For the around eight years I’ve lived on my own, I’ve had maybe three years of noise free living. And in the beginning of this month I’ve gotten a new neighbor, of course it might be that the old one has risen from the dead or at least bought a new home theater. So the peace is gone again although I must admit this has been the record long period of quite silent neighbors. So what about the other 5 years, let’s recount them, shall we? Oh yes we shall.
First year I moved to a dormitory after summer as I started college in another city. During the year, my roommate was never really a problem, he was a good lad and wasn’t there that often either. The problem was the house itself with wafer-thin walls, you could hear people cough, Windows start sounds, televisions, farting and of course music, a lot of it, on loud. In the summer the dormitory was quite empty so that was a relief for my ears.
As the second year started in the dormitory it was about the same except for some heavy metal fan moving to a floor above my room and on weekends there was not the slightest peace to study. Just after a month in to the semester my roommate told me that he is moving out for good as he’s dropping out from the college to start working full-time.
So I got a new roommate pretty soon. He was a high school aged kid that liked playing electric guitar during nighttime, and letting his noisy mates stay there over the weekend when he was away himself. Luckily he disappeared for good in the spring and I didn’t have anybody in the other room. Although with the heavy metal guy living upstairs it wasn’t excatly pleasant living there.
So at the end of the spring semester I started a study related work placement for six months in another city. I lived in a dormitory there but the rooms in one unit were single occupancy and the building was quite new with proper noise dampening in the walls and doors. Also my room was opposite of the three other rooms so I didn’t have any problems noisewise. However the place was hot as Hell during summer and absolutely freezing during fall / early winter. Also there was a fruit fly infestation towards the end of my stay as one of the guys in the unit started recycling biowaste but forgot to empty the trash for two weeks.
When I moved back to the college city, I decided to rent an apartment in the city center from a private renter. The nice sounding elderly woman who rented the place didn’t live there anymore herself. If I was her I wouldn’t have either. It was an old stone apartment building from the 1950’s. Every sound from other apartments were clearly audible. My immediate neighbors were alcoholics who trashed their place few times a week, fought each other and played crappy music loud day-and-night. Many times I was thinking about calling the cops but never dared in fear that they might physically attack me for it. Also in the downstairs a few floors down somebody seemed to keep a professional carpentry workshop judging from the ongoing daily drilling, sawing and hammering. My sanity barely lasted the six months I spent there.
Then I had only few courses and thesis writing left at the college so I decided I move back to my home town and just travel back and forth for the few lessions left. In my hometown I went for a cheap semi-private landlord agency and my apartment was in a brick/concrete apartment building from the early 1970’s, first one build in that area. And apparently noise dampening wasn’t even considered in the building phase so I was able to hear my neighbors even talking, playing guitar and watching movies very well. What really started to bug me was that somebody would start their every Saturday and Sunday mornings by playing a classical piece with a woman soprano singing at around 7 am and not with a moderate volume. You could literally imagine you were in a concert rather than in your home
After I graduated I got a job in a different city so I was able to move out again after the six month hell. I got an apartment from an insurace company. Again to in a 70’s concrete bunker. The apartment was cold as hell except for summer. First half a year were quite silent in the building but then I got a new neighbor and it all changed. The new neighbor had a home theater system and most of the time it was on with maximum volume pretty much around the clock. I could easily hear the movies’ lines and knew what tv program they were watching. After two months I started to look for a new apartment and after few months I got lucky. I lived about a year in that place.
I moved in to my current apartment in a mid 1990’s apartment building with some noise dampening. I have been living here just over two years without bigger noise annoyances until now (and I am not even really that bothered by the sound of vomiting coming from floor up every few Saturday mornings). I hope these few random disturbances by a neighbor using home theater at night time lately have been isolated incidents and not signs of what is coming. I just couldn’t be bothered to move out just yet and I doubit it could get better all that much unless the new place is in an apartment building that is less than ten years old. And even with semi-private landlord agencies those have high rents and long waiting queues. Rents in the free rent market are way too high to even consider that option.
What I really need is to win the national lottery and buy my own house. But with my luck that is a dream and will stay as such.