The Man Upstairs

Do you ever wonder about your neighbors. I am not one to go out of my way to meet people, and unfortunately it doesn't take long to build up a distaste for those people you never see but always know when they are around.

Maybe if I was the type of person to knock on the front door of my downstairs neighbors when I first moved in I'd feel differently about them, but 6 months later I don't like them very much. There is definitely an imaginative benefit to never knowing the people you live between (upstairs and downstairs neighbors). Everything from the insides of their apartment, what they look like, what they are interested in, what they might talk about - it is all up in the air for your mind to decide and depict when you try to imagine what could possibly be going on when you hear them through the floor or ceiling.

Until the end of December, no one lived above us. Our downstairs neighbors were our only problem. They were consistently annoying but at least once a week they would, and still do, have music playing with a bass so loud that not only can you figure out what song it is by vibration alone, but it is like your floor has become a massage chair because then entire floor of the apartment is vibrating. It is especially frustrating when trying to get work done or watching a television show - hearing a bass pulsating the whole time.

December came and we added friends to the north. And by friends I do not mean friends. Again, had we gotten to meet, noises from above might be tolerable or I would feel comfortable enough to say something. Instead, a distaste for them has been growing for the past month. Ever since they moved in it has sounded like they have been building something. There is always reptetitious banging as if they are building an addition to their 4th floor apartment.

Every so often there comes a loud bang or rolling that sounds like either someone is just jumping off stuff or bowling in their hallway. What is more frustrating is that despite the constant bangs and booms that occur, we have never complained. Tonight, however, when I was playing my acoustic guitar in my room the man in the bedroom above mine starts stomping on the floor as if to say 'shut up'. Excuse me, but I am allowed to play my guitar. I am not playing the electric guitar, I am not playing at a loud volume. You could argue, well it is a school night - maybe he is trying to sleep. Yeah I thought that for a bit, but it is now an hour later and I can still hear him walking around (every foot step up there sounds like there are giants walking around). So apparently it was not that my guitar playing was disrupting his sleep, but that he just did not want to hear me. Tough, man. Unless you expect me to walk around in silence for another few months, you better build up a tolerance level because an acoustic guitar is not terribly loud.

Needless to say, the chance of befriending our neighbors to the north went out the window tonight. Sheesh. Sorry for being so cranky, but if your banging is going to be loud enough to interrupt things and, on occasion, wake me up and I never complain, then stomping on the floor when you hear me is inexcusable.