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I'm only 26 but I think I've become a grumpy old man. Heres the thing...
I live with my girlfriend in a small terraced house that I rent off my friend who's gone travelling. On alternate weekends, my 6 year old daughter comes to stay. We live in an area very popular with students, so although we've only lived here a couple of years, we've seen a few neighbours come and go.
One set of neighbours moved in last september, and seem to enjoy the odd house party or two. This wasn't too much of a problem; they were quite frequent and loud, and went on until 3 or 4 in the morning, but were at a volume where if you were tired enough you could get to sleep within 20 minutes or so. It was even less of a problem as they never seemed to clash with my daughter staying over.
Anyways, the parties stopped for a month or so, and then on Saturday it became a whole new ballgame. I had put my daughter to bed, then around 9 o'clock one of the neighbours knocked on my door and said that they were going to have a party but they were going to try and keep the noise down. I said that would be much appreciated as my six year old daughter was asleep upstairs and left it as that. As the night went on the music got louder and louder. I'm pretty sure they must have had some form of PA in there as this was no where near home stereo volume. Also, we had a partygoers sitting on the wall in front of my house all night rapping along to either their car boombox, or some tune they had on their mobile phone. As it got louder and louder, and I could hear the TV less and less, I got more and more annoyed. I ended up doing something I thought I would never do. I called the council.
It turns out though, here in the UK, they can't actually do anything. They turned up in their car, parked quite far down the road, and phoned me from there...
Council: Hi it's the council, are you in the house with the lights on?
Me: Yup, that's me.
Council: We need to come into your house and take a reading, but their seems to be a few black lads sitting on your wall. Is it a Jamaican Party? Are they playing the bass beats?
Me: Yes they are playing the bass beats. I'm not that keen on you coming over though as there's a lot of people on there and it's might get nasty if they think I've complained.
Council: Yes. We wouldn't come across right now as we get attacked frequently, and even if we did get a reading, we can't knock on their door without police backup, and we'll never get the police out on a Saturday night as they're already too busy.
Me: Jeez...
Coucil: We could maybe do a walk-by thoough and get a reading, and send them a letter in the week though?
Me: Ok then
Convesation ends. Phone rings again...
Council: Hi it's me again.
Me: Hi
Council: I've just wound down the car window down and I could get a reading from here (they were about 150 meters away). We'll get a letter to them by wednesday and hopefully you should have a quieter weekend next weekend.
Me: OK, thanks, bye.
And that was that. My girlfriend and I managed to get to sleep around 3:30 when the party was finishing. My daughter woke up at approx 1:30, at which point I thought I was going to be sitting up with her all night, but it just turned out she had a tricky bit of snot wedged up her nose and she wanted me to dig it out for her. She didn't even notice the "bass beats" coming from next door. Straight back to sleep.
So was I a grumpy old man for phoning the council?, and, should I play Shitmat really loud from now until they move out?
Sorry about the big winge.
What's more, the music was crap
Jenny from the block.
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