I was enjoying a quiet evening at home. Just me, my M&Ms, and a few TV shows to catch up on. And then I heard it.
The bass. Thumping loud enough that I could hear it over the TV while in the back of the house.
Argh! Those neighbour kids! Didn’t they know it was Thursday? So rude.
We’ve had our share of rowdy parties in the neighbourhood. Enough so that I now have the by-law complaint number written on the wall in our bathroom to save me looking it up. Yes, I am that neighbour.
I can tolerate a lot before 11:00pm as long as the language isn’t too questionable and nothing gets thrown onto our property. But something about pounding bass really gets under my skin. So I decided to investigate. I stood in our kitchen to see which direction the music might be coming from. It was strange that it was quieter near the neighbours who typically like to live it up. But that didn’t stop my inner curmudgeon. I went out back to see if the noise was actually travelling from farther away. No, still pretty muted. Guess those guys weren’t doing karaoke that night.
By this point I concluded that it must be the neighbours who don’t really party, but who do play the drums. Once I know the source of a bass line, I can calm down a bit. So I accepted that it was our kindly drummer and tried to tune it out. I settled back in to watch my show.
The noise ebbed and flowed for another twenty minutes or so. Then I realized that it wasn’t just drumming, it was definitely party music. What’s going on?! I have to work tomorrow. I cannot sleep with that racket. It was only 8:30pm, which gave me lots of time to stew about potential annoyances to come.
I resigned myself to the fact that I might need to do some complaining inquiring next door.
You know, we pay to live here, too.
When we bought this house, I did not sign on for loud parties. Especially midweek loud parties.
We have young children. Sheesh!
So inconsiderate!
We don’t have to take this.
I won’t take this.
I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.
Wait.
Hold on.
Never mind. Someone left the music on in our basement.
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If you ever need someone to yell at kids to get off your lawn, I’m your gal. How do you like them apples?
Tough Bananas 
Your new name: Old lady Moyer
I approve.
Our old house had that neighbor. He would “practice” his DJ skills. Nope, not trying transitions or anything. I guess just playing music loud was practice. Every neighbor called the cops on him. We actually didn’t call the cops, just tried talking to him. We had to point that fact out to him.
Their garage was closer to our house than theirs. We could feel the music constantly. When asked, he would keep it down for a few hours. The only exceptions: when we had a new baby we told him to keep it down for a while, that lasted a few days. When someone who was recovering from brain surgery was with us, they started quiet for a bit.
And when we put the house up for sale, he was gone and it sold before he got back.
Me going out in my bathrobe after the newborn aided the effectiveness of the one complaint.
Oh, this just gets better and better.
Nice timing on the sale!
Great post! 🙂
I’m as curmudgeony as you, but I would keep it to myself. I’m afraid of other people. They might frown at me.
A cowardly curmudgeon.
Every time I complain about someone and something terrible they did, I find out it was my own mistake, or the boss told the person to do it, or it was something they did by accident because they were working on it at the exact moment they found out their dog just got run over by a steam roller.
Perfect.
Yeah, I basically suck at confrontation.