To the woman downstairs, in reply to your note asking us to clean up the stairs

[devi]

It occurs to me that, though we live separated by a single thin floor, I and my housemates know very little about you. You know quite a bit about us, since the day soon after we moved in when you appeared with a checklist of questions - “have they always lived together?”, “who is their estate agent?”, “how long do they plan to stay?”, “what do they all do for a living?” and many more - and worked your way through them, ticking them off carefully as you went. But there’s an imbalance here - you’re still a mystery, and in the spirit of neighbourliness we’d like to ask a few questions of you.

- Do you ever have a conversation with anyone which isn’t made up of complaining?

- Aside from noise, building insurance, dust, being extremely punctual at all times and putting notes under your neighbours’ doors, what are you passionate about?

- When you’re drifting off to sleep at ten o’clock in your little narrow bed, what thoughts pass through your mind - that is, apart from rage at us because we’re walking around and watching TV? You’ve already told us about that.

- When we moved in, how many nights of sleep did you lose over the one-inch scratch our bookcase made on the beautiful 1970s woodchip wallpaper?

- Will you ever forgive the man who let his bath overflow through your ceiling eight years ago?

- How long has it been since you felt joy?

- Do you remember what the word means? Take your time.

- If you’ve remembered, and you’d like to tell us about your last truly joyful moment, could you try to make it one which didn’t involve earplugs, scouring pads, Dysons or Windolene?

No? Oh well.

Kind regards,
Your neighbours in Flat D.

Comments

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Well said.

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

Are you a member of dot_cattiness? If not, it's crying out for your input....

[lostcarpark.livejournal.com]

Well at least you can take some positive from it... she'll make a great character in one of your novels. You might have to cheer her up a little to make her believable.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I was thinking that. Maybe I should give her a wild secret life as a dominatrix or something. A cleaning dominatrix. "Scrub, scum, scrub!" "Yes, Mistress."

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Eeee, nifty idea :)

[kesstrel.livejournal.com]

*rolls over and bangs on floor while simultaneously trying to wipe tears of hysteria from cheeks*

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Bang on the floor while you can, honey. Though I'm sure whoever eventually moves in under you will be far more chilled...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I did think of you when I wrote that, but the Woman Downstairs is in a completely different league of noise-and disruption-sensitive. I mean, she has told us off three separate times about one incident of kauket putting her shoes on the floor too loudly. And the one time we had a party, we left her a nice note to warn her and everything was quiet by 2.

Johnny Cash in the wee hours, now *that's* weird...

[kauket.livejournal.com]

Whilst it's all true, she did (unfortunately) have a point about the rat food on the floor.....

But I wonder when she put the note there??? Late last night? Or before 7:45 this morning. Maybe the bits of dry food kept her awake all night and so she got up extra early to compose the note...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Oh, granted, and I've swept it all up now, but it's still striking how 100% of the communication we've had from her has been complaints. That time she met me at the bus stop, I had 15 solid minutes of her whining till we got to Bounds Green tube.

Well, except for the checklist interrogation, and that doesn't count because it's so fucking creepy.

[kauket.livejournal.com]

I know. She does just seem to complain - although she only does it about once a month.

Incidently, I heard loads of noise at about 12:30 last night, I assume it was her.....
Maybe I should complain.

I understand she is probably house proud, yada yada yada, but if she chooses to own a flat, in a house with several flats AND doesn't investigate the way noise travels, then fuck her.

She can only make requests of us up to a certain point and I think we are incredibly reasonable most of the time - we've had one proper party, and a few loud late weekend nights, which are normally done by 2am at the latest. We pay the bills, unlike the previous people who would've had the bailiffs round, we don't leave the bath overflowing.

But nor do we shampoo the carpet on the stairs because WE HAVE BETTER THINGS TO DO WITH OUR LIVES.

Oh god. Ok Right. Stopping now.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

My neighbour has stopped sticking notes up on the walls and doors. But she'll start again when her ankle's fixed.

So I only have to put up with her prattling at me...

[eponymousarchon.livejournal.com]

That's roughly my take on obsessive 'noise'-hating neighbours too.

Still, look on the bright side, I think I managed to give mine a heart failure by ignoring him. ;)

[eponymousarchon.livejournal.com]

On another note, as you implied above, these people DO live in the world they deserve. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. And worse, that kind of worldview is self-reinforcing.

Hey! If you set verlaine onto her to wear down her worldview, you might be able to induce complete ego loss. Result!

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

I hope you've sent that to her.

I'd also work out how much annoyance you can legally cause the woman, then cause her that much annoyance on a daily basis.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Her Majesty's courts take a dim view of such legalistic gamesmanship, I imagine.

[clarisinda.livejournal.com]

No they don't. Noisewise you seem to be able to make as much noise as you like, pissing off as many of your neighbours as you can, and there is little that can be done about it. The police no longer have any power to do anything about it, and if you contact your local council you will be lucky if they send a letter to them telling them to keep the noise down a bit. The chances of anyone getting as far as a court due to noise disruption is tiny - you'd have to be doing something *seriously* stupid.

I'm just pissed off because I am sick to the back teeth of our next door neighbours playing loud music in their garden every weekend when there is nice weather. It is seriously starting to piss me off to the point that I start getting hysterical after a couple of hours of it. We've politely asked them to turn it down, I've called the police, I've tried calling the local council. But if it happens again next weekend I'm simply going to do my nut at them. I can understand why people snap and stab their neighbours now - and they don't even play it late at night!

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

I sympathise... and as I said to inannajones further up, I don't think we make anything like that much noise. Because of the way the place is built, just going about our daily lives in the flat seems to make enough noise to annoy her.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_kent/]

Her Majesty and her courts can take a dim view of whatever they like, so long as what you're doing isn't actually illegal. Her Majesty and her courts have opinions about entirely too many things these days.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Consider it printed out and placed under the lady's door!

[kasku.livejournal.com]

Ooh! This is what I was looking for! Did you really give her a copy? I really think she ought to get one if not!

I often feel quite guilty being the moany bitch neighbour from downstairs, but then again, if ever I *have* had to bang on the ceiling because it's 1am on a weeknight and they're dancing to folk music, I always take them a jar of homemade jam in the morning or give them some home grown strawberries or something.

She sounds like a right old cow.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Urghh, she sounds like a right miserable such and such.

Still you're about to give her the gift of your absence, I hope. Look forward to seeing you and verlaine this weekend...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

And I you. Actually, I wanted to give your mum a shout to let her know when Matt and I are coming down, but I seem to have mislaid her number :/ If you could text it to me I'd be much obliged.

[inskauldrak.livejournal.com]

Yeuch!

The thing is, if she's like that, it may be because of a mixture of bad experiences (for instance, how did bath-flood-bloke respond to flooding her) and loneliness.

That said, given you lot are nice people, it does seem a bit off (to say the least) that she's so on edge at you.

But on the other hand... if she's only capable of communicating via letters under your door, there's clearly something deep down that's making her afraid; not of you lot in particular, but of actual confrontation or deconstruction of her own little world-view.

By the way, I remember hearing a comment about Joyce that went that good writing doesn't need punctuation or at least very little. I tend to use far too much and have actually descended into over-use of brackets
- can you and verlaine help? ; )

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

given you lot are nice people, it does seem a bit off (to say the least) that she's so on edge at you

Thing is, she's been like that since before she even saw us - the first communication we ever had from her was just after moving in, when I left a note saying 'we've left this bookcase in the hall for a few hours while we decide whether or not to chuck it, sorry for the inconvenience' and she replied 'don't slam the door, and don't scratch the walls'.

It did have a little smiley face on it, which looked rather intimidated by the rest of the note.

But yes, I do suspect she's very lonely.