Commotion in area south of back-to-back houses (3-2)
I believe the answer is:
hoo-ha
'commotion' is the definition.
(I know that commotion can be written as hoo-ha)
'in area south of back-to-back houses' is the wordplay.
'in' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'of back' says to take the final letters (I've seen 'back' mean this).
'to back' shows that the letters should be reversed in order.
'houses' becomes 'ooh' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The final letters of 'area south' are 'ah'.
'ah' backwards is 'ha'.
'ha' going around 'ooh' is 'HOO-HA'.
(Other definitions for hoo-ha that I've seen before include "Commotion (informal)" , "Noisy fuss" , "Disturbance" , "Song and dance" , "Big fuss" .)