Selfish in the City

Dear (incredibly silent) blog readers,

it's strange how noises affect us.

When I was a little girl, I spent years in a very quiet flat. When I moved with Mother to the flat where I still live, I remember my surprise when I could hear the near-constant flow of cars in the street; the very first night, I barely slept.

I quickly got used to it. I got used to the hubbub of my city...

Right under my flat, there's a restaurant. The one that was there when I was a little girl was owned by noisy plonkers (well, it was a bikers' meeting point). A few years later, new owners: they did most of their cooking in the flat below, and my bathroom often smelled of tomato sauce.

The restaurant was bought by a happy bunch of idiots last September (works from 9am to 6pm five days a week for weeks!). Then the works stopped, and they opened.

On Friday, January, 17th, 2014, I (finally?) noticed an odd noise, kitchen-side. It was two in the morning, I was typing something at my desk (on the other side of the flat), and there was an engine purr; I instantly feared that my boiler was acting up.

It wasn't the boiler.

I listened carefully, walked to my kitchen window, opened it, and then... Life as I'd known it went down the drain: the little idiots downstairs are using the properly antediluvian A/C unit that the restaurant owners before them had never used.

They're using it 24/7, and it's so loud that I always hear it. It's like being in an engine room day and night.

It's really strange how noises affect us. The constant din is making me extremely tired, extremely tetchy (let's face it, my usual, if extremely rare, version of Mrs Hyde would sound like Minnie Mouse compared with my current state), and even though I realized that there was an issue just over a week ago, it's possible that my body registered the trauma before I consciously did.

When I wake up, I feel some odd chest pressure now.

As of last night, my left arm is cramping.

No, I am not calling an ambulance.

As soon as I could, I complained to my building manager, but I cannot know how long it's going to take the council estate offices to react (after all, they're all far away from the din).

All my neighbours are growling, but I've been informed that only one other tenant did complain officially, like I did; the others are cowardly doormats.

If I don't hear from the manager on Monday, I'll have to call her.

I may have to call the police... All that because a happy bunch of idiots are selfish (if the restaurant owners don't know how noisy they are, they're decerebrated - no other possibility). They simply don't care.

I was still healing from the Great Freezing of my nerve VII, but I'm collapsing again, and it seems that my heart cannot stand residing in an engine room.
I can't sleep properly, and no one cares. On top of making me super tetchy, I can't concentrate, and I forget tiny things. Basically, things don't look too good.

So... if I end up liquefied on my linoleum, half-eaten by my cat, the idiots downstairs will have killed me.

Merlin! What a cheerful post!

xx,

Dru

ps: testament still in my black box, in the tax folder.