Neighbours

Woke up today to my (ahum) lovely and (ahum ahum) considerate neighbours drilling into shared concrete walls, banging on shared walls, hammering away and - I can only imagine - generally having a good time pretending to be workers at a construction site instead of people who live inside a building they share with other people who all have their own lives. 

It's not a fun way to wake up; being forced awake by things happening outside my own flat yet inside my building. I can't change anything about the banging and noise or the complete disregard my neighbours have for other people, however I can't get away from it either. Not without leaving the entire building, which means waking up, getting dressed and leaving the house to... to.... to try to go to sleep in a park or by the side of the road because sleeping inside my own house is impossible?

Do they seriously not realise that their walls are also my walls? That when they start banging away, everyone else in the building suffers? That when they drill into their walls, they're also drilling into MY wall and everyone else's wall? That THEIR inconsiderate noise rules the lives of other people in the building? THEY decide when I wake up, THEY decide if I'm going to be able to get enough sleep, THEY decide when I need to go to bed because - you guessed it - if I go to bed when I want to instead of when they seem to think I should, I get woken up at 8:02 AM by drilling and more noise. 

I enjoy being awake in the evenings, it means I can talk to friends and family in New Zealand and overseas. It's usually a quiet time - no drilling neighbours, no screaming children, no neighbours having barbecues or garden parties, less noisy people outside and certainly not as much traffic as during the day. The quiet allows me to think, to write, to rest from the constant noise around me during the day. The quiet allows me to feel like me again, like a Kiwi again, even though I live in a noisy and overcrowded world, in a full country that's constantly getting busier and noisier. The quiet evenings are a very, very welcome rest from the constant activity and noise and quite honestly, I love being able to get away from the noise of living in a city in The Netherlands, if only for a few hours.  

Yet for months, my neighbours have decided when I can be awake and when I can't. For months, THEY have decided when I go to sleep, when I wake up, when I have a headache from the noise or an earache from wearing earplugs for too long. For months, THEY have decided when I can set up phone / Skype calls with family and friends because sadly, it's impossible to have a conversation with that much noise, impossible to even think straight with that much noise. Because the drilling and hammering is not happening far away, it is happening right next to me. They may be drilling and hammering two floors below me or several flats along, yet they are drilling into walls we all share.

I try to be considerate, try to be a good neighbour, try to be quiet and not bother others. Treat others as you want to be treated yourself, right?! Yet today, I just want to scream at these inconsiderate people, I want to yell at them and hit them and throw their power tools away so they can't use them to give me another headache. That is not who I am, that is not what I do. The most I'll do is glare at them, perhaps make a comment about the noise to another person when I know the culprits are listening. Yet that's not a solution. It doesn't stop the noise and it certainly doesn't stop my headaches or my growing disregard for the neighbours, for being social and being a kind and caring person. They say "if you can't beat them, join them" however honestly, I don't want to. If I need to become just as arrogant, uncaring, unfriendly, uncivilised, noisy and selfish to fit in with these neighbours then No Thank You, I'll pass and stay true to who I am and to the values that matter to me. I'd rather live with the noise than be like my neighbours.