echo canyon

I live on the sixth, top floor of an apartment building, my bedroom overlooking a central, interior courtyard. The courtyard is an echo chamber. People talking in hushed voices can be heard in my sixth floor apartment, with my windows closed.  Music blasting invades. Loud drunks are very loud.

The party room is adjacent to the courtyard. It is supposed to be closed at 10 p.m. but people often rent it and run over. And then drunks spill outside.

Tonight, there are also loud noisy boys with scooters, running around, shouting happily, playing and having a nice time. It is 11:30 p.m. If the shared resource is supposed to shut down at 10 p.m., which is in compliance with local noise ordnances that ban noise that intrudes upon adjacent residential space after 10 p.m. So it's not just me. It is, literally, a community standard.

This noise unsettles me. The courtyard is noisy much of the time. The windows are soundproofed. If people want to blast their stereos and keep the windows closed, I don't hear it. But if they keep their windows open, I do, even with mine closed lots of the times.  Someone else's loud music, not remotely similar to my taste, wears me down.  I sit here and feel assaulted, like I live in a noise bomb instead of a home.

I know all the rules.  I don't allow myself to be bothered until 10 p.m. But then, I am in the right and as the noisy evening continues, the noise wears on me more and more.

I am turning into a crank, a crabapple, a grump.