My Upstairs Neighbour
June 29, 2014

I live in a flat in the worst case scenario. I have neighbours to the left, right, above and below. The right and upstairs are the most uproarious but upstairs win because we share something to do with the hot water pump. This means every time they turn on their hot water tap it sounds like someone is pushing gravel through a lawnmower above my bedroom.

Many an evening have I listened to their mysterious clunks and hot water tap activities. It's an odd situation because I have no idea what's actually going on, mere feet away from me. As such I have written a short interpretation of their events:

"Friend, would you mind helping me drag this piano across the floor?" Upstairs Neighbour asked. "I was going to do it earlier but it's always best to start this sort of thing at 11.30pm on a Tuesday. You know yourself."

"Can you give me one sec?" asked Friend, "I just need to run across the floor in my concrete high heels to turn the hot tap on and off a few times."

"No problem, that'll give me a chance to pour all these marbles out of this jar onto the floor. I've been meaning to do this all day."

"Okay," Friend returned, doing a few jumping jacks on her way back to the bedroom. "I'm ready to help move the piano."

Moving the piano was heavy work. It involved a lot of stopping and starting. After two hours and twenty-six drops, they had successfully manoeuvred it four feet across the floor.

"It may not look like much," Upstairs Neighbour looked at the piano, "but imagine how hard it would have been if we didn't have twelve very brief showers in between."

"True. I'm exhausted though, need a smoke. It's raining, do you mind if I just stand in the hallway with the door open a token 2 inches?"

"Be my guest. I'll wake up my tiny child and tell her she can't have any sweets."

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On July 7, 2014  Jorina wrote:

Your neighbours seem to be related to my upstairs neighbour in Amsterdam. I am yet to find out what she was trying to build on her balcony every week. Possibly she was just rearranging her plants, but it sounded like a jackhammer so I think not. As you may or may not remember, I went all 007 on her, but with no result. I live elsewhere now. We don't have any upstairs neighbours, as we live on the top floor. Across the street though, there is a very annoying man who plays loud music during the night. I've given up on the 007, and gone all 0900-8844. That's the police non-emergency telephone number. We ring it every time, and two policemen actually go there and tell him to shut up. It works, but just for that night. The next night we just call them again. Exciting times.