Sunday, January 24, 2021

Mockery

Tim is one of those annoying people who falls asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow. 

I'm not one of those annoying people. (Having perfected other ways to annoy, I suppose.)

I tend to lie awake for awhile, my mind flitting off in a hundred different directions. I usually call myself back to myself, and do a meditative visualization and then. very. slowly. start. to. drift. off... 

Unless Tim is snoring. 

But tonight, his snoring was quiet and not disruptive. I had. slowly. started. to....

And suddenly, he's swearing, throwing the blankets back, and leaping out of bed. 

Confused, I said, "What? What's wrong?" I hadn't even heard the phone. 

He dashed out of the bedroom, and issued another volley of impatience because the phone did not get hung up in the foyer. He headed into the living room to grab the phone (good news, he had used it last) and into the library to catch the message already recording on the machine. It was a tenant. The neighbors downstairs were having a loud party and she was about fed up with these loud parties because they were an every week occurrence. 

Tim went back to get dressed. I didn't envy the tenants. It takes a lot to get the man fired up, but the one thing that does it every time is getting dragged out of the house at o'dark thirty to take care of nonsense. We are very clear about the rules of the place, and about respecting the other tenants in the building. 

He was back in pretty short order. It hadn't been a party at all. Just two people in their apartment getting shitfaced together while listening to music that was louder than it needed to be, given the time of the night. The tenant was three sheets to the wind, but agreeable. The music was turned down. 

He walked back home. We discussed it. We've had the upstairs tenant for over 3 years now. She is dramatic and her version of events cannot always be trusted. We decided that our advice from now on would be simple. We would instruct the upstairs tenant to call the police and make a nuisance call the next time that it happens. We would let the downstairs tenant know that as well. The girl is nice and hardworking and never has had a problem with the law. She would be likely to be more conscientious about things like volumes and hours. The upstairs neighbor would be more factual in her reporting, lest she be charged for a false police report. 

I was wide awake, but Tim said, "Well. I'm going back to bed." I told him that I'd be right in. I wanted to look up city ordinances. 

I slipped into bed. Tim was already snoring on his side of the bed. 

(There ought to be an ordinance about that.)

On my side of the bed I had just begun to. drift. off.... when I heard it. A polite knocking at the door. 

Coming out of the office and through the livingroom, I'd pulled the french doors closed behind me not noticing the cat was left behind. 

I got back out of bed and went into the hall. Paddy studied me placidly through the glass, waiting patiently. I opened the door and she came out with her tail held high. 

I went back to bed, and the Paddington Paw-cat trotted along behind me, hopping up at the foot of the bed. 

Once again, I fixed the blankets. I got my pillows just so. Once again, I began to put myself to sleep as my husband snored gently at my side. Before I was done, the cat was snoring from the foot of the bed as well.. 

They mock me, I tell you. 

12 comments:

  1. I've never heard of calling an off site landlord with a noise complaint in the middle of the night. You two are very patient. Me thinks there could be a cry wolf experience in her future!

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  2. Paddington Paw-Cat sounds like a character.

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  3. The joys of renting units, I'm a tenant and would not disrupt my landlords in the middle of the night, it would be a call to police and an email to the landlord would follow. Should this continue I'd be in search of a new place to call home. Not everything things this way, not even my former landlord who failed to show up when the sump pump went and water was flooding the basement, she had the audacity to ask me to bail the water out and she would call someone in the morning, nope, didn't do it as it wasn't my responsibility to stay up all night long on water duty (my belongings were off the floor on the shelves), needless to say I've since out of that unit. Wishing you better luck with your tenants.

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  4. Oh, that's an irritation alright, but we'll deal with it firmly. I'm sure it won't happen again.

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  5. I've been having difficulty getting to sleep lately. And if my sleep is interrupted, not good. It sounds like you had an "interesting" night and will need a nap!

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  6. That was a dramatic night. I am surprised that you managed to get to sleep after all that Debby.

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  7. I doubt you would have felt so well refreshed by sleep in the morning.

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  8. I slept in. It wasn't like I had any place to be. I didn't get up until after 7.

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  9. That was some night. I’m a pretty good sleeper myself but I can’t have those kinds of interruptions and go right back to sleep.

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  10. You tell a good story. I also had problems sleeping last night.

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  11. I think I lived in five multi unit rental buildings in my lifetime thus far and at every single one of them, I have problems with a neighbor at some point for noise. We live in a world where people just don't think about how they affect those around them. Everyone is just concerned about themselves. Most, I was able to point out that while they work a nightshift and want to celebrate a raise at 4 am in the morning, most that live next to them don't and would prefer they delay the celebration, and the neighbor would agreeably do so. Once I had a neighbor that never seemed to get the hint and so I took matters into my own hands by playing music very loud but very discretely soundproofed in all directions but that apartment during their down time. When he came up to apologize, I told him that is what happens when you mess with an engineer. I never heard a peep from his apartment after that.

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  12. I had a terrible neighbor in Baltimore. He blared his television at all hours. I would load up the kids in the car, run back into the house and turn the stereo up full blast and then go run errands for a few hours. He got over it. But then he took to poisoning the cat and throwing caustics on the grass. I was glad to leave him behind, I'll tell you.

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