The house of noise.

Oh how I long for peace and quiet. I want to live in the woods - away from traffic, noisy neighbors, and barking dogs. These are all inconveniences that have become apparent since moving to our new pad. I'm sure all of this will urge us into the buying market sooner than later, but we can deal with them. I'm beginning to tune out the traffic and dogs, the neigbors - as you will see, are a challenge - but all of that is livable, right now the real problem is the banging and clanging pipes.

We're still looking for ways to deal with the noisy neighbors. At 4 in the afternoon when their music reaches earsplitting levels we have left numerous times and on occasion we employ what I like to call the "1812 Technique": The use of the 1812 Overture at top volume to compete with the sounds of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll". K's parents gave us the idea, and we don't actually have that particular piece of music, but we do have the William Tell Overture, and it seemed to do the trick. At 7am, however, I don't want to hear any music that will rattle the walls, regardless of its level of classical greatness. So when, three mornings ago, we were awakened by a very rendition of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" (this must be their favorite song) resulting in the vibrations of our walls and bed, I had no choice but to drag myself out of bed and sleepily knock on their door - numerous times before they actually heard me through the music. Each time I knocked I tried to calm myself, because, of course, by now I was more than a little testy having my sound sleep interrupted. Finally after the third knock, I hear, in a loud, angry, and demanding voice, "WHO!?!" Remain calm, I tell myself, "Your neighbors," I say as pleasantly as I can. They of course don't hear me because I am not screaming above the music, so I then hear, "WHO IS IT!?!" I must say that by now I am not feeling very calm, and I want to scream Well, who do you think it is at 7am when your music is on that loud!?! I am not nasty, however, and I repeat myself with enough oomph to have myself heard over their noise. I'm not sure if the woman actually heard me because she opened the door with a snarled, "What!" I, as politely as I could muster, requested that she please turn the bass off or the music down or something. I then, in an effort to remain in good relations, said I thought photo of her dog that decorates her door was cute, and staggered back downstairs, to put my head under the pillows against the low roar of her ever-playing favorite song.

All of that is annoying, but the problem in the past tow days has been the banging pipes. Since we moved in the pipes that feed the radiators, which of course give us heat, have made their presence known. At first I thought it was funny. At first they sounded much like a impolite belching contest. At first we could sleep through it. All the At firsts, however have changed. I no longer think it's funny. The belching contest has turned into a pot and barrel banging contest. And I can no longer sleep through it. Something has got to be done. Pillows don't work against the cacophony that seems to get worse in the night. The last two mornings I have woken up with a splitting headache. Aside from the headaches, it is also more than a little unsettling. They shake when they bang you know. The pressure builds up in there, they start to hiss, and finally the banging happens when the water finally pushes through (or however it works) resulting in thunderous banging and shaking. I've gone on the internet and found out that the pipes need to be bled. He he. Whomever came up with that term is a funny one. I'd like to strangle them myself, but hey, if making them bleed stops the noise I'm all for it!