The council workers have almost finished cleaning my street after this year’s Notting Hill Carnival, though the memories linger. As does the stench from the urine of the 1.5 million revellers who descend each year to create Europe’s largest open-air toilet. Ken Livingstone says he is keen to make London carbon neutral. The Mayor could start by doing something about the carbon deposits left in the parks around here each August Bank Holiday weekend. One can be sure the problem would be solved quickly if locals started leaving offsets where he lives.

This year’s carnival is being hailed a success. Only two people were shot, one person was stabbed and 206 people were arrested. The police seem pleased with their efforts: “Our officers had to work hard and deliver a strong interventionist style of policing late into the night to make sure that these criminals were not allowed to take over the streets of Notting Hill.”

Unfortunately for residents, this strong interventionist style of policing does not extend to their front gardens. As smiling police walked by, I spent most of the weekend knocking on my window to deter micturating revellers. Unfortunately, some of them seem to take my knocks as encouragement, raising their cans of Red Stripe and giving me a friendly “Cheers, man!”.

The Notting Hill Carnival is supposed to a celebration of the best of Caribbean music and culture, but it is hard to believe that this is best represented by bored men playing records from the back of a truck for drunk Australian and New Zealand backpackers. The backpackers actually wear their backpacks – laden with beer, for rumours of the carnival prices have reached Shepherds Bush – while they dance in their flip-flops. It’s an authentic expression of cultural identity but it has little to do with the West Indies.

And then there’s the noise. A burger van worker (beef burger £5, can of coke £1) told The Sun that he saw a crowd fleeing after one of the shootings but heard nothing because of the loud music. If he was within 25 feet of a sound stage I will be amazed if he hears anything again. My house was perfectly triangulated between three 10ft-high banks of speakers and I could just about talk on the telephone in a cupboard in the basement. Not that it mattered. The phone network went into a 9/11 style meltdown from millions of lost people texting “Where R U??” to their mates.

Some people will doubtless regard this as the old Notting Hill’s revenge on the new, as for one weekend each year those driven out by gentrification drive out those who have expelled them. But as I walked around the streets I couldn’t help reflecting that it will be the Polish cleaners rather than their owners that do the cleaning up. As for me, if I’m still here next year, I will take advantage of my carbon offset and fly to Italy.

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