It's a funny thing, but my loud Goth neighbours have ceased bothering me. I think it's because we had a pleasant encounter and I have stopped demonising them.

They had been irritating me by playing Marilyn Manson at strange times of the day and watching their TV with the kind of loud surround-sound you only get in cinemas.

So I thought I'd torment them with my own music at awkward times. They are usually deathly quiet during mealtimes so I thought I'd begin there. I started off with the Indian music of Noor Jahan, a 1950s Bollywood icon, with plenty of high pitched screeching Punjabi and twanging sitar strings. It must have felt a bit like sitting in a Tandoori restaurant as they ate their supper.

Then I had an even brighter idea. I would hit them with my abysmal taste in western music, which could potentially be so much worse.

I was feeling particularly riled as they had had such an unusually loud night of watching Desperate Housewives I could virtually watch it on my TV with the sound on mute.

The following morning, I flicked through my CDs and considered what could do the worst damage. Should I put on Ricky Martin's She Bangs, or would Kylie grate on them more? Finally, I went for the middle-aged charm of Elton John (the best of), at full belt.

If it wasn't the schmaltz of Nikita then the insane robustness of I'm Still Standing must have got to them, as I heard a knock on my door about ten minutes into the album. I felt both sheepish and smug as I opened the door.

One of the Goths (the male one) stood there with a clipboard in his hands. He wasn't wearing his make up and he looked quite vulnerable. He had his dyed hair in a tidy ponytail and he could have got away with being a non-Goth if it hadn't been for the dark clothes and the skull stud in his lip.

Just as I expected a ticking off, he placed the clipboard under my nose and said he and the female Goth were campaigning to stop the council from felling the tree we have in our backyard.

"They threaten to do it every once in a while and we always get a petition up because we think it's beautiful for residents," he said.

Were these the greasy, inconsiderate Goths I had imagined them to be? Well, greasy maybe, but they seemed to have a strong sense of community spirit. In an apartment block where my neighbours seemed coy even about eye contact in the lift, these two were proving to be my friendliest neighbours.

It's funny because, after signing his petition and waving him off, they've still had loud, drunken nights in front of their telly but they've ceased to bother me now. They are community loving folk. How can I begrudge them a minor hearing problem?