Got distracted by noise
Before Matt and I moved from California to New York, there was a lot to be stressed about: the logistics of moving, of money, of getting jobs across the country. But the thing that kept me up at night was: what if we end up in an apartment with loud neighbors?
Most places I’d lived have been short-term or month-to-month sublets in apartments already in progress. There were people I could ask about the noise, and worst case, I could move out with 30-days notice — this escape clause let me relax. But in New York, we would have a year lease that we were going to pay a broker thousands of dollars to procure for us. If we had an inconsiderate neighbor, we’d be stuck for at least a year.
Noise, I hate it! I would say this is a universal affliction, but I know it’s not, due to the number of people who are loud (though maybe they also hate noise when they aren’t the ones making it). I hate being able to hear what other people are listening to on their headphones, in their apartments, anywhere, really. And this new trend of carrying around personal speakers — it is so outside my understanding of how to be a person in the world that my brain short circuits each time I encounter it.
In Oakland, we lived in a shared house, and for several months one of the rooms was occupied by a jazz musician. He was a nice guy, except for the electric guitar scales, which he practiced constantly. I’d sit in our room seething. Hatred of him, of myself. Incredulity, that a person could be so selfish and inconsiderate. Fear, that I was overreacting. And lots of wishful thinking, that maybe he’d stop soon and all of these questions would be rendered totally moot. I also spent a lot of time googling, “how to sound-proof” — the gist of that search was, “move.”
If a friend asked me what to do about her roommate playing guitar scales constantly, I’d say, you need to tell him: “Dude, this feels awkward to say, but I need you to wear headphones whenever you practice at home. The walls are too thin, and the sound just reverberates through the whole apartment, and it’s really interfering with my ability to get work done and sleep.” But I never said this. I did knock on his door twice and ask him to use headphones, but only after agonizing about it for an hour.
This sensitivity to being aurally disrespected is directly related to my father’s love of cranking the sound up. He loves music, movies, noise — turn it up, the louder the better, that sweet 5.1 surround sound, this massive new subwoofer, check out these speakers. My parents’ house is an old one, wood and plaster — sound travels. My room was above the living room, where one TV was, and below the den, which housed another. Wherever my father chose to relax and unwind with a movie, I could hear it. Muffled explosions and sweeping music: those are my triggers. “Can you turn it down?” Probably the five words I’ve said most often in my life. He always acquiesced, apologetic if incredulous — he didn’t think it was that loud, just at the ideal volume for optimum enjoyment.
My dad has another stereo in the garage behind the house. He likes to turn it on, open the door, sit on the patio, relax. He’s very happy there, and when I’m home, I like to sit out there with him. But I always ask that he turn the music down. Sometimes I ask him to turn it off altogether, and that’s out of the question. “Don’t you think the neighbors get annoyed?” I ask. “Absolutely not!” he says. “They don’t mind, they love my music.” I cannot imagine this is true, but maybe it is. Maybe they’re in their houses and they hear his music and think, “We love that music.” Or maybe they’re like me and are thinking, “Make it stop.”
We moved into an apartment in New York that ended up being a quiet one, happy luck. Our bedroom is in the back of the building, on the fifth floor overlooking a courtyard shared by three apartment blocks. There’s a small garden in the bottom, and a small paved patio on the side. In a year and a half, I’ve never heard anyone down there — until the last few months.
About once a week now, there are people on the patio. Friends, just having some drinks, a laugh. But their voices echo, and the drunker they get, the louder they get. Listening to their voices makes me feel crazy and weak. If I were stronger, I’d yell at them, force them to be quiet. Instead I sit there, simmering, hoping that each ebb in laughter is the end, devastated when it’s punctuated by another voice.
They always go inside eventually, usually on their own volition, though one Sunday afternoon they were spurred by a hero in the building across the way who leaned out her window and screamed, “Shut up!!!!!!!!!”
This Friday night they were out for awhile, long enough that I reached my limit. I couldn’t take it anymore. I opened the window, leaned out over the fire escape, saw a group of boys of the frat variety. They didn’t look evil or malicious, just drunk. I yelled down, “Can you please be quiet?” They couldn’t hear me, my yell traveling straight up to the sky. Sheepish, defeated, I went back to bed with my tail between my legs.
Matt, who is generally able to put these very sporadic gatherings into perspective and isn’t as tormented by them as I am, got up. He went to the window and hung out over the fire escape for a minute. I was gearing up for his polite and deep British yell, rather excited for it, if I’m honest. But he didn’t yell. He pulled back and then went into the living room, where he sat on the couch, pulled a notebook out of the drawer. In black marker he wrote, “Can you please be quiet? Your loud voices are echoing in the courtyard and making it impossible to sleep.” He tore the paper out and started folding it up — a perfect paper airplane. He returned to the window, leaned out, and let it go. Downstairs, a moment of silence. Then one voice yelled out, “Sorry!” And then blissful quiet. It had worked. I giggled for a full ten minutes. My hero.
Saturday night they were back. We’d already determined yelling wouldn’t work, and it seemed wrong to sully the triumph of the paper airplane with a second attempt. I went online and searched real estate listings until I found the downstairs apartment with the patio. I found out that our new friends had moved in a few months ago, and that we share a landlord. All it would take would be for me to email the landlord and say, “These new tenants are making a lot of noise after hours, in violation of the lease.” I was kind of giddy with the power in my hands.
Just as I started to compose an email, they went inside — what witchcraft. I closed my laptop, email unsent. But it feels good to have that option for the future, should the need arise.
Sometimes we talk about moving apartments — those stairs do get tiresome, and it’d be nice to have more space, to be able to get a little dog. But then I think, we have a such a good thing going here, decibel-wise. Earlier this year the New York Times had an article about a construction project that was ruining lives on the Upper West Side. Some rich people were building a mansion where two brownstones once stood, and they were drilling into rock to create a pool in the basement. The project had been going on for a year, and the article detailed the anguish of the neighbors. I found it almost impossible to read, and I think about those poor people a lot. It’s also the first thing I think about now whenever I think of buying in New York. I mean, it’s financially impossible, sure, but beyond that, it could be very loud.
Watercolor by Matt Davis
Referenced:
“That Noise? The Rich Neighbors Digging a Basement Pool in Their $100 Million Brownstone”, New York Times