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]

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.