No one likes the person who, in the early hours of Sunday
morning when you’ve been out somewhere with a load of friends and they’ve all
piled back to your flat for continuation of the fun, demands that you STOP
MAKING SO MUCH NOISE. That person is no fun whatsoever and should frankly get
over themselves, because a bit of noise never hurt anyone. Which is what I told
myself after turning into a harpy of
Odyssean proportions at the girl in the flat upstairs this weekend.
The Writer and I had been out at two separate birthday
parties, and had made it home to bed at rather respectable / loserish times
respectively (delete as appropriate, depending on outlook). But, around half an
hour later, as I started to drift off, the neighbour who lives in the flat
above us arrived back home with what sounded like several hundred guests.
The general chit chat, I wouldn’t have minded. The laughing,
whilst slightly irritating, I could probably have let slide. She’s not bad as
neighbours go, and these things happen. But the combination of the apparent
removal of her sitting room carpet to expose bare floorboards; the small hoard
of elephantine-footed people still wearing their highly-heeled shoes; and
massive obliviousness to the fact that our bedroom is directly under her sitting
room really got my goat.
I lay in bed tossing, turning and swearing for a while, and
then a while longer, and then longer still, getting crosser and crosser. TW lay fast asleep next to me, breathing gently, entirely unaware of the racket coming through the
floorboards above. Playing the very British card of not wanting either to make
a fuss or get on the wrong side of the neighbours, I stayed under the duvet,
fuming, under the assumption that they’d have to give up soon.
Until one of them dropped something and there was a scurry
of footsteps in the rushing-to and clearing-up process. I threw the duvet back
and stormed out of the bedroom.
“Hmm? What? Blonde, where are you going?” TW’s faint
disorientation was audible.
“I have HAD ENOUGH,” I raged, stamping up the stairs. “I am
going to get them to SHUT UP.”
I flung open the front door, and thumped loudly on the door
to the flat above. Suddenly there was silence from upstairs. When the voices
started again, I thudded my fist against the door. Slowly, I heard someone
heading towards me.
The door inched open to reveal my neighbour in a ravishing
eau de nil dress and a whole world of eyeliner.
I didn’t manage to utter a word before she muttered a few
hasty apologies and hurriedly scurried away. Clearly a wild nest of unkempt
blonde hair, an entirely un-made up face and a set of tartan pyjamas was
enough to make her hurtle back to the safety of her suddenly near-silent flat.
Her apologies when she knocked on the door later on Sunday
evening were profuse and made me feel rather guilty for storming round in such
a fug of ire (although frankly, she got off lightly on the tartan pyjamas
because, by that point, I was so cross that I doubt nakedness would have
stopped me), and I sat on the sofa thinking that, actually, we’re quite lucky
to have her as a neighbour, really.
And then, at 10.45pm, the spin cycle on her washing machine
started. The less said about that, the better.
5 comments:
I literally did this last night with Tone Deaf Upstairs Neighbour. Each time he's played loud bass-heavy music or carried on droning past midnight it keeps me up. Both times I've gone up and knocked (thumped) on his door he's never answered, instead choosing to discreetly turn it down. Last night I left a passive aggressive note on his doormat... Probably better than me ranting at him in Mr. C's dressing gown.
RAF: I'd go with the dressing gown. Failing that, starkers. Although that might well backfire if he thinks all he needs to do to get a hot laydee to turn up naked on his doorstep is crank up the volume...
I like to think that I've never been that noisy neighbour, but my penchant for a yell of "EVERYONE, BACK TO MINE!" at 1am when the pub shuts probably suggests otherwise. But in fairness, we've got a fairly soundproofed flat, or our neighbours are out later than us.
Saying that, within the flat is a different matter. Wooden floor boards and a general cavernous space mean that if the housemate is, say, in the bath at 8:30am on a Saturday morning, with her laptop playing tinny sounding TV at full volume, unable to hear me shouting, knocking, then yelling, then hammering while yelling "MATE, TURN YOUR FUCKING LAPTOP DOWN IT'S HALF PAST 8, I'M HUNGOVER, AND IT'S REALLY FUCKING LOUD", then I definitely completely understand where you're coming from.
PDEWYMO: The thing is, I'm almost certain that when I was at university, the DARLING little old lady who lived underneath our flat was subject to the sound of an awful lot of drinking games and never said a thing. Urgh.
You should move to Switzerland. We have laws about that sort of thing ;)
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