It’s been noted (by me mostly) that this blog starts in the middle of a story and makes reference to the start of that story without actually giving the details that would help people understand why. As the blog has developed it’s become clear to me that the start of the story is more than a passing phase in my life and should be included in the body of the blog. Without the details, nothing else that is related to this makes sense and I suspect this is a story that isn’t a one post horse (as it were).
Of course the story I’m referring to here is that of the old neighbours. When we moved house we had really hoped and dared to believe that they were left well and truly in the past. It turns out (as can be evidenced from recent posts) that this isn’t the case. In fact, since we left our old house almost a year ago the feelings we had back then seem to have grown arms and legs all of their own and pitched a tent here in our back garden just to keep us close by. Some of the details are a bit hazy, there was a lot going on last year, but the timeline of events is more or less intact. Events extend beyond the details I am going to write about simply because six years of diatribe would be pretty repetative really.
The story picks up on Christmas night 2005…David was 2 and we were eagerly awaiting the birth of our daughter (I was 3 months pregnant at the time), we were reasonably happy although we recognised that our house couldn’t accommodate the four of us and the dog so we had been planning to move the following year and had started to do some decorating in anticipation. As a consequence, Alasdair and I had moved into the newly painted front bedroom so that we could finish our own bedroom. This bedroom was directly next to the neighbours living room. It had been a very long day visiting relatives and, feeling a bit under the weather, I had gone up to bed quite early to try and get rid of the feelings of sickness that were accompanying me through my pregnancy.
Christmas Night 2005
I’ve been lying in bed now for some time listening to the pounding of music perforating the walls. It’s hardly surprising really because it’s Christmas night and what else is there to do on Christmas night than have a party? It’s bound to stop soon. I look at the clock and it’s getting to a time when I think they might stop…they seem to be playing some sort of name that tune game although it sounds like name that drum beat from where I’m lying.
Later on when Alasdair comes up to bed we both do everything we can to try and get to sleep…pillows over our heads, hell, I even try to stuff a couple of hankies in my ears in an attempt to fashion a set of ear plugs. I feel really sick and I really need to get to sleep. I contemplate sleeping in the bathroom (at the back of the house) but having investigated the option earlier I know it’s not much quieter through there. I look at the clock and note that it’s half past eleven. They should have stopped by now but they are getting louder and louder and have started chanting and singing sectarian songs…I can’t take this anymore. I jump out of bed, quite involuntarily, and pound on the walls and I am aware that in that same instant Alasdair has done the same thing…oh shit!
We both get back into bed and listen to them shouting at each other…but at least the music has stopped. Perhaps they have an ounce of Christmas spirit in them and they’ll afford us some sleep now. It’s all goes quiet.
We lie there for a few minutes waiting to get to sleep, when we hear someone at the front door. Alasdair leaps out of bed despite me begging with him not to go and answer it…I can’t face the confrontation. This is new and I’m a bit scared now, they never used to come round. Alasdair answers the door and it’s her, the woman, who asks if we banged on the wall…yes, we reply and she starts a barrage of abuse and profanity. We point out that we have a child who cannot sleep through all the noise, she tells us to get a life, it’s Christmas for f**ks sake, and to put a pillow over our heads if we don’t like it. She warns us that her husband is not in a good mood…so what, neither are we! We tell her to go away in the least polite manner (that’s f**k off to the uninitiated) and shut the door.
Both of us are shaking now. Alasdair has reached for his trousers and it takes what seems like an eternity to stop him from going round to have it out with them. Seconds later he, the man, comes to the door and there is almighty banging on the door and windows…it seems like he’s going to break them down and I think it’s a good job we got new ones because he would have broken the old ones and there would be nothing between him and us. The feelings of safety and security in our home is breached by this man attempting to get in. We consider calling the police but by the time we come to a decision he’s gone and doesn’t come back.
We go back to bed and hug each other and cry ourselves to sleep. What can we do? We can’t afford to move, and even if we could the house is full of holes (made by the dog) and bad attempts at DIY. It takes us hours to get to sleep, although they thankfully seem to have ended their party now. Next morning we are deflated, depressed, and more alone that we ever remember being in the past.
Boxing Day 2005
David has been playing with his new toys for most for the day and seems to be a little quieter than usual. We really hope he wasn’t woken up by the noise last night but we suspect he must have been…who could sleep through all of that noise? He seems ok though so we don’t bring the topic up with him. We really wanted to go out today, maybe take the dog for a walk in the park but we’re just too afraid to go out, we would have to walk right past their house so it’s not an option.
After David has gone to bed we sit down to watch a film on the telly, it’s rubbish but it’s something to do to try and take our minds off what has happened. We agree that we can’t stay here for New Year and Alasdair calls his mum to arrange for us to stay there for a couple of days. Thankfully there’s room for us to stay there and we feel a little better that we won’t be at home for what promises to be a difficult period.
While we’re watching the film, we become aware of the neighbours moving around and then the music starts up again. It’s louder than it’s ever been and we’re sure that they are trying to antagonise us. We sit and cry and can honestly say this has been the worst Christmas ever for us.
The music goes on into the night and we stay up until it sounds like they’re going to bed and then go to bed ourselves…not that we can sleep but eventually we drift off.
December 27th 2005
I have to go back to work today. I’m tired and I’m miserable and scared to leave the house. I have to go though so I sneak out the back door, leaving Alasdair and David behind…one of the hardest things I have done.
I can’t do any work and instead spend the day trying to work out whether we can afford to move house now. I have a look online and there are a number of houses available at less than we think ours is worth…if we push things we can move and be a little better off financially too. I send Alasdair an action plan for getting our house on the market by the Spring…it’s ambitious but Alasdair agrees that we have no option…when the baby is born we will have to move David into the room next to their house and he just won’t be able to sleep in there. We have to leave before then…the baby is due in May.
When I get home I learn that Alasdair has started work on the house and has started to rip out the flooring in our bedroom to install a carpet instead. He has had words with him while sorting out the pile of wood in the back garden. Apparently, he is not impressed with us banging on the wall and has punched a hole in his plasterboard because he was so annoyed with us…and? He has requested (not very politely I gather) that we don’t bang on the walls again but call the police if we’re not happy with the level of noise he’s making. Alasdair is visibly distressed and I really feel for him being left alone in the house all day.
We spend the evening in front of the telly listening to their music again…I can see this isn’t going to stop after the festive season now he has realised just how much it upsets us. We discuss calling the council but decide better of it…how can we sell our house if we have complained about the noise?
Over the next two or three months we spent every evening decorating the house and covering up the holes with more filler than I care to remember. We were bitter but determined to move before the baby was born…or at least to have sold by then. We started to notice a change in David’s behaviour when their music was on and realised that this was having a detrimental affect on him too. We learned that white noise could help us to sleep and downloaded a CD of rain from the internet. This helped us no end, coupled with my discovery that if I tried to think of four letter words for each letter of the alphabet and spelled them out I could switch off from our troubles and fall asleep.
When we realised that David couldn’t sleep either we put the wrong end of a baby monitor in his room and this provided constant white noise for him each night. This seems so simple and trivial now but at the time it was a real revelation to us that with a bit of alternative thinking we could manage to shut out all but the worst of what they were doing. We also kept a list of the times when they made excessive noise in order to have evidence should we ever have to contact the council and we began to notice a pattern of noise at the times when David would have his mid afternoon nap and when he went to bed at night…almost as if they were trying to use him to get at us.
We painted the entire house top to bottom during those months and what should have been a relaxing time of joyous anticipation turned into a furore of activity. There is a picture of me painting the garden fence at (I think) eight and a half months pregnant which I think sums up that period in our lives quite well. Alasdair and David spent less and less time in the house and more and more time visiting, relatives or the park, it didn’t really matter which so long as they were out of the house.
To be continued…
Filed under: NFH
I don’t know how you can type this out at work, it brings back too much for me just reading it … however, for the benefit of the viewing public I’d just like to make an additional point.
X-mas was the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak, this had been building and building for a long time and I had approached them previously, face-to-face to ask them to turn it down a bit.
I just don’t want you, the reader, to think that we’re so anal as to get upset at the audacity of people to have a party at x-mas … if this had been the only occassion I doubt we would have batted an eye-lid … it was sustained, it was staring in our windows, it wasn’t being able to walk down the path to the house because our neighbours had planted their deck chairs all over the place and were getting bevvied (or just plain drunk if your prefer), it was dreading days (and nights) when their soccer teams were playing, it was bonfires in the middle of the day (on communial ground) in a built up area with laundry hanging to dry, it was having to close all of the windows in the house in an attempt to block out the smoke and noise on the hottest days of the year … it was the effect this sort of sustained and unneseccary anti-social and nasty behaviour has on people. I’m not a violent person (although I’ve had my moments
), but I could have, and seriously considered, doing some rather nasty things – and, I think, really a very nice person … normally 
Damn it! You mean I’ve started in the middle of the story again! Shit and damn it!
Sorry folks…Alasdair is right…there was a whole lot more to this than perhaps meets the eye and the pain and suffering we endured that Christmas night and almost every night thereafter kind of pales everything else that went before into insignificance, although most normal people, those who aren’t afraid of what their neighbours can do with a stereo and two eyes, would have complained a long, long time before we did.
As for how I can write all this at work…I figured since your other post about your dad had already reduced me to tears I may as well continue the streaky face look by dredging up these memories. I actually am hoping that writing this down will help me to deal with it so that when we have neighbours in the future I can approach them with a fresh outlook and besides, tears aren’t so apparent when your eyes are streaming with a cold anyway…I don’t think anybody notices me anymore anyhow…I’m the invisible woman!
If you lived in the United States, you would be encouraged to sue them and then you’d be rich, and you could move into an even BIGGER house.
Ah now there’s a probem with that…I hate the sueing culture. So much so that I decided not to sue the man who drove into me and gave me recurrent back problems. I just don’t think it’s worth it.
Sueing would also require us to admit to them that they had caused us more than a passing nuisance. I would never give them the satisfaction.
And a bigger house would end up with us having another child…neither of us want a third but the only real thing that brings us back to our senses is that the house is too small for five people and a dog. Without that bad things could happen.
You are NOT the invisible woman, and you are not alone.
So I gather Angel. I hope you manage to sort out your problems soon. There’s nothing quite like smuggly walking away knowing you’re moving onto things they can only dream of.