The little note posted in the elevator was as explicit as the cries of pleasure that tore the nights of the inhabitants of the building: "Can the person who screams while making love every night stop?"
It prevents everyone from sleeping ”.
The not-so-shabby but visibly very poorly soundproofed residence of the 20th arrondissement of Paris had been living for weeks in anguish over the next part of one of the residents' legs when the little paper appeared.
“It started at the very end of the evening and it lasted really long,” remembers Leïla.
This woman was obviously really very satisfied but she made us live a hell because she was really screaming.
It resonated and it was as if we were in his bed.
In the elevator, everyone was looking at each other with suspicious eyes, I even have a friend who lives three floors below my apartment who asked me if it was me.
It would have been downright funny if it didn't keep us all awake.
"
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If noise is regularly at the heart of neighborhood conflicts, that caused by sexual intercourse crystallizes feelings as different as embarrassment, annoyance, discomfort, excitement or anger.
Difficult in any case to apprehend him in the same way as a crying infant, the loud voices of a birthday party or the handyman's drill on Sunday morning.
“When my kids are still awake and I hear the neighbors start to fidget, I speak a little louder or turn up the volume on the TV,” laughs Martin.
If the young dad does not yet need to explain to his toddlers why the chandelier in the living room sometimes starts to shake, difficult to remain impassive in the face of the clamors of an unbridled evening at the couple's on the 3rd floor ...
“I lived through hell in my old apartment where the neighbors upstairs always fucked very loudly,” recalls Karine.
It was always at the wrong time: either at three in the morning or on Sunday afternoon.
As a result, I couldn't sleep and I didn't dare invite people over to my house because I was so uncomfortable.
The walls of the building were so thin that I could guess their position.
It is all the same strange to share the life of its neighbors until the most intimate.
"
"I know they can hear me but I don't care"
The thirty-something ended up going up one evening to complain about the volume… the music!
"I discovered on this occasion that they were young students with cute little faces, not really the look of actors in porn films," she laughs.
If the sound of the hi-fi system has dropped, not that of the nocturnal antics: “I finally put a note on their door to tell them that I didn't want to share EVERYTHING with them.
They answered me by leaving their phone number so that I let them know if they were still bothering.
And then they paid more attention.
"
If the trivialization of porn movies certainly has a caricature impact on the decibels developed when the temperature panics, it is clear that it is quite complicated to make love in the most complete silence.
“I have often been in the camp of those who disturb and that has never bothered me, assumes Sibylle.
In the heat of the moment, I have more to think about than my neighbors.
So yeah I know they can hear me but I don't care.
"Igor, he does not hesitate to put the music a little louder:" I prefer that we hear my playlist than our moans.
"
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The material is also important.
"I have a creaky bed and sometimes I feel a little bad when it gets a little sporty with my girlfriend," confides Theo, a consultant with staggered hours.
At night, when there is not a noise in my building, it messes her up a bit.
But it's still complicated to restrain yourself at such times.
Yassine nevertheless admits having asked several of his partners to be a little discreet.
"Assuming that I hear everything they do, I know the converse is true and I don't want to meet their sidelong gaze in the stairwell, slips the thirty-something Toulouse.
If I'm not at home, however, I don't care.
It is really a question of living together.
"
"At the beginning, it amused me to hear them screaming or slamming their buttocks"
On hot summer nights, when the windows are open, the sound of frolicking can also reverberate far enough away from the hot hug place.
“It resonated a lot in the backyards of the alleys where I lived in Montpellier, we had fun with friends when we heard a couple kiss.
But impossible to know where it came from, laughs François, a professor of letters.
This man encouraged himself loudly and not always in a very polite way, like
you feel how fat she is
.
One evening with some friends, we had fun answering or imitating him.
I don't know if it cut his libido but we never heard it again!
"
If Frédéric admits to having "been particularly excited by visibly enthusiastic hotel room neighbors", it is difficult to find a real sensual stimulus when listening to the repeated assaults of the inhabitants of his building.
“At the beginning, it amused me to hear them utter little cries or slam their buttocks but in the long run it was heavy, also recognizes Michaël.
The health situation does not help because I am much more at home.
But I can't stop them from having sex just because the floor between us is not thick enough.
So when I'm fed up, I put on earplugs and ruminate a bit about being alone in my bed.
The sexual happiness of some sometimes makes others unhappy.
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