Noisy Neighbor Saga
I tell no lie: I have one hell of a noisy neighbor whose druggy drunk friends congregate in front of my apartment. It's a little difficult to explain my apartment building's layout, but I'll try: my apartment is the first in a row of apartments that has an open balcony that faces the street; my neighbor's apartment faces the closed side of the balcony. Whereas my window faces the street, his window faces an apartment opposite his. Because of this sad, sad error on the architect's part, my neighbor has set up his own collection of fading canvas lawn furniture, a rusty gas grill, and a rotting wooden coffee table directly in front of my window. This setup allows him and his friends to have a view of the street while they merrily get drunk and high beyond basic comprehension, every single night--no exaggeration here. EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. What's worse than the sight of this eyesore is hearing their awful and annoying conversations, which usually contain long lazy strings of "fuck" or "fucking" and using "shit" as a go-to collective noun of choice. Here's an example:
"I was so fuckin' wasted and shit, that I fuckin' smoked fuckin' three bowls and shit, on top of a fuckin' Xanax, and I was like, 'whoa, dude, I'm so fuckin' wasted and shit,' so I fuckin' took a fuckin' Methodin on top of that shit," etc. etc.
These delightful nuggets of gentlemanly conversation float into my apartment through my front window, which might as well be a mosquito net for all the sound it doesn't block. Sometimes I can barely hear my television when my neighbor's stereo is blasting awful, awful, awful music like Dave Matthews and Widespread Panic, all while they yell to maintain their insightful discussions about "getting wasted and shit."
Every night is the same: between 5 and 6 P.M. my neighbor wakes up--seriously--and comes outside, I'm sure after waking and baking to combat the previous night's (or morning's?) hangover. The music turns on, the friends congregate to discuss all the great "shit" that "went down" at Gilette's last night, and the beer comes out. This lasts until around 10:30 or 11, when they head back to Gilette's. Itsumi and I usually go to bed somewhere between 12:30 and 1. And almost like clockwork, at 2:07 A.M. my neighbor and his friends return after Gilette's has no doubt shoved them out at closing time. And the stereo comes on. And I wake up. And I struggle to go back to sleep through my rage at my neighbor and my stress of not having a job.
I should have put a stop to this when I moved in here last August, but I was cool about it, read: let them run all over me. I figured, "Hey, I used to be in college, and I used to be loud and drunk and inconsiderate on the weekends. Let'em have their fun." But I didn't realize at the time how this would cause a problem on every night and not just on weekends. When I did finally realize this after about 2 weeks of living here, I went to my frequent strategy in these types of situations: kill'em with kindness. I sat outside with them one night to meet all of them and try to endure their conversations, all in the hopes that they would think I'm a cool guy who deserves the common courtesy of having a quiet evening with his wife. Every time I had to weave through their chairs just to walk out of my front door, I would smile sheepishly and say, "Hey guys, what's up?" to which they rarely replied. I can be superhumanly patient and laid back when I put my mind to it, and I was determined to make them feel sorry for me because I was so laid back; I know, it makes no sense at all, but that's how I thought.
It all came to an ugly head one night last fall during football season when my mom and dad and several of my friends came down for a game. After the game, most of us were inside my apartment except for a few people outside along with my neighbor, who was oddly by himself, stumbling around drunk in a dingy stained white t-shirt and yelling incoherently at the street. My friends ignored him until he mindlessly threw a half-full can of Red Bull out into the parking lot, where it struck my dad's Tahoe on the back door.
My dad's even more laid back than I am in most situations, but not when it involves his car. I've heard stories of him flagging over cars and semi-trucks after they cut him off, and walking out into the pouring rain with a crowbar clutched in his hands, like a serial killer or Jack Nicholson in The Shining. When Dhaman came back in my apartment to tell my dad what had just happened, I saw my dad's face go blank in rage. He calmly walked outside to give some choice words to my neighbor. When my dad calmly walked back into my apartment, I walked outside praying that I wouldn't find a bloody fat carcass on my balcony. Luckily, I didn't find that, but I did find my neighbor, tears streaming down his face and apologizing profusely to me for "disrespecting my father." I told him it was okay, and he sadly sauntered back into his apartment. A few minutes later, he walked back out and I heard someone tell me to get a bandage: "you're neighbor's bleeding," he said. My neighbor had sliced open his thumb while apparently trying to cut a slice of lime for a shot of tequila. I looked at his thumb, and I swear, I didn't see red blood; he was bleeding what looked like clear water. He had so much alcohol in his blood that he was literally bleeding alcohol. My frustration with him turned into sympathy. He's an alcoholic who was having a bad night. I told my dad to apologize to him, and he did, and for a while, the loud stereo and obnoxious conversations outside my window stopped, though the furniture and empty beer cans and bottles remained.
But this newfound quiet didn't last. The loud music started up again a few weeks later, and my dad returned one night during late fall. He was sleeping on the couch when my neighbor and his friends came home around 4 A.M. and turned his stereo on full blast. All my dad had to do was stick his head out of the door and glare at them. One of my neighbor's guests, terrified at my dad's icy stare, yelled,"Dude! Turn the music down!"
Unfortunately, I'm not as intimidating as my dad. I'm a pale skinny weakling, and I mistakenly didn't set a precedence of standing up for myself when I first moved in. And the music and loud conversations have returned with a vengeance. I can't tell if it's worse than before, or if I'm just at the end of my rock hard patience because of the stress I've had lately. At exactly 3:37 A.M. this morning, I woke up to the booming bass and excessive guitar noodling of some horrible jam band and decided I had had it. I marched outside to find some guy trying to make out with a redheaded girl in a slinky black dress sitting right outside my window.
"Hey guys, is [neighbor] around?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Can you tell him to turn his music down?"
"Sure."
And the music was turned down, and Itsumi and I went back to sleep. I wish I had a gun or something and the confrontation had been much more violent and eventful, but I'm making baby steps here: I'm slowly growing a pair of balls.
"I was so fuckin' wasted and shit, that I fuckin' smoked fuckin' three bowls and shit, on top of a fuckin' Xanax, and I was like, 'whoa, dude, I'm so fuckin' wasted and shit,' so I fuckin' took a fuckin' Methodin on top of that shit," etc. etc.
These delightful nuggets of gentlemanly conversation float into my apartment through my front window, which might as well be a mosquito net for all the sound it doesn't block. Sometimes I can barely hear my television when my neighbor's stereo is blasting awful, awful, awful music like Dave Matthews and Widespread Panic, all while they yell to maintain their insightful discussions about "getting wasted and shit."
Every night is the same: between 5 and 6 P.M. my neighbor wakes up--seriously--and comes outside, I'm sure after waking and baking to combat the previous night's (or morning's?) hangover. The music turns on, the friends congregate to discuss all the great "shit" that "went down" at Gilette's last night, and the beer comes out. This lasts until around 10:30 or 11, when they head back to Gilette's. Itsumi and I usually go to bed somewhere between 12:30 and 1. And almost like clockwork, at 2:07 A.M. my neighbor and his friends return after Gilette's has no doubt shoved them out at closing time. And the stereo comes on. And I wake up. And I struggle to go back to sleep through my rage at my neighbor and my stress of not having a job.
I should have put a stop to this when I moved in here last August, but I was cool about it, read: let them run all over me. I figured, "Hey, I used to be in college, and I used to be loud and drunk and inconsiderate on the weekends. Let'em have their fun." But I didn't realize at the time how this would cause a problem on every night and not just on weekends. When I did finally realize this after about 2 weeks of living here, I went to my frequent strategy in these types of situations: kill'em with kindness. I sat outside with them one night to meet all of them and try to endure their conversations, all in the hopes that they would think I'm a cool guy who deserves the common courtesy of having a quiet evening with his wife. Every time I had to weave through their chairs just to walk out of my front door, I would smile sheepishly and say, "Hey guys, what's up?" to which they rarely replied. I can be superhumanly patient and laid back when I put my mind to it, and I was determined to make them feel sorry for me because I was so laid back; I know, it makes no sense at all, but that's how I thought.
It all came to an ugly head one night last fall during football season when my mom and dad and several of my friends came down for a game. After the game, most of us were inside my apartment except for a few people outside along with my neighbor, who was oddly by himself, stumbling around drunk in a dingy stained white t-shirt and yelling incoherently at the street. My friends ignored him until he mindlessly threw a half-full can of Red Bull out into the parking lot, where it struck my dad's Tahoe on the back door.
My dad's even more laid back than I am in most situations, but not when it involves his car. I've heard stories of him flagging over cars and semi-trucks after they cut him off, and walking out into the pouring rain with a crowbar clutched in his hands, like a serial killer or Jack Nicholson in The Shining. When Dhaman came back in my apartment to tell my dad what had just happened, I saw my dad's face go blank in rage. He calmly walked outside to give some choice words to my neighbor. When my dad calmly walked back into my apartment, I walked outside praying that I wouldn't find a bloody fat carcass on my balcony. Luckily, I didn't find that, but I did find my neighbor, tears streaming down his face and apologizing profusely to me for "disrespecting my father." I told him it was okay, and he sadly sauntered back into his apartment. A few minutes later, he walked back out and I heard someone tell me to get a bandage: "you're neighbor's bleeding," he said. My neighbor had sliced open his thumb while apparently trying to cut a slice of lime for a shot of tequila. I looked at his thumb, and I swear, I didn't see red blood; he was bleeding what looked like clear water. He had so much alcohol in his blood that he was literally bleeding alcohol. My frustration with him turned into sympathy. He's an alcoholic who was having a bad night. I told my dad to apologize to him, and he did, and for a while, the loud stereo and obnoxious conversations outside my window stopped, though the furniture and empty beer cans and bottles remained.
But this newfound quiet didn't last. The loud music started up again a few weeks later, and my dad returned one night during late fall. He was sleeping on the couch when my neighbor and his friends came home around 4 A.M. and turned his stereo on full blast. All my dad had to do was stick his head out of the door and glare at them. One of my neighbor's guests, terrified at my dad's icy stare, yelled,"Dude! Turn the music down!"
Unfortunately, I'm not as intimidating as my dad. I'm a pale skinny weakling, and I mistakenly didn't set a precedence of standing up for myself when I first moved in. And the music and loud conversations have returned with a vengeance. I can't tell if it's worse than before, or if I'm just at the end of my rock hard patience because of the stress I've had lately. At exactly 3:37 A.M. this morning, I woke up to the booming bass and excessive guitar noodling of some horrible jam band and decided I had had it. I marched outside to find some guy trying to make out with a redheaded girl in a slinky black dress sitting right outside my window.
"Hey guys, is [neighbor] around?"
"Yeah, I think so."
"Can you tell him to turn his music down?"
"Sure."
And the music was turned down, and Itsumi and I went back to sleep. I wish I had a gun or something and the confrontation had been much more violent and eventful, but I'm making baby steps here: I'm slowly growing a pair of balls.