Monday 12 February 2007

Getting old?

I think I'm getting old. I remember the days when I used to get home and whack up the volume on the stereo. If I had the TV on it was at a loud volume. (Admittedly a lot of this probably arose from when I was still living with my parents and had to battle with my dad's stereo noise. He's deaf in one ear and had his speakers almost directly under my bedroom floor!)

Since moving into my flat I've been a lot more aware of disturbing the neighbours and now tend to have the TV on at a low volume, and very rarely use the stereo without headphones as I have no way of reducing the bass.

The flat above me was owned by a lovely girl when I first moved in. She was a perfect neighbour. Unfortunately, a few years back she moved back to Scotland. Since then I've had a few changes of neighbours as the girl who bought it rents it out. I now dread new neighbours, I've had some battles in the past where after telling one guy that I didn't mind loud music sometimes, the constant bass throbbing through the ceiling was a bit tough. He just smiled at me and ignored it. I then lost it and started retaliating by staying up late with my stereo at full blast with high bass tracks playing in one room while I shut the door on it and went in the other room. It didn't work, we just ended up hating each other and nothing was ever resolved. In fact it ended up with them chucking stuff out of their windows trying to target my cats. I did complain to their landlady who told me they were moving out that week. Phew!

Anyway, things haven't been too bad since then, but I've now got a new couple upstairs. All seemed well at first, but now, every now and again I get home in the evening, switch on my PC to nose through peoples blogs, have the TV on low, then it starts. The constant bang bang bang of the bass. It started when I got in tonight, about 6:45 and has been going on since. My TV has got louder and louder trying to drown it out, but I don't like loud TV anymore.

I'm contemplating saying something to them, but don't want to end up with another running battle. Hmmn, maybe I'll just leave it, don't want them to think I'm a whingy old cow!


Edited 22:54 - Sorry, a bit of a whinge there, the second in not too long, and this was meant to be where I sorted out my old photo collection, not somewhere to moan.

Edited 00:17 - They really clump around slamming doors and chucking things on the floor as well...

5 comments:

enidd said...

grrr, enid knows exactly how you feel. had the same sort of flat-based neighbours in london once.

Brooke - Little Miss Moi said...

Dear tinks. I have no suggestion. The only time I tried to wrangle with my upstairs neighbour, she happened to be my landlord. She was 90 and used to look in our windows like a ghost. One day, she thought she might wake up Mr Moi and me at 8am on a Sunday morning. She put her arm through the window, yanked up the blinds and woke us up. We got cranky but didn't move out because the rent was cheap, it was near our workplaces, and her son packed her off to France to live with his sister.

Perhaps you can pack your neighbours off to France to live with someone's sister?

Sunshine's African Kids said...

Whinge away, Tinks, at least if it helps reduce your stress level. I wish there was something constructive I could say or do. Happy to have you put a link on your Blog - the more who read mine the happier I will be!

tinks said...

Thanks enid - feeling better about it all night, have escaped from the flat a bit more than normal recently!

little miss moi - that would have scared the life out of me! If I have my windows open they are the double glazing ones that you can lock at just cracked open - hopefully nobody will stick their arm through that. I suspect the neighbours up their will change again soon enough, none of them seem to stay more than a few months. Oooh, maybe I'm a bad neighbour!!

Sunshine, thanks for visiting! I think that your blog is telling an excellent story. This is just a collection of bits of things I like to remember. I felt I really had to do something though after suggesting blogger to you.

tinks said...

Aaarrrgh - I can't edit my comment and I've done one of those typos I hate! It's in my reply to little miss moi - up there not their.