Thursday, March 17, 2011

Ooom-pa-pa- Ooom-pa-pa, Boom-Boom-Boom, Weeeyow-Wow- Clang- Olé!

I'd planned on doing a post with a few pictures of the outside of our building, and the community, but that will have to wait. Right now, I need to vent about our neighbours.

The building consists of three outside doors, each letting in to a foyer with mailboxes. There are six steps down to the two garden-level apartments, six steps up to two middle level units, and another two small flights up to two more units. So, six units per door, eighteen per building (well ours at least; many of the other buildings are bigger).

We have a mid-level end unit, so we really only have three neighbours to worry about, the people below us, above us and to the left of us. Let me tell you, it's more than enough.

As I'm writing this, it's 3pm, and next door has had their music on super loud, on and off, for the past 17 hrs. We've never seen our neighbour in 6d. I have no idea who he or she is, but they like to party. And not just on the weekend, apparently. Things will be peaceful, the sun shining, the birds singing, and then the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM starts. The cats are terrified and go hide and I try to ignore it. It was loud enough last night (between 11pm & 4am) to be annoying, but now the noise seems to be permeating the entire apartment. I could wear headphones, but that's not the point.

You may think the walls are thin, but they aren't. Not overly anyway. We hear the downstairs neighbours at mealtimes, mainly because there's a family of at least a dozen Mexicans living in there, and they're happy, passionate people. The kids are always making happy kid sounds, and there's never any angry yelling. They're loud, but at least they're a good loud.

The only noise we hear from the upstairs neighbour is the occasional creaking of the floor boards in the middle of the night. (Thank goodness!!)

A while ago, I'd had enough. I`d been moving/unpacking things all morning, and I was taking a break to have lunch and watch a show. I couldn't hear the dialogue for the BOOM-BOOM-BOOM coming from next door. So I did something I never do. I put on a CD of my own, specially chosen to mix horribly with the din next-door (Florence & the Machine for anyone interested)... and I turned up the volume...

For one song. I just couldn't do it; it's so rude and inconsiderate. Funny thing is, it also worked (temporarily anyway) because the person in 6d left!

Unfortunately, if only half worked. When 6d left, I turned off my music and through the hum of silence and bruised eardrums I could hear more noise. Downstairs is playing what I can only describe as some sort of hybrid Latin-Oom-pa-pa music. Presumably to drown out the rest of us.

Earphones it is.

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