Rubberband Man
Joelle said at some point on August 1, 2008
One day last week, sitting at thwack! my desk in the late afternoon, I heard a loud, rhythmic thwack! that initially didn’t bother me, as I figured it would stop in a minute. thwack! But, after about 15 minutes of this, I started to get a thwack! headache. Annoying isn’t it? That was only a couple sentences.
The sound was kind of hollow, like bouncing those big red cherry balls on pavement. At first I thought it was just that, but after a few thwacks! I noticed the sound was much deeper and resonant. And it happened too steadily to be kids playing. I figured it had to be someone doing some kind of construction or hammering and hoped it would go away.
After 35 minutes, I couldn’t take it anymore and went outside to investigate. My apartment is built into a hillside, so the neighbors to my left sit higher up on the hill than my building does. There’s a walkway that runs alongside my building that has cars in their lot parked at my head-level, if that makes any sense. So, I walked around the side of the building to peer into their parking lot to see what the hell was going on over there.
I found a guy swinging a giant mallet at a tire lying on the ground. Over and over. And over. I assume this was for fitness, since he was sweating buckets and I couldn’t find any evidence of any other reason. I don’t mind that this guy was working out, but come on… like he couldn’t tell how loud that was?
I called over to him when he took a breath. “Excuse me! Hi! I was wondering how much longer you might be doing that?”
He said, “I’m done.” And I said, “Ok, thanks! That sound really bounces right off the side of my living room, like you were hammering at the Hollywood Bowl. Seems like a good workout, though!”
Then I did the “OK, bye, thanks, mumblemumble, blah blah...” as I walked away. Cool, I figured that he might have not realized that people were home during that time of day (though, it was 5 o’clock) or not understood that due to the structure of the buildings against the hillside, it’s like a makeshift amphitheater whenever people make noise outside. No biggie.
I kid you not, he started again yesterday. What the hell, buddy? Clearly, he didn’t get the hint. Look, do your workout. I am totally cool with that, but drag your raggedy ass tire out to a field somewhere and beat it, would you? Give a girl a break! Between him and the Weekend Warrior and the Humpfest Royale upstairs, it’s like Lollapalooza up in here. *raises the roof* Etcetera.
Where has common courtesy gone? I don’t crank up my music. I don’t rev my car. I don’t play the electric guitar during prime time. I shut off my car alarm if it goes off. I don’t slam the dumpster lid. I don’t leave my clothes in the washer indefinitely. I don’t have parrots that caw like it’s effin’ Costa Rica at 6am on a Saturday morning. And I certainly don’t bang a tire in the parking lot after my neighbor has sweetly indicated that it’s bothersome. Nay… nay, I say!
Seriously. People are thwack!
Moxie Design Studios™
I live in an extremely noisy neighborhood too. Car alarms are always going off; small engine planes flying over head; the family of 12 living across the street, none of whom have jobs and all of whom scream, crank their car stereos and you get the idea; and I’m just sitting here like a church mouse trying to work.
I have often wondered if I should invest in something that I can wear over my ears that blocks out all the noise. I’d probably triple my salary.
After spending the last 4 years living in an apartment, I’ve come to the conclusion that common courtesy is extinct. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with that stuff any more! Now I just get to pay for leaking walls instead :\
from San Diego, CA • Cocktail: slightly dirty Grey Goose martini
What’s funny is I overlooked the harbor and the San Diego International Airport. I got used to the planes… it’s something you do when you live in San Diego. It’s all this infernal other noise… moronic noise. lol.
Common courtesy is extinct. The other day I was doing laundry and I happened to head back to the laundry room about 15 minutes into the wash, and found a neighbor taking my laundry out of the washing machine in the middle of the cycle! I was too stunned to really lose it.
from Phoenix
Maybe he is hoping you will come back out and talk?
Ha my captcha was “arms”.
I own a townhouse that is in what was once an aparment complex back in the ‘60s, and for about 6 months I used to wakeup every morning to my neighbor’s alarm clock beeping. He would hit snooze and 7 minutes later it would go off again, and so on about 5 times. Really infuritating.
from Boston, MA
First time commenter here… I agree common courtesy is extinct. This happened to me on Saturday morning. Neighbors diagonally across the street, who moved in maybe a month ago, consist of a family of 6, 7 or 10 people (it’s hard to tell), and the youngest is the loudest. I was up early getting ready for a haircut appointment (thank God!) and I could hear a kid babbling through an open window. The babbling abruptly turned into screaming. It was the youngest of the “there are no boundaries” family outside on the sidewalk in front of MY house. The older sister was on the sidewalk looking inside the car of another neighbor and leaning against it before she started picking flowers from MY yard to put in her grandmother’s hair, who was sitting on MY brick wall!! They didn’t flinch when I left to go get my haircut. I was glad to have an early hair appointment instead of electing to sleep in that day.
from Home :-)
OMG I am soooo sorry but this post made me laaaaugh. What a fricken psycho!!! Maybe you should start exercising your finger and dial the police for noise disturbance.