Rue de Verdun
Published on 17 June 2021
Honestly, I'm writing this article to keep a record of the madness we got to experience living on "rue de Verdun", in Montpellier, over the past few years.
This street really lives up to its name; located between the Montpellier train station and the famous Place de la Comédie, it sometimes looks like a little battlefield, which makes the people of Montpellier roll their eyes when you tell them "I live on rue de Verdun".
When I came back to Montpellier 5 years ago, it's the first apartment I visited, it was beautiful, huge, bright, everything going for it, at an acceptable price… a bargain! Especially after living so many years in Paris with stratospheric rents. I signed right away!
The day I moved in, as I arrived with the truck full of furniture, and after a few tricky maneuvers amid the fast-food terraces, I found myself face to face with a gang of crusty punks with dogs in front of my door. No big deal, I liked dogs, and the drifters didn't bother me that much.
But that was before. It was a sign…
What is rue de Verdun?
Rue de Verdun is, one morning, having two drug addicts, needles in the arm, in front of your apartment door (on the 3rd floor), and not really knowing how to handle that.
Rue de Verdun is having to step in to separate a crusty punk who just hit his girlfriend, covered in blood, because no one else wants to intervene, then being threatened yourself because you intervened.
Rue de Verdun is shops and fast-food joints doing illegal construction work for months, using their angle grinders every day, even on Sundays, even at night, all the time. And not "one" shop, no, almost all of them do it.
Rue de Verdun is no longer calling the police, because the police no longer come out, and literally tell you on the phone that no, they won't come, even if young people are threatening passersby in the street, or if a visibly drunk man is wandering around with his penis flapping in the wind.
Rue de Verdun is lunatics who periodically decide to sit down every night beneath your window to scream at the top of their lungs, for hours. For no reason, just to scream.
Rue de Verdun is passersby constantly fighting, who are knocked out and bloody on the ground, drunk, staggering, in full alcoholic comas. Not once in a while, no, but almost every day.
Rue de Verdun is student parties three nights a week, until all hours, which become almost trivial compared to the rest.
Rue de Verdun is the kids of the kebab sellers screaming all evening because they're waiting there, on a chair, for their father to finish his shift.
Rue de Verdun is getting into beefs with the shopkeepers who have so little respect for their street that they toss their cigarette butts right in front of their shops.
Rue de Verdun is 20, 30, 40 bike delivery riders loitering beneath your windows waiting for their orders, in an infernal racket, because they're no longer allowed to wait on the big square next door.
Rue de Verdun is hundreds of scooters doing rodeos in your street, every night, even though it's a pedestrian street.
Rue de Verdun is discovering that the "crusty punks" constantly mistreat and beat their dogs, without being able to intervene.
And the worst of all this is telling yourself that the residents of this street probably don't experience a quarter of the mess endured by some residents of far more disadvantaged neighborhoods… So you feel a bit awkward complaining, rightly so.
So we're going to try to leave rue de Verdun; we'll surely miss the beautiful, big apartment, but our nights will maybe be a little less turbulent.
Photo credit: DR
By Paingout