Sounding Off
August 20th, 2010Some people are never happy, are they? Take my neighbour M, for example. No, seriously, please someone take her. Noisy neighbours are a pain and they can make life hell. But despite M’s protestations and opinions, I am not a noisy neighbour.
In what must have been an oversight on my landlord’s part, my Victorian conversion flat doesn’t come complete with zero gravity. Nor is there a series of chains and pulleys dangling from the ceiling from which I can swing from A to B without touching the ground. Bad, inconsiderate landlord! It means that I have to walk from room to room, much to the despair of M, who can apparently hear me stomping around on a regular basis. All 5ft 2, 8st of me. Oh, how those floorboards must groan under my weight.
In a recent episode, being a decent person, I called M to say that I was having four friends over to stay and would be coming in late. She huffed and puffed at my news, saying that it was noisy enough with just me in the flat.
Now let’s get something straight. Firstly, I was being considerate in letting her know I was having friends over. Secondly, I was under no obligation to do so, and thirdly, I did not sign up to a life of solitude when I moved in. I’m out for 12 hours a day, come home at 8pm, have dinner, watch TV, then go to bed, ready to start all over again the next day. No parties. No loud music. No practising Ten Green Bottles on a French horn. What can I possibly be doing that is driving my neighbour to distraction? Oh, that must be it, breathing.
Of course, insulation could be better in many homes and people should be mindful of the fact, but I could be a stay-at-home mum with a youngster toddling around. I could be playing loud music all day. I could be making mad passionate love all night with a guy who screams my name (or that of his favourite football team) every time he shoots and scores. M doesn’t know how fortunate she is to have me.
When my friends and I got home after our Saturday night out, we sat happily reflecting on the evening. No music, no TV, no Mexican wave across the living room. Then we began to blow up the makeshift air bed. Suddenly the phone rang and it was M from downstairs ranting about all the noise we were making, the constant thumping on the ceiling and that I was being selfish. Get. A. Life.
Now M is selling up and moving on. With her acute sensitivity to, and zero tolerance of, noise of any description, why she lived in a basement flat, I’ll never know. She’s probably off to live in a lighthouse. Jesus, I hope the sea behaves itself.