I live on a tiny cul-de-sac, there are literally a block of 4 flats ( and three houses on one side and another block of 4 flats and 7 houses the other. However this tiny street has had its fair share of incidents in the last 6/7 years.  Today was possibly the biggest.

When I left my house to take the LO to nursery, I could see down the length of the street and that there was a lot of action going on at the exit end.  I had to drive past it all and there was 2 police cars, a police van, an ambulance, an unmarked police car and a Crime Scene Investigation van.  Outside the flats, there was a guy in a suit, 2 in white overalls and a policeman.

Typical I was heading out to an appointment after dropping the LO off – last time there was a major incident on the street and a couple beat each other up and one stabbed the other (the other block of flats) my husband and I slept through the whole thing and hadn’t a clue anything had happened till the following day.  This time I was driving away.

After my appointment it was nearly 2 hours later when I returned.  There were still 2 police cars and 2 policeman stood on the pavement near the flats.  After I parked up I went to my neighbour’s house.  I knew if anyone knew anything about what had happened it would be them.  I was right.  Although they didn’t have all the details, they believed that someone had noticed something was wrong with one of the flats and had called an ambulance.  A paramedic had arrived sometime during the morning and had kicked the door down to one of the flats.  The girl – 27yrs old, had been found too late in the bath most likely a drug overdose.  Apparently she was well-known in the area and in the local paper on many occasions for petty crimes and drug usage.  Her partner had left her a while back and social services had taken her kids off her.

Had a slight moral dilemma – part of me felt sorry for her the other felt like she had it coming. But then I feel bad for thinking that.  Does anyone deserve to die young even if they did cause it.  There is in most cases a reason behind it.  I didn’t know her, so I don’t know if it was drugs that led to her downfall or the state of her life that led to drugs.  It’s not my place to judge.

The scary thing was that my neighbours also said when the police had called round door to door (after I had gone)  they had said how rife the area is with drugs and that the local hospital and centres were overrun and couldn’t cope with the number of people going in each day/week with drug related cases.  Though the police and council really don’t seem to be doing much about it.   Suppose its like that in many places, but I did think I lived in a pretty quiet area – obviously not.