The loudest neighbour

Every residential building in Sharjah seems to have one. The resident who decides how the parking is shared, which families may use the roof, whether children can play in the lobby after sunset. Nobody gave him the job. He took it by being louder than everyone else and making disagreement expensive.

His method rarely changes. He tells you what you will do, and if you resist, it becomes your fault that things turned unpleasant. He would be perfectly reasonable, he says, if people simply cooperated. Before long two or three neighbours are repeating his line in the building's group chat, and the new family on the fourth floor learns quickly not to argue.

It works, after a fashion. The building is quiet. It is also split. Residents stop greeting each other in the lift. Anyone who stands out, the tenant who works nights, the family with four children, is named as the problem. People who might have sorted out the leaking water tank together keep their heads down instead.

It is easy to read the loud neighbour as strong. He is the opposite. He cannot cope with anything changing, cannot hear a different idea without treating it as an attack, and has never once moved his position because someone made a better case.

A building run on fear stays exactly as it is, leaks included.

The ones that work, when you find them, are looked after by a few residents who listen, try things and let the new family speak. They get more done, and they hold together far longer.