Blessed Silence

As some might recall me mentioning before, back in spring/summer I was having problems with being frequently disturbed by a neighbour's noisy bird.  

It started last winter but kept getting worse, and during summer became even more annoying, as then the neighbour also kept their balcony door open most of the day.  

I kept thinking of complaining to our housing company's office; but I hate conflicts, and could not really think of a "solution" other than the neighbour getting rid of the bird altogheter, which I wasn't sure was something I could demand.

It was also more about being frequently disturbed, rather than each session always lasting very long. (But that one would never know until afterwards!) Was I to try to report an ongoing disturbance by phone, it was likely to stop (pause) before I managed to get through to anyone. And in the nighttime I did not hear it. (I imagine the owner throwing a blanket over its cage in the evenings and until next morning.)

Summer came, and with it the usual period of noise from big birds outdoors: seagulls, crows and magpies fighting each other over food, and anxious to protect their own young offspring. And with that background noise added, it seemed even harder to "plead my case" about the single pet bird next door (even if to my ears, that was still much worse!).

In July, neighbour + animals (there's also a dog) went away for three weeks or so. Blessed silence reigned for a while in their absence - and my nerves calmed down... But at the same time, that also made me realise how much the frequent daily screeches from that bird had really come to affect me!

Sounds of silence

... And as soon as they were back from their holiday, it all started again. 

After my own mini holiday in August, I decided to keep daily notes for a while (time of day, for how long, frequence etc); and after a couple of weeks of that, I did try to sum up my complaints in an email to the landlord's office.

After a week or so I got a reply back that they had talked to my neighbour. (Their general policy is discretion towards both parties, so no details about what was said.) I did not really expect any sudden major change... But after that, it did actually seem like the owner was probably at least trying not to encourage the bird to chatter away as much as before.

 

However: Since the beginning of October I haven't heard a single chirp. And as there have still been sounds/signs of normal human activity, I'm actually beginning to think (fingers crossed!) that a new home must have been found for the bird - somewhere else entirely. (Hopefully permanently, and with someone living in a house of their own this time...)

Blessed Silence

All illustrations in this post created with the help of Microsoft Bing Image Creator.

A Noisy Day

After a quiet Easter weekend, this morning I was awakened early by a lot of banging outside. I still felt tired though, and as I knew the noise had legitimate cause (roof work on the building), I stayed in bed, turning the radio on. Somehow I must have fallen back to sleep (slumber) again, because next time I woke up (which I wouldn't have done if I'd stayed awake!), it was from a rather chaotic dream of being in a war zone... No need for advanced interpretation of why - with the war in Ukraine constantly on the news, the last book I read being about WWII, and now this going on outside my windows:

They've spent today stripping the roof of the old tiles, throwing those in a 'small' (well...) metal container up on the roof, which was then maneuvered down from there by a huge crane outside my windows, and (noisily) emptied into HUGE metal containers on the ground... They filled at least two such huge containers today.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the building, they were putting up some more scaffolding (involving other banging and drilling noises).  

It's been a lovely spring day outside, but what with that crane swinging heavy containers in the air outside our entrance most of the day, I ended up not going out until they had stopped... (No doubt they would have "let me out" safely - but since I had no special plans anyway, I just found it better to wait!)

I got some vacuuming done - trying to cancel out one kind of noise with another. I also cleaned my winter boots (I have several pairs, high and low and with different kinds of soles) and took most of those down to the basement storage room. (Hoping we won't have more snow now - even if one never really knows!) Then I ended up watching TV most of the afternoon until 4 p.m. And then I went out for my walk... 

For once, I think I'm quite happy with 'daylight saving time' this spring after all. ;)

Remains to be seen what tomorrow will be like. The degree of noise (and mess) is likely to vary quite a lot depending on what they're up to at the moment - it's just a bit hard to predict from day to day, especially since they're working on more than one building simultaneously.

Never Assume

Recently (in a post entitled Silence is Golden) I sighed a little over noisy neighbours. Disturbances in the form of loud music seem to have been increasing lately, and become both louder and more long-lasting. It’s not easy to determine exactly where it’s coming from, though. Straight above, or one of the flats in the next (wall-to-wall) entrance? Lately I have been leaning towards the flat upstairs; as silence sometimes seemed to coincide with one of its inhabitants leaving the building.

Today was another Noisy Day – loud music starting already at 9 a.m., which is unusually early. It was like waking up into a nightmare rather than out of one.

Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) - Alice in Wonderland
“At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her.”

It kept me on edge (not quite non-stop, but more on than off) past lunchtime. After lunch I went out. When I got back an hour or so later all was quiet – for about ten minutes. Then it started again.

I finally decided enough was enough; if it was coming from upstairs, I had to ask them if they had any idea how much the music actually penetrates through the walls to the neighbours. (I’ve been hesitant to ask before, for various reasons. For one thing, I don’t like to go visiting in my dressing-gown when not sure who will be answering the door.)

As you may already have guessed from the title, it turned out that the noise-maker today was not the neighbour upstairs.  Probably not most of the other times either. It pretty much stood clear as soon as she opened the door, that this neighbour was having the same problem as I. So instead of an argument, I ended up having a cup of tea and a chat in her kitchen, getting to know each other a little bit. And so at least something good came out of the day, even if the noise continued for several hours more. (Just now it’s quiet; although I’m not sure I dare write that, fearing a jinx!)

One of the things I learned (besides Never to Assume) was that besides a son (my former prime suspect), there is also a teen daughter in the household. How I can have been missing that fact for years is beyond me. But it does provide an alternative explanation to the clusters of young girls sometimes clattering up and down the stairs…