How close are houses to one another where you are, Alma ? Are they very close ? We live in central Auckland and normally houses wouldn't be close enough to detect cooking odours generated inside. Raquel frequently cooks salted fish, bagoong and similar things but you would have to sniff pretty hard with our windows wide open to detect it from the place next door. It's very strong inside the house, of course, but I rather like it - wouldn't be home without it.

There are noise controls here but they're pretty flexible within reasonable bounds. I've never heard of anybody here being told to paint their house or told what to do in their driveway.

What are likely to come under severe restriction here soon are dogs. There have been too many attacks on children, some very serious, and there are moves to eliminate certain breeds and restrict dogs in public. But this is probably a good restriction. I've never heard of anybody having to leave our street through excessive restrictions of any sort.