn’t wrong about him.

The problem with neighbours moving and what is so depressing in this situation is actually the fact that some stranger is going to live next door. He or she might be nice but might not be. It’s a mystery until they move in. You’re comfortable with your current neighbour so you don’t like this change one bit. This is maybe caused by our fear of the unknown but in any case I don’t like the idea of some stranger living right next to me. It makes me uneasy.

Anyway – this cannot be avoided. The best I can hope for is the fact that the new neighbour will be at least as good as Brand. He was keeping to himself. He was an introvert and wasn’t very communicative, even though not all introverts are like that. He didn’t even come and me ask me to help him pack, even though out of all the neighbours I was the only one talked to, I mean saying something more than the occasional “hello”.

He called a cleaning company to deal with the cleaning part. The contract was very strict about the conditions and I guess he didn’t want to take any chances. He used Aceclean, as far as I could see. I took a look at their website. Brand was very strict so if he chose them, there had to be a solid reason for it. It wasn’t like him to take any chances or unnecessary risks. In any case, like I said, I hope the neighbour is at least as good as Brandon, or maybe even better. One can hope, right? Although I am a bit sceptical, to tell you the truth.