Daily Mail-esque rant
So it's come to this - a blog in which I complain about my noisy neighbours.
I've lived in my current flat for two and a bit years now, and I can't remember another period in my life (even living in student halls and villages) during which I've been woken up during the night and generally been perturbed by noise as much as these last few months.
I'm not under any illusions that my little street in Palmers Green is particularly classy. It's also the summer, and the place is like a greenhouse, so the wide-open windows do inevitably increase external noise levels. But nevertheless, it seems that amongst the newer crop of residents in these blocks there are an awful lot of selfish, shouty bastards.
The standard disturbances are people coming home from a late night out. Sometimes this involves cars waiting around with the engine on, sometimes it's just the too-loud sound of intoxicated speech. (I should add that I'm on an off-street cul-de-sac, which can act as an effective echo chamber.) This is irritating, but tends to be fleeting. Less forgiveable were the family coming home after midnight last week, the kids running around for what seemed like several minutes as the parents gathered stuff from the car. Seriously, what are your kids doing up so late?
I've also been awoken a couple of times by slanging matches - tending to involve a woman (int. flat) telling a guy (ext. building) in no uncertain terms and at full volume just how much of a no-good waster he is. He of course, rather than cutting his losses and leaving the scary harpie-lady to it, or resuming this discussion at a reasonable hour, proceeds to argue the toss and wake up every fucker in the street.
These disturbances eventually subside, without any police involvement as far as I know. I'm certainly too scared and/or lazy to call the cops out, and so it seems is everyone else. The one time I did directly attempt to combat noise pollution was one Sunday morning. Two friends and I had got back late ourselves and then stayed up even later to decompress - with me valiantly keeping the iPod dock volume at a considerate level despite my friend's best efforts. Cue two blokes returning at 5am and proceeding to stand outside the front door of our block (presumably smoking as this has become an unofficial Smokers' Corner) and TALK INCREDIBLY LOUDLY about - as far as I could tell in my semi-conscious state - London's public transport infrastructure, for fuck's sake.
The main culprit showed no signs of slowing down after 5 mins worth of wittering, and I finally summoned enough courage to politely shout at them to keep the noise down as people were trying to sleep. The guy huffed indignantly, as if I was in the wrong for being a jobsworth and not him for yakking away really loudly outside a residential building at 5 o'clock in the cocking morning. This guy clearly wasn't stupid or common either, which made his twattery even worse.
NB just to reassure you that I haven't gone completely Daily Mail, I should point out that most of the characters above are British so this is not a case of foreigners coming over here and despoiling our green and pleasant land. I'm an equal-opportunities grump and these people seem to come from various backgrounds and walks of life. They're all just incredibly inconsiderate.
However, I'm aware of the funny little tricks the memory plays. I think it's possible there was always this level of noise here and I was so happy to be out of the smoke-splattered shell of my previous flat that I didn't notice. There have certainly been as many problems with this flat (broken washing machine, broken boiler, broken blinds) as in any of my previous abodes, but because the positives outweigh the negatives and because I'm in a relatively happy place overall in my life these now seem relatively minor.
Now I think about it, there was an incident last year where someone had driven a car that was ON FIRE into the Close, and more specifically into a wall surrounding some bins, a charred shrub in its wake. It was a depressing, there-goes-the-neighbourhood kind of sight the next morning - but the key fact here was that the windows were closed and I somehow managed to sleep through it. It's surprising how much you can tolerate as long as it doesn't directly inconvenience you in any way. Even the Daily Mail. Mostly.
I've lived in my current flat for two and a bit years now, and I can't remember another period in my life (even living in student halls and villages) during which I've been woken up during the night and generally been perturbed by noise as much as these last few months.
I'm not under any illusions that my little street in Palmers Green is particularly classy. It's also the summer, and the place is like a greenhouse, so the wide-open windows do inevitably increase external noise levels. But nevertheless, it seems that amongst the newer crop of residents in these blocks there are an awful lot of selfish, shouty bastards.
The standard disturbances are people coming home from a late night out. Sometimes this involves cars waiting around with the engine on, sometimes it's just the too-loud sound of intoxicated speech. (I should add that I'm on an off-street cul-de-sac, which can act as an effective echo chamber.) This is irritating, but tends to be fleeting. Less forgiveable were the family coming home after midnight last week, the kids running around for what seemed like several minutes as the parents gathered stuff from the car. Seriously, what are your kids doing up so late?
I've also been awoken a couple of times by slanging matches - tending to involve a woman (int. flat) telling a guy (ext. building) in no uncertain terms and at full volume just how much of a no-good waster he is. He of course, rather than cutting his losses and leaving the scary harpie-lady to it, or resuming this discussion at a reasonable hour, proceeds to argue the toss and wake up every fucker in the street.
These disturbances eventually subside, without any police involvement as far as I know. I'm certainly too scared and/or lazy to call the cops out, and so it seems is everyone else. The one time I did directly attempt to combat noise pollution was one Sunday morning. Two friends and I had got back late ourselves and then stayed up even later to decompress - with me valiantly keeping the iPod dock volume at a considerate level despite my friend's best efforts. Cue two blokes returning at 5am and proceeding to stand outside the front door of our block (presumably smoking as this has become an unofficial Smokers' Corner) and TALK INCREDIBLY LOUDLY about - as far as I could tell in my semi-conscious state - London's public transport infrastructure, for fuck's sake.
The main culprit showed no signs of slowing down after 5 mins worth of wittering, and I finally summoned enough courage to politely shout at them to keep the noise down as people were trying to sleep. The guy huffed indignantly, as if I was in the wrong for being a jobsworth and not him for yakking away really loudly outside a residential building at 5 o'clock in the cocking morning. This guy clearly wasn't stupid or common either, which made his twattery even worse.
NB just to reassure you that I haven't gone completely Daily Mail, I should point out that most of the characters above are British so this is not a case of foreigners coming over here and despoiling our green and pleasant land. I'm an equal-opportunities grump and these people seem to come from various backgrounds and walks of life. They're all just incredibly inconsiderate.
However, I'm aware of the funny little tricks the memory plays. I think it's possible there was always this level of noise here and I was so happy to be out of the smoke-splattered shell of my previous flat that I didn't notice. There have certainly been as many problems with this flat (broken washing machine, broken boiler, broken blinds) as in any of my previous abodes, but because the positives outweigh the negatives and because I'm in a relatively happy place overall in my life these now seem relatively minor.
Now I think about it, there was an incident last year where someone had driven a car that was ON FIRE into the Close, and more specifically into a wall surrounding some bins, a charred shrub in its wake. It was a depressing, there-goes-the-neighbourhood kind of sight the next morning - but the key fact here was that the windows were closed and I somehow managed to sleep through it. It's surprising how much you can tolerate as long as it doesn't directly inconvenience you in any way. Even the Daily Mail. Mostly.
Comments