war games

Who, pray tell, designed apartment buildings so that you can hear everything that is happening in the apartment below you with almost complete and utter accuracy? I mean, is it that hard to place some sound absorbing panels in between the floors as you build? Think, architects, think!

My neighbors downstairs are college students. Why they live in our beautiful, mostly populated by the elderly and some young professionals, far away from the college they attend apartment complex, I don't know. And, I actually, don't know them. I know that one is a boy and one is a girl. I know that the boy plays guitar and sometimes tries to sing along, mostly Dave Matthews songs. I know the girl will occasionally put on some Jason Mraz. (My connections to the above musicians would probably blow their minds, but I will never be friends with these college brats and so they will never know.) And, I know that I can hear the boy cough at times. What does that mean he can hear me do? I wonder about this one.

Tonight, they are listening to the radio and they have what I think is a subwoofer cranked up so as I sit here trying to watch TV or listen to my music, I just hear deep voices and bass. It BLOWS!!!!!!!!! So, being the oh so nice and always ready to lend you some sugar should you be baking something neighbor, I turned up my subwoofer to the MAXIMUM. Take that you slackers! I am usually quite kind with my subwoofer. When my brother installed it and put it at Maximum, I told him I had neighbors below and that it needed to go lower, a lot lower. So much for thinking of other people.

The reason for this retaliation is that I think that they like to bang their ceiling, my floor, when they think that I am being loud. I am not loud. OK, so I always have some kind of noise on, I hate quiet, but when I am watching TV and they bang, and I check the volume, it is on 2 bars. "OK people, I pay enough in rent to listen to my TV at 2 MEASILY BARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I am not actually sure what the banging is about. I wonder sometimes if it is my imagination. What could 2-3 pounding-like sounds in rapid succession be? One day I came home and as I walked in the door I heard the 2 bangs. I threw my stuff down and yelled at the floor "I haven't even been here to make noise. What, you don't like it when I open my door?"

Maybe, just maybe, there is some phantom mouse running around and driving them crazy while I am constantly monitoring my volume. I can't help but remember the Friends episode where the old neighbor below is always banging on his ceiling when the friends are not actually making noise. When he dies and they go to his apartment they hear what sounds like a party going on above them, but they are all in his apartment. Could this be what is happening in my building? I don't know, but I always turn down the noise if I hear the banging until, of course, tonight and the subwoofer wars. Game on!