Excavations on the street, karaoke fakes in the building opposite and neighbors whose love goes up to decibels: everything is blown up today • I moved to the side of those who shout: "Be quiet"
The endless closures and the
fortification in the house sharpened my hearing abilities.
As a snooze who has nothing better to do in his free time, I tend to listen to the noises around me and try to understand why people insist on interfering with pleasurable sounds, like the birds chirping and the breeze in the trees, with a selection of annoying noises.
In recent days, for example, an annoying little ATV has been operating near our house known to professionals as Bobcat, who may sound like a likable child figure, a friend of Bob the Builder, but makes a noise that would not embarrass a subway drill as he tries to straighten a piece of ground.
The normal engine noise of that cat Bob would still have been tolerated somehow, had he not been required by law to operate a reverse beep like garbage trucks.
And since he works continuously from morning to evening and usually drives two meters forward and two backwards, this is an endless and especially annoying noise.
Illustration: Tal Lazar
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For 60 and a half years as a tenant in this country I experienced all the usual forms of living with neighbors of all kinds, and therefore I was also exposed to most of the types of human noises and the transformations that took place in them.
Once upon a time it was enough to shuffle out the window and tell the brats playing stanga downstairs "Be quiet between two and four!"
And they would run home in disgrace.
Today there are fewer stanga games, and it makes more sense for the noise to come from an amplification system, and if you ask the spenders to be quiet between two and four, you may well find yourself with two to four stabs in the body.
When the noise comes from neighbors in the building, the dilemma arises whether to restrain, approach and wake them up yourself or call the police.
The adult option is of course to get to the venue and resolve the matter on your own, but no one can get out well from a situation where a bunch of happy and properly drunk people open the door and see in front of them an angry man in a sweatshirt coming to ruin their party.
The police option is of course more convenient, but they should not know that you are the client, otherwise you will forever be considered a stinker who turned his roommate over to the law enforcement forces.
I know someone, very, very close to me, who once invited his wife's parents and friends to a birthday party.
The party did not show signs of ending, the members continued to sing Eretz Israel songs accompanied by a guitar, and it seemed that they did not intend to stop singing tomorrow either, "when the army gets out of hand." At three in the morning, when he wanted to go to sleep, he called the police and reported the party. Held at his home, realizing that this is the only way to get rid of the entire Sarahla Sharon fan club.
The proverb says that
it is good to be near a brother far away.
But if it is a bad neighbor, it is better to have a close brother, even if it is Nasrallah.
To the adage "Do not do to your friend what he hates about you" can be added "But to the neighbor you hate, do it for fun."
He who has not seen the joy of the house of the sucker has not seen joy from his days, and he who has not seen a quarrel of neighbors has not seen hatred from his days.
A good neighbor is an asset that must be nurtured in gifts, cooking and babysitting.
For bad can be an endless nightmare.
I know because I was like that once.
When we were kids in the early '70s, living on the second floor, my brother and I used to torture our neighbor, Dr. Segal, who lived below us and was a particularly annoying person.
We did this by endlessly traveling around our apartment in what was then called Skater (now Roller-Blades).
The noise of the wheels on the tiles was so appalling that the Dr. came up one day with a hopeful look to make sure that the endless moving of the furniture he heard indicated that we were indeed moving.
Music is a wonderful thing, as long as it is played in a place and time that is convenient for you, and when you have the opportunity to influence the volume and style.
For listening to music at high volume, no matter if it's an opera, oriental, heavy rock or a "honeycomb" with Dan Fiddler, can drive people crazy.
Even if you are a die-hard fan of classical music, when the neighbors' son is making his first steps playing the violin or horn and he is not complete Mintz - you should consider buying earplugs.
Even if you are dying for heavy rock and Led Zeppelin is your favorite band, a young drummer with no sense of rhythm in the apartment opposite may make you want to go there and tap on it to the beat with a baseball bat.
In both cases it is better to try to persuade the young boys to return to being normal children and buy them a football or a PlayStation as a gift, and to shout at each other at Fortnight.
And speaking of children - who among us who stuck a kindergarten or school near the house remembers that beyond being happy, children are also a hole in the head.
When such institutions are too close to your home, you may soon become a big believer in home schooling.
Kindergarten children tend to cry, shout and sing Tu B'Shvat songs too loudly with the encouragement of the hoarse teacher. If part of your morning routine includes meditation, it is advisable to move to India.
One of the
terrible
technological inventions
of the period, which greatly exacerbated the issue of neighbor disputes, is the karaoke kit.
A relatively inexpensive device that allows forgers to sing using an all-time hit microphone, accompanied by playback and the eco-effect of a cheap ballroom.
You may want to carefully consider your reaction to a karaoke event.
If this is a person who sings to himself the song "Dreams" performed by Ruhama Raz, it makes sense to wake him up politely and expect him to listen to you and lower you.
If it's a group of 20 men celebrating a bachelor party with a belly dancer and the music belongs to a DJ named David Guetta, with cigar smoke billowing around and a lights organ on, it's probably best to give up the request, push your head into a pillow or start looking for an apartment in another city.
The usual solution for relieving noise between apartments is to use a broom.
The lower tenant grabs a broom and tries to convey a message to the tenant above by knocking on his ceiling, which is the floor of the noisy person - and vice versa.
This is not always an effective message, and keep in mind that the neighbor upstairs may decide to stock up on roller blades.
Another matter that requires treatment is having a noisy relationship.
In condominiums, the neighbors sometimes find themselves, to their detriment, also sharing in the act itself.
If the delicate relationship between the thickness of the dividing wall and the level of decibels produced by the participants of the event is not true, you may find yourself in a movie of the German RTL channel "Horny Neighbors 6".
Beyond the noise itself, there may be other disturbances here.
If the activity is performed by young people more than three times a week, while your peak of the week is falling asleep at 11 in front of the "pipe" (although in this case, it could also have been the name of a porn movie about a plumber) - you may also have a feeling Jealousy, that will not put you off well in front of your spouse.
Sometimes, when the spirits heat up in the neighbors and loud shouts are heard, it is difficult to understand whether it is an act of love or just beatings.
For good one has to exercise discretion to decide whether to call the police or continue to envy quietly and wait patiently for the day when they too will have children, and within a day they will move from the side of the noisy to those who shout "be quiet".
yairn@israelhayom.co.il