Inflicted by TWAGs?

Are you living somewhere inflicted by tossers, wankers, arseholes, or godsends (TWAGs)? Four options likely to be heard when conducting a survey about neighbours. Whether you live in a palatial detached castle, or hunker down in the most kafkaesque blocks of flats many call home, horror stories abound when it comes to living by neighbours and the squabble-some descents into feuds.

Before i get totally carried away, it would be highly negligent of me to ignore those occasions which are scattered like hens teeth amongst swill, where we live by neighbours who are godsends of enlightenment.

When neighbours feud there is a high probability that noise will be somewhere in the top three of probable causes. For the most part this is down to the way buildings have been designed and constructed over the centuries, either from the observance of shoddy building practices and the need of making a quick buck, or from the use of shoddy materials again for the same reason, or when they were built who knew, or the management/freeholders of a building have failed to ensure that the covenants of leases pertaining to flooring are actually enforced; which they are generally quite loathe to do, until they're kicking and screaming in the flames of legal redress.

So why this particular piece? My usually quiet (except for the ‘if it has a hinge it must be made for slamming’) neighbours, decided it was a good idea to throw a party. Nothing wrong there you might say. True, apart from the fact that they didn’t bother to invite me, which is understandable and fair enough. Nor did they bother to drop a scribbled note saying as such, on the back of some junkmail they’d received and couldn’t be bothered to throw away, through the still functioning letterbox.

The party started. Surprisingly the first three hours were tolerable. If the party had remained close to that for the rest of the evening, it would have been enjoyable night for all concerned. At some point after the third hour, the booze and happy makers had reached their zenith, as noise levels finally breached the 65 decibels mark causing the screen on the monitoring app to turn yellow.

The noise from the party continued to rise. I was reluctant to increase my headset’s volume, as that might have resulted in hearing damage. Instead i removed it and switched the computer's speakers on. The aim was not to fully drown out the unwanted external sound, but allow me to hear what i was listening to without the potential degredation of hearing. Initially, i couldn’t hear the sound from the speakers with any clarity (noise from the party), so i whacked up the volume slider until the sound output ranged from 45 to 50 decibels. I’m sure many of you with an interest in the more technical aspects of sound, must be shaking your heads and wondering have i lost the plot. For reference, the level for background music and normal conversion in a room is stated as 60 decibels. So my four 8 x 10… cm speakers, pumping out 50 decibels, could be viewed as being well within reasonable levels. 

Sadly, due to the paper-bag nature of the dwellings the volume from the speakers was sufficient to reach their ears. The reaction was almost instant. An increase in stamping, especially by a female guest at the party, who seemed to take exceptional umbrage at the 45 - 50 decibels levels drifting towards her ears. There was a ratcheting of door slams. Objects being dropped on the floor. All mixed with general laughter and momentous hilarity.

Noise levels from the party started peaking at 73 decibels, just 9 decibels short of the all time great of 81 decibels, which was secured by the previous tenants. The screen on the app turned fluorescent red.

So how did the noise generated by the party compare to a gang of motorcyclists driving by? At approximately 10:09 am the following day, one such gang obliged. The bikers managed to zoom by at roughly 63.9 decibels, 10 decibels softer than the peak of the party, which is actually quite a feat.

What about the four words which started this fervid piece? It was whilst reading a press release of a survey from Slater & Gordon Lawyers, where two thirds of respondents said they were living by nuisance neighbours, and the overheard frayed heated words that regularly take place in the cheek by jowl cities, we lovingly call home. The following graph is a breakdown of the most pressing neighbourly concerns.

Source: data from Slater & Gordon Lawyers

I should count myself lucky, i only have the first and last ones… although, pets (and humans, if the attached toilet paper was any indication) defecating underneath windows, and footballs being thrown/kicked against windows, might just be included in the second and fourth… dammit!

Not sure when that survey was done except recently. So how have things changed over the years? In 2011, jill insley wrote a piece in the guardians money blog called “Everybody needs good neighbours … but few seem to have them.” The issues reviewed at the time found that three in five people were annoyed by loud voices or arguments, blaring music and tv’s. A quarter were irritated by door slamming. Another quarter by noisy pets. And one in five by hearing their neighbours having sex. Let me see, loud voices - check, door slamming - check, pets - check, neighbours having- god dammit, not again!

The unfettered

If you're one of those rare specimens living in a thoroughly soundproofed environment, where you don't hear the birds cawing at 5.23 am, nor are you startled awake by the sudden weeewwawwww-ing screech of alarms emanating from the plethora of 3.06am lightning-moving emergency vehicles, nor is your daily rhythm suckered by the sound of a crunching car flipping across the road before landing on its roof in a smoking piled ruin, nor are you shaken by the sounds of screaming jet engines scorching a path from the sky towards earth and yet another holding pattern; and you don't need a decent pair of soundproofed headphones – which sadly through over-use give you a case of burn-baby-burn – but which still manage to pump out white-noise during the day, and you certainly don't need earplugs to sleep; have neither aspergers, attention deficit disorder, nor dyslexia; then, maybe, just maybe, home working is indeed for you.

But I digress.

Working from home, if you're not living in a bombed-out wilderness where you've been involuntarily reduced to the level of goat tending: squeezing nannies tits before pulling yarn out of your eye – as you only dream of chomping down on your first mouldy dusty slice of something for breakfast, means that you can forgo the boring daily drudgery that goes by the name of office politics: where mavis' talking about her never-ending periods, and clifford's going over the amazing quadruple back-somersaulting 750m line goal over the weekend, from the left-back (no-one wanted), 5 seconds from the final whistle – for the 50th time that hour. The other office dramas. The commute to the office taking an extra two hours, in your own car, as the emergency services have conveniently forgotten to notify anyone, that a major minor connecting the arterial artery has suffered a catastrophic failure due to a lorry aiming for it's main support; as the driver's slumped asleep after not having slept during the past week, courtesy of receiving a caring email from his employer, offering to terminate his service should he be unable to help with the extra 40 deliveries they've so kindly decided to add to his roster, as they just don't have anyone else available to take up the slack.

Failing that, you could commute via the public transportation network and enjoy the morning miasma: the smell emanating from yourself, and the smells wafting from everyone else, combing to create a miasmic soup pricked with last night's drunken regurgitated stew, and the morning's colonic shower-gel, all liberally over-applied and slowly asphyxiating everyone in the carriage, whilst providing a suitable blueprint for the never-ending march of our very own super-bugs.

There is that need, however, to admit that I am been a bit too harsh. Working from home can be one of the most wonderful and thoroughly enjoyable things you can do. Especially if you have a job, or a paying hobby that you actually enjoy, which you can consummate without the need for constant interaction and hand-holding from your previous office, and desk-bound colleagues.

Then, and only then, can you truly say that you are unfettered. Despite been able to count the 50 pacing steps your neighbours take from room to room over the space of half and hour, before they decide that they can take off their steel capped shoes or high heels, and then wait another ten minutes before starting to do it all over again – for another hour; or you might just find yourself wondering just what obscure invisible object needs to be precisely hammered at 11pm at night, three nights in a row, with untrammelled equanimity.

When daesh are on the door-step, putins finger's hovering, half of global food production is wasted, and climate change means my avocados might actually survive outside their watery bath, that talking about such trivialities could be viewed is naval-gazing at it's worst, but with civilisation falling around our ears, we do really need to cling to those things which can allow us a moment of dizzying reflection and recollection!

Before realising that you're still in the office and reaching for a post-it, as your leaking red pen's now ruined another crumpled shirt.

Neighbours of noise or simply noise averse?

When you briefly experience the wonderful peace and alacrity of quietness (don’t worry i’ll return to form shortly), it’s worth bearing in mind that unless you’re in a retreat - which is bored into the side of a mountain - that peace is just the minute gap before the next oncoming tide of a skyscraper-sized noise tsunami; especially when it involves fillies just out from uni and moving into their first flat together.

Heavy footfalls, high heels, stomping around, lots of ‘mates over’ are now de rigueur.  Which wouldn’t normally be a problem except in those (i.e., this) flat/house conversions, which once had luscious carpet covering the bareness but which greedy landlords ripped out, leaving exposed floorboards that people flock and ‘coo’ over, admiring the fact that they ‘look so pretty’, ignoring what doesn’t lay beneath.

Naturally provisions exist in leases precisely to alleviate this problem (generally), except when the vast majority of people are either unaware the problem their usually simple everyday noise is creating exists, or the issue is not brought to their attention; as opposed to any wilful or malicious intent.

So when you bring it to their attention, verbally and or formally, and the noise continues, you begin to wonder whether there’s more going on than an element of unawareness.  Perhaps it’s simply the case they don’t give a damn and further actions are nothing less than wilful maliciousness. 

A tedious probability?  As iterated to in the title; is it neighbours who are been noisy or am i just been overly sensitive?

Figures indicate that at least 95,000 (after doing a bit of research my previous use of 2 mn appears wildly wide of the uk mark and it should have been covering the  eu) people, have an issue with noise and noisy neighbours, severe and pressing enough that after spending years of battling, grinds them into moving for the sake of their health.  Because as satisfying as fighting your corner is, every now and then there comes a time when you ponder why you’re still bashing your head against a brick wall.  Then as dizziness caused by exsanguination starts to take its toll, you realise the two-steps towards resolution you thought you were making, actually turns out to be you moving backwards, at a rapid rate of knots.  It’s just the flashing change of scenery which has confused you.

I’m one of those stubborn folk – something which happens when you live next to an increasingly noisy venue, and next to a stand with an increasing number of buses utilising the stand without drivers switching off their engines, and now with added noisy neighbour icing; that you either throw your hands in the air, give up and move on, or fiercely dig your heels in (as opposed to down - as the current clippity-clopping neighbours above are prone to do) and say enough really is enough. 

Everything (on paper at least) says this shouldn’t be happening.  So why have other leaseholders simply let things slide?  Because it’s easier than putting up a struggle.  Especially when it seems to be an on-going struggle with seemingly no end in sight. 

Yet, one resident who has dug his heels in over a compactor placed against the party wall (somehow allowed by the council) has managed to have it removed.  Yes, an industrial sized rubbish compactor that members of staff at the venue and its operators took extreme pleasure in assuring caused as much physically noise as possible – bar bashing it into the wall, was placed within touching distance of flats, and neither they nor the council could understand that residents had a problem with it.

When it comes to the care of resident’s hearing and ability to get a decent nights sleep, it seems conservative run boroughs (from the evidence so far) appear to stand miles above labour or liberal run boroughs – which is odd, considering how much we’re constantly bombarded with the message that labour councils are for the people – which i suppose they are, except when it comes to residents managing to obtain a good nights sleep.

Now the problem with many british flats, homes and apartments is that way too many of them were built at a time when it was the genteel thing to generally not carry on unless you lived in the slums - where that sort of behaviour was expected.  Over the years slum areas were destroyed and re-built with better looking but still (by today's sound standards) crummy sound considerations, where anything over and beyond the sound of brushing your teeth’s magnified to a point where simon bates would be using a pile-driver and not a knife.

In today's world, many in the west would like to think we’re remarkably  civilised, yet reality shows the law of the jungle and a dog-eat-dog mentality is in force, well, and flourishing greater than ever.

For those of a mind to know more, noise action week is rapidly approaching.

… and it’s nearly over …

What a busy start to the month this has been, which will no doubt make up for the vast desert expanse of the remainder of the month – unless something else slimes onto the moan-o-meter.

I would have loved to have a gushing report about how, on the last night of merry-making there was no reasonableness and they played louder than ever. 

Actually, for a brief smidgeon of time, it appeared as though they were going to show a semblance and nod to the fact that residents exist.   And until 00:34hrs it seemed to be the case.

Then it hit 00:35hrs and up the levels went.

So I will stick withy my nothing, nada, nought, zilch consideration shown towards resident, shall though call the council but won’t bother asking for anyone to turn up, because by time they do, the volume will be back down again.

Now, where’s my little wheel…

Two noisy, one more to go!

Yes, this is part two of the three nightmares of may.

Just when, up until 23:32hrs, it was looking so promising; sadly, it just wasn’t to be.  How can I describe it? It would be akin to heathrow throwing open a third & fourth runway, both opened especially for the night time with the loudest planes they could find, with all holding patterns full, all landing slots taken and a stream of buses reaching back to the centre of london, with engines revving fit to bust all the away.

So the club could (for a while at least) keep the noise within levels that didn’t have residents tearing their hair out in frustration, the question is why they don’t do so normally, and then why the council isn’t more proactive in finding out why people are so ticked.

Up until 23.32hrs it was tolerable, then it slowly increased to at 00:30hrs now have the pulsating thud, thud, thud, thudding away, like your own private tuning rave in your front cortex, where, strangely, each thudding tune emanating from those speakers is easily recognisable – something which is part of the environmental subjective “is it loud enough, do we really have to do something?” strategy; so either someone’s left and been seen driving away or it’s been saved specifically for after midnight and beyond, and someone has looked at their watch and gone “oops, time to whack it up”.

No, the whole thing really is a nonsense, they obviously have no consideration towards their neighbours; and just in case there’s a bit of doubt - they really don’t care, they (and this is from the evidence of sitting here and experiencing the noise, the vibrations) shows that really, when all is said and done, they have none, nada, zilch, zero consideration unless it’s the front facing face that’s twice facing backwards.

Picky about noise?

As international noise awareness week ends with the screeching start of a three night 3am ending “rave”, does having to wear ear plugs and headphones behind firmly closed double-glazed windows & doors, and still experiencing the thud, thud, thud reverberating through the cranium - classify the noise and frequencies as being too loud and a nuisance?

Or am i just one of those too sensitive and picky souls, and am actually tossing and turning at this very moment; dreaming that i’m living in a twilight borough, where a church can get hauled to court for playing drums too loudly during the day and is viewed as a greater assault  on the strictures of noise pollution than a club playing deep bass thudding tones that keeps its residential neighbours involuntarily bouncing into the early hours of the day?

What’s that? It’s not a dream?  Oh right, its the never-ending nightmare.

Around the world in 80 sleeps

In 80 days time it will be international noise awareness day, for all of you who will weep on this day, i'll be there spiritually weeping alongside you; but, in the meantime i shall be sending out appropriate and timely emails to those entities that have shown as much regard for their neighbours as a dealer selling ingredients fit for inclusion in a victoria sponge claiming it would give you the best high since sliced bread.

The 28th April 2010 is the date, and this is it's 15th year.

I wonder how many cumulative years are spent by people who’s every waking moment is spent just battling against the rush of even more gadgets that you just want to smash, or break or shove wear the sun don't shine — sometimes when thoughts flicker across the idea of how devastating a major planet-wide calamity would be, it's quickly followed by thinking how peaceful it would be on a dead airless extinct planet, yep pretty peaceful. Selfish? Oh yes - remember this falls under that environment thing i mentioned a while back.

So if you're suffering noise of any kind that's a constant irritation: record, log, tabulate, contact your environmental department, get a pair of noise-cancelling headphones (a pair are on their way so i will test them out and see), which might be the thing that briefly helps you retain a scintilla of sanity, leaving you to querulously observe the approaching white van coming to take you away, before you start gibbering incoherently about stabbing speakers with a jug of ionised water.

As much as i doubt the council, the club and the centre for conveyancing (sorry but tfl just doesn't have the c*&?# in it), doing anything other than retort with the usual platitudinous response upon receipt of their emails, always but always give them a chance; if they do and things change, i'll eat my headphones*

Stick it in the diaries, 28th April 2010 — international noise awareness day, otherwise known as turn that bloody racket down day!

* sugar spun headphones contain 80% sugar and constitute 20% of your simple carbohydrate rda.