The dreadful people

Someone enquired the other day how the neighbours are, after my scribblings on the subject appeared to peter out after the firm, but fair, letter i delivered a few months ago.

Well, on the music and knowing their favourite tv series front, they're generally well behaved, apart from the odd friday evenings pre-going out getting into the mood spin-ups.  They have instead increased the number of gatherings, dinner-do's and having friends over, who have taken if not to heavy foot-falling, then stomping around to such an extent that it's now possible to draw a sound-map of their abode and where they are, any time they're home.  I periodically pinch myself to see if i'm awake, in the hope that i'm stuck in some ground-hog experience and i'll remember the pain next time around.

Then there's the door slamming - which appears to be a popular pastime, regardless of whether it's 6.30am or 11.25pm.  If it can close, it can slam shut!  The same goes for drawers, kitchen cupboards and bathroom cupboards.  And why bother taking off heels (and I'm talking of the tenants here and not guests) when indoors, as you can galumph around for 45 minutes before realising you still have them on.

I did chat with with them, after I hadn't heard anything in relation to my missive, enquiring whether they'd actually received it or not.  I was looked at straight in the eye and told "yes, but we don't think we're making that much noise," and so by extension your tome, which we find rather amusing and show to friends with great hilarity, obviously isn't worth replying to.

Luckily everyone who pops in to my own abode, and experiences the levels of noise coming from upstairs, wonders why I put up with it.  Perhaps i'm not striking the right tone, and so my ministrations aren't taken seriously enough.  Or perhaps it's a mixture of all the above.  I rarely tend to the rottweiler type, preferring instead to let things slide over getting my teeth into screeching bone.  Whacking up the volume of the headphones until my ears complain before thinking "fuck it" time to turn on the speakers.

But as i write this on the 20th, 23rd, 26th August, 9th, 12th, 16th, 18th September 2011, it sounds like another gathering is in the offing, with associated  reverberating footsteps, and a litany of cries penetrating through the ceiling at an alarming deja vu rate and naturally there's never the whiff of a note or a quick tap saying "we're going to, or are, having a do.  You're not invited, it may be a bit noisy.  Hope you don't mind!"

Now, remember the only thing between their feet and my ears are their bare floorboards, joists, and my ceiling plasterboard with a sliver of painted wallpaper.  So when they have a gathering (as young socialites around town are prone to), which take place on regular intervals, just imagine the sounds from a cacophony of staccato heel & shoe wearers.

Over the past week I stopped indulging in those extra few seconds that it takes me to close a door, or lower a lid (as nothing in this place has a soft close option), i even stopped taking the time to gently place a magazine on the side, or close the lid to a small wooden box.  After all, why bother, when it's far easier simply allowing gravity or momentum to take their course and bring what ever is moving to a complete stop or halt, just like my erstwhile neighbours.

I must admit that it was quite an ear opener listening to the generated bangs and slams.  However the sound emanating from my abode appeared to stir up a hornets nest of excitement;  as they slammed and staccato stomped around with even greater energy than before.  So i too slammed and dropped, which despite being exceptionally childish in the extreme, actually relieved some of the pent-up angst, you can find yourself subsumed in when on the receiving end of inconsiderate neighbours.  Eventually they went out.

At least it's progress of a sort, they know that i can hear that they don't care.

Which means that before this childish puerile nonsense gets completely out of hand, it's time the management company did their job and actually enforced those bits of the lease which deal with this kind of nonsense.  Namely the fact that flats should have suitable covering, i.e., not bare floorboards.  Sadly they can't yet do anything about the dreadful people, that will have to run its course.  But i'm sure once covering does go down, there'll be even more banging, slamming, clanging, shouting, screaming and do's; but, maybe they might finally realise.

Oh joy.

I know that in the scheme of things this is naught but a boil in need of lancing; but that's the problem with boils (i've been led to believe), if they're handled incorrectly they can reach the stage of life-threatening septicaemia.