The Landlady: Noises off
The other evening, I had a few friends round for a curry. After we’d finished discussing how rubbish men are, the conversation turned to how noisy it is to live in Brighton. Especially at night and particularly if you are silly enough to live in central Brighton, as we all do. One of my colleagues from the supermarket had gone to bed early the other night in full anticipation of a long night of undisturbed sleep. What she actually got, was a night peppered with salsa music from the man downstairs, followed by her next door neighbours having a furious row, which culminated in many possessions being thrown, apparently at great force, through the window. Meanwhile, Disco Nikki, who had accidentally destroyed the light-pull in her bathroom had come out that night leaving her bathroom light and extractor fan on. She was rather concerned that her over-sensitive neighbours might complain. Another supermarket colleague who lives right next to Churchill Square is regularly kept awake by one of her neighbours vacuuming at 1am, which in my opinion is possibly one of the saddest things you can do at night.
“A colleague next to Churchill Square is kept awake by her neighbour vacuuming at 1am”
I’m lucky that my house has very thick walls, through which almost no sound can penetrate, but I have lived in some very badly sound-proofed flats in the past. One in East Dulwich, London had walls and floors so badly sound-proofed that one could hear the woman upstairs having a pee. On the upside, you had no need of a radio of your own as you could listen to hers. The worst flat by far was one in Brixton, where The Big Daughter, Big Son and I resided in the early 90s. Not only was it full of mice, but we were kept awake all night by a neighbour with learning difficulties, who enjoyed singing along in a desperately out of tune fashion to The Best of Rainbow or Fleetwood Mac. She sounded so happy that I could never muster up the anger to complain.
Anyway, regular readers will already be aware of my views on the night time noise emanating from late bars and the like. I have always said that if you don’t like it, move to a quieter spot, like Worthing or Lewes, for example – though the latter can apparently get rather noisy around bonfire night. Having lived just off the Saturday evening hell that is Western Road for over 12 years now, I have managed to develop a finely tuned capacity for selective hearing. I am never awoken by strangers fighting right outside my bedroom window, yet the sound of the Big Daughter, or Big Son unexpectedly entertaining a few friends can drive me crazy within seconds. I think this is maybe because I can’t bear the thought of any of my offspring having fun without inviting me. I am also often kept awake when The Boyfriend stays over, as he doesn’t sleep as easily as I do and lies there yawning really loudly, which drives me insane and when he’s not yawning, he’s snoring.
At the end of our curry night discussion, we had reached the conclusion that if we chose to live in a converted building in central Brighton, then that was our own fault. I then managed to stay up with The Big Son and Big Daughter making lots of noise until 5.30am, which would have been marvellous if the Small Daughter hadn’t got up at 8am the following day. Bah!
