Dang'd Kids and their Music

This past Saturday, I fell asleep on the couch as will happen from time to time. I woke up about 4am or so and toddled off to my bed to complete my slumbers. Unfortunately, it would be about an hour or so before I finally was able to fall back asleep. Not because I wasn't tired or anything of that nature. No I wasn't able to sleep because of a vicious row that my neighbors were having. Before I go on, a little history...

I have lived in a myriad of locations and apartments. From my parent's house to a dorm room to a student apartment to a studio apartment to 3 different "real" apartments. I've lived in Chicago, Mount Prospect, Lisle, Springfield and now, outside Dayton, Ohio. Up until recently, I have had no problems with my neighbors or the amount of noise that they make. Actually, I'm not including the dorm room or student apartment since raucous behavior and noise just goes with the territory. Nor am I including my parent's house since I like to have some place to stay when I return to Chicagoland. Nope, nothing until I moved out of my parent's house once and for all at the somewhat obscene age of...well, that's not really important to this story.

In my first apartment, a small studio apartment, I had only one incident where I was disturbed by a neighbor's music. I can't recall if I was actually awoken by the music or I was trying to get to sleep after being out (I am assuming the latter for reasons that will be clear in a minute), but I do remember hearing "smooth" jazz. Since there is only one reason that anyone listens to "smooth" jazz that late at night, I wasn't going to go downstairs and complain.

At my next apartment in Mount Prospect there was a single incident also relating to music. This time, my neighbors were having a party and the music was up a bit, but once I got into my bedroom and closed the door, it was barely noticible. The problem was that the host (or hostess - I never actually met the person living right next to me - seems to have passed out at some point and the whatever CD they had on started skipping. Now, one would think that having to listen to the same 5 seconds of a song over and over and over and over for about 3-4 hours would burn it forever into your head, but truthfully, I have no clue what the song was.

While living in Lisle, I had no complaints about music or people walking to loudly, etc. There was one minor irritation, but it's not something that could be helped. It seems that the couple that lived above me had recently had a child - again, never actually met them - so for the first few months, I did have a baby crying at regular points during the night. But, since I was now in a two bedroom apartment (actually a one bedroom with a den) the only time I could hear the baby cry was when I was up really late watching TV or on the computer.

Another thing that you have to understand is that once I fall asleep, there is hardly anything that will wake me up. I once stayed at some friends' condo in Chicago when a building right across the street from the bedroom I was in went up in flames. The firemen, more concerned with putting out the fire than letting people sleep, made no attempt to keep quiet. The fire trucks came tearing down the street sirens blaring and lights flashing, they extended the jacks with a great hydraulic whine, shouted orders and sprayed upteen gallons of water on the house and, generally, made a nuiscene of themselves. Actually, I have no idea if this is what really took place, since my friends had to tell me about it the next morning. I thought they were kidding until they made me look out my window and see the destroyed residence for myself...and damned if there wasn't a fire gutted house across the street! So, you see, I sleep pretty heavily. Although, I will always hear the phone ring. Explain that if you can.

Anyway, back to the main point of this whole entry. The incident on Saturday night/Sunday morning was not the first time that this had happened with these particular neighbors. Now, these neighbors - who I have said hello to - are a couple of 20-somethings who are most definately night-owls (but then who isn't at that age?). Another issue is that their entryway/front room is directly behind my bedroom so I can hear anything above a normal conversation. The first happened a couple of weeks after they moved in. I'm guessing that I wasn't sleeping well because I was woken up at 3am or so by their music. It wasn't bad music - no rap, hip-hop crap or "smooth" jazz - still it was 3am on Thursday morning. This went on until about 5am, at which point I was able to get back to sleep.

You may be wondering why didn't I just go and knock on their door and tell them to keep it down. Two reasons. First, I'm normally able to not only sleep through anything, but also fall asleep through anything. Second, this is not an apartment building, it is a "complex" (for some reason, as I was typing complex my back got a whole lot straighter). In order to go and bang on their front door, I would have to go outside and who wants to deal with that kind of bother.

From the sounds of it, the fight the other night was a doozy. Though, I have no idea what it was actually about. I came into it late and I couldn't make out half of it. My theory is if you are going to wake up the neighborhood with your screaming and fighting at least do it loud enough so that people can hear through the walls. All I got was the a lot of indeciperable words with the occasional swear word that I could recognize - including the "C" word. What took me by surprise was not the use, but the user - she said it refering to another woman. I'm pretty sure that that is illegal.

Maybe I can get them to play classical music next time. That's always nice to drift off to.