Rocking Out to the Wildest Evening Desiring Sleep

Some people are just rude.

Their rudeness cannot be overshadowed even when you are kind to them.

Maybe they do not seem rude to their friends, but most likely, their friends are rude too. Perhaps not one hundred percent rude, but any negative quality can stain the clearest of water.

The other night in Paris, the neighbor upstairs was away, and her son and his friends (who I had never met before) were having a party. The music was loud. Yann and I are known to be able to sleep anywhere and put up with a lot of muck before we crack. Last night was an actual test of our patience. At three in the morning, Yann knocked on their door to ask them to turn off the music. He was so polite. I thought that was why I married him. He keeps his cool; he isn't a macho man.

They obliged for fifteen minutes.

At four in the morning, Yann again knocked on their door, telling them loudly to turn off their music. This was the third time since I had known Yann that I heard him talk madly at someone. They couldn’t grasp the problem… why were we bothered,

«… it was Saturday night; I guess it makes it alright….»

At six in the morning, my thoughts were growing dark, like how this morning I was going to crank up polka music or play "some more of that funky music" … something that would have them begging us to stop; of course, we would leave our apartment for the day. But, Yann rationalized, « Corey, playing their game doesn’t make you better. » I gruntingly agreed,

«What! You mean I can’t get no satisfaction... »

As they were playing a hip version of "I will survive! Oh, as long as I know how to love, I know I will stay alive!”  I felt like dancing. Sometimes, well often, I wonder if I am dreaming because I have the weirdest thoughts. And more bizarre, the song " Only shooting stars break the mold" started playing in my head. How could I be thinking of dancing? Instead, We knocked on their door again… it didn’t change anything; it made it worse. They changed their style of music and blasted it to the beat of Acid Rock. Maybe, it was because I said,

« What part of turning your music off do you not understand? Are you stupid or drugged? »

Yes, I was mad. You might say I became a badass after a night of not dancing.

The beat goes on. It was ten in the morning; they started back up around one in the afternoon. Gabriel was having lunch with us and said, "Oh, Vavie, look, the chandelier is moving!" 

"Now, that is what I call a dance party!"

What would you have done?

I wanted to call the police, but my husband, wouldn't hear of it. I think he grew deaf overnight.

Today, Oh, how I wanted to knock on their door and sing at the top of my lungs, out of key, not on purpose,

"Don't you know I'm still standin' better than I ever did?
Lookin' like a true survivor, feelin' like a little kid
And I'm still standin' after all this time..."

 

 

Comments

[Nancy Doherty]

do you have the owners of that apartment phone/email number? I would contact the owners/parents!

[Nancy]

No sleep makes me very cranky, I would have called the police. The neighbor’s son must be immature or on drugs to only make it louder. I hope you can have a conversation with the owners when they return.

[Ed Schnurbusch]

I would have found their electrical power switch and shut them down

[Lil]

I like Ed's solution. Find the electrical box and shut them off! They'd think they blew a fuse.
They must have been keeping the whole block awake. I'm surprised that no one called the police. Sounds like drugs are definitely involved. How else could they party so hardy for so long?

[Corey]

Hi Ed,
The electrical boxes to each apartment are inside the apartments. Otherwise, I would have done that.

Hi Lil, In our corner apartment building, there are only three apartments. Ours is in the middle. The owners downstairs were out of town. The bottom floor is a business, as are the other sides. A perfect place for a party. If we weren't there that is.

Hi Nancy and Nancy, We do have the phone numbers of the other owners. We contacted his mother. A conversation will take place when she returns.

[Jeanne]

We have very strict condo rules about noise and many other things. Contact the owner and the parents so this never pesents itself again
Some people just do not realize how loud music is fine for certain venues but not late at night keeping others up
I am sorry this happened to you
Hugs

[TracyH]

Oh Corey. I can so relate to this situation. My husband and I deal with it on a weekly basis. It’s beyond frustrating. We’ve put hurricane windows in, and have all the noisemakers possible. Different cultures play into it, but basically yes.. people are rude and becoming more rude by the decade. Hopefully your situation is temporary. Ours sorry to say is not, only thing is to move away from our home. Hope you can catch up on your rest, I know how exhausting it is my friend.

[RebeccaNYC]

We had an upstairs neighbor like this when we lived in Harlem, NYC. A young man lived with his very deaf grandma and we knew his mom, who lived across the street. A party would occur every weekend. Finally, when we saw his mom we told her and asked for her phone number. Every time he had a party, we called her. That was the end of that. We ended up having a great relationship with both of them. I hope you tell on the kid and make sure his mom knows what was going on and just how rude he was.

[Diogenes]

I have a lot of thoughts on this as I have experienced it. But what first came to mind is an old Texas saying:

“Never wrestle in the mud with a pig. The pig likes it and you both end up getting dirty.”

[Susan in Zurich]

Along with your other readers, I truly sympathize.

Usually when this happens here in our apartment building -in our town near Zurich - it ends at about 1:00 a.m. and only occurs maybe 3 times per summer.

I agree with Diogenes, better not to wrestle with these types of extremely rude, selfish people.

I'm so sorry you had to experience this.

[Anna]

I’m so sorry you had to experience what must have felt like cruelty and hope you can resolve the problem with your neighbor——and catch up on sleep!!

[Bobbie]

Corey….I commend & respect the incredible patience that both you and Yann have! Hwever, rude is rude and these people (adult enough to have this apartment) are out of control. Obviously they don’t own the apartment or they would be more considerate. Whomever the owner is should be accountable. If you cannot contact him/her and resolve the problem, then I personally would call the police. Otherwise the two of you will end up in a not-so-pretty situation as these renters obviously do not care.

[Reine]

Definitely police. And a call to his mom. Looks like you've done that.

[Jennifer Phillipps]

Very tempting to think of sabotage techniques to stop the noise...we had a similar issue with a building next door and temp guests who had loud music and were talking over it, my husband yelled at them...I did not know what was happening as I was deeply asleep until I heard him yelling, strangely he has hearing issues which you think would cancel out the noise but it heightens a certain pitch...they told him to go and ......... so that was no good, eventually they stopped and we arranged new rules for our neighbouring buildings visitors with them, so this does not happen any more, but it all takes a lot of energy, we could well do with channelling into more important things....hope you sort things with the Mother...cheers and sleep well x Jennie... NZ

[Teddee Grace]

I hope you reported their behavior to the son's mother. When I was married and we had taken my husband's two teenagers into our home, the Chicago suburb in which we lived passed an ordinance stipulating that the parents of any children reported for partying in a house would be fined $500. I think it got the attention of a lot of parents.

[Cousin Chris]

After the 3rd warning, Chris would enter with a 10lb sledgehammer and eliminate the music devise(s).