The Neighbour from Hell:
The poet, Robert Frost, makes fun of neighbours keeping to themselves in ‘Mending Wall.’ But he lived on a farm and so could remove himself far away from any disturbances emanating from the neighbouring gramophone. Not so, the unfortunate urban neighbour who must suffer a life punctuated by the ebb and flow of the base and treble of digital techno beats.
Now ‘beat’ is an interesting term: one pretty much feels abused by the ‘utsz-utsz’ of what is occasionally referred to as ‘modern music’ invading one’s every thought. I play my Andrea Boccelli fairly loudly I admit, but when I have to listen to the ‘remix’ version of ‘Sogno’ with a heavy pulse in the background, I draw the line.
Now far be it from me to pretend that we are not a noisy household. I have what my mother euphemistically referred to as a ‘carrying voice’ and my offspring are not retiring types either. In fact between the piano , giggling Gerties, the death throes of people on an assortment of Playstation games or the gamers’ swearing because ‘FIFA is cheating again’ and raucous laughter, we do our bit to produce noise pollution. Nothing like our neighbour though.
And ‘good fences’ don’t even keep out the din. Good earmuffs would make good neighbours, methinks. And that was before The Party:
I guess the DJ arriving at 15:00 with equipment Rammstein would be envious of, should have tipped me off, especially when the aforementioned nightclub wannabe also staggered in with a large coolbox, filled with beers (I know because several Amstels fell out as he stumbled up the adjacent driveway.) Presumably the bejewelled king of clamour needed that many because the gig lasted another 12 hours, much to the horror of the inhabitants of our road.
It wasn’t merely the music though: cars began disgorging partygoers at about 18:00 – after 3 hours of setting up and ‘sound testing’ (I could have told them there was something seriously wrong with the sound – it was too jolly loud!) – and kept on coming all night, until soon they were double parked along the road and revving as they ramped the pavement to park their throaty 4×4’s on our front lawns. And the revelry had spread out onto the curb. I suppose it was full inside.
Naturally in this day and age, everyone has a cellphone, and soon the alley outside our window became the spot for (loud) phone calls to the three people in Cape Town not invited to the fiesta. And of course, later on there were the inebriated conversations between the rejected and their consolers. DMC ‘s* over the decibel allowance are not really private. I wondered whether the rejected lovers would appreciate some relationship advice from me. I might have ended all of our misery a little earlier.
‘It’s Friday night and he is a young man celebrating his new home,’ I charitably thought at 20:00. ‘I am sure he will comply with the council sound regulations by midnight.’ Ha! At two (am), I phoned the police, the third call to them by the good folk in our street over the evening. When they arrived, they asked the host to turn the music ‘down’! My husband, bless his undressed soul, was having none of that and yelled out of the window that they should switch it ‘off’! Only then did they comply, turning it up again gradually over the next hour, like boiling a frog slowly. Funny they didn’t think to close over the doors so close to the boundary wall, especially after the shocking vision of the man next door in his altogether, leaning out the window… Andrew is threatening to practise his trumpet really early on a Sunday morning in revenge (hopefully with his clothes on.)
The following day, the street Whatsapp group was buzzing with indignation. One good Samaritan (who clearly lived far enough away not to be too badly affected) suggested we should have been more full of the Christmas spirit. Seriously? At two in the morning the only spirit I am channelling is my inner ogre. I do not need to ask ‘Who is my neighbour?’ His presence is somewhat obvious.
The story doesn’t end there, because after the housewarming bash, the family from up north arrived to stay. They brought with them an assortment of aunts and uncles and a granny… and four children in training as town criers. You know how some little squirts automatically shriek in a swimming pool, well that’s what it was like all day. Only without the pool (small mercies). The poor lady on the other side of the property went around to ask them to keep the children a bit quieter and she was verbally abused for her pains. And again the lads in blue paid the house a visit. The following morning (at 5 am) the tourists departed for up-country again, leaving an entire neighbourhood awake and spitting mad. At least one of the visitors bought him curtains.
I do have some compassion for this lad who now is without his relatives and has managed to offend all the good citizens he lives among. I nipped over one evening to alert him to the fact that his car window was open, not a good idea in our crime-ridden suburb. (You’d think he’d have been aware of it a few hours before because the alarm kept going off, but still.) It was a thankless act. He stared at me balefully and only responded to my greeting because I stuck out my hand. Clearly this is not over.
I’m thinking of moving to the Karoo.
*DMC: Deep Meaningful Conversations
Mending Wall
