You're SO Freakin' Loud!

Ever had a neighbor who's totally inconsiderate that you just want to bite his/her head off given the chance to do it? I did. I still do. ARGH!

I live in a two-storey unit with Hamza, Raja and Ate Lina, our househelp. On the last door lives this woman, some singer named Marge who, according to my cousin, is making an album and will be staying there til the first week of August. They needed a quiet place where they could mix their tracks. 'Making an album, eh?' I could already imagine all the ruckus. But my cousin said that they'll just be mixing songs and recording them-- no singing or practicing or whatsoever. They'll be using headphones. That's what my cousin was told. Yeah, right.

The first few weeks was okay-- i could hear faint music throbbing through our walls now and then but it was tolerable. I have a one year-old running around the house wreaking havoc day by day, so I guess they could also hear me and Raja yelling and screaming ("No, Raja!" or playing monster-monster) from the other end of the wall. Quits lang.

And then it happened. One Saturday night, they just blasted their volume and practiced like they were in a recording studio. Wow. Just when my kid was about to sleep! She sounded nice, I admit, but hey, she was disturbing my peace! I let about thirty minutes slide to see if they'd tone the volume down. But when they didn't, I sent Ate Lina to ask them to lower down their volume, and so they did, thank God. The second time was on a Sunday morning. It was about 6am, Hamza got home at 4am from work and waited for fajr before catching some zzz's. We could hear the keyboard playing loudly, as if practicing on some new material and the same song kept playing over and over and over again. Nice, huh?

Because of these unfortunate incidents, Raja's sleeping schedule's messed up. He usually sleeps around 9pm but ever since they started 'mixing their songs with their headphones on', he has begun sleeping late (1:30am-- que horror!). How many times that has happened, I don't know. I've lost count. The last one takes the cake. I think it happened about a week ago. Another Saturday night. It was 11:46 in the evening and I so desperately wanted my boy to sleep, which to my dismay, was still fully awake as he slept late again. I was watching a movie on HBO and then suddenly they started playing full volume! "What the freak...?!?!" That was the last straw!

I went downstairs then outside and rang on their doorbell. Nothing. Of course, how would they be able to hear? I went back upstairs and banged on my wall so they would at least know they could be heard from the other end. Wala pa rin! Bwi***! (pardon the language). So I called up my cousin and asked if he could hear the music from my (which he could) and told him to tell them to lower the freakin' volume. By then Ate Lina had also woken up and began knocking on their door. Me, I went there and started banging on both the door and windows (coz they couldn't hear the knocking) until my knuckles went red. That went on for about twenty more minutes. And then utter silence. I could see a neighbor peeking from his window but didn't come out. I must've looked like a monster by then; I was raging! Ever experience getting so mad that you could actually hear your heart beat and your muscles shaking with rage?! I did that night. I think my cousin called to make them stop as they were disturbing not only me, but our other neighbors as well.

The worst part of this all is that she never bothered to apologize--for the loud music, and the late night practices that they did. I mean, hey, I like music too, and I understand that she's making an album, but to practice at 11pm to 3am in a place where people live pretty darn close to each other is quite unreasonable, don't you think? Geez.

I don't see much of her nowadays, nor are there any 'mixing tracks with headphones' going on anymore. But she's still there, running to and fro, locking up her dogs (pets aren't allowed here, miss!). I'm not a difficult person to live with, nor am I a monster to my neighbors. I don't wish her ill...But I do hope she leaves pretty soon!