Q is for...

Quiet.

When I first moved into this building in 2004,  the quartier and the building were pretty quiet - out of the 9 apartments in my building, there was, I believe, one student living in the studio apartment on the ground floor.  Now there are 5 student apartments, with at least 2 students in each one.  And that's just this bâtiment. 

Which leads me to the title of this post... Quiet, or lack thereof.  Because, seriously, I'm about to go spare.  One noisy neighbour, maybe two, and you can cope.  And they usually have their own time-keeping, noise-wise, so you can work around it. But when you have multiple auricular raiders who seem to have worked out a timetable that leaves no minute auditorally un-assaulted... things can get a little...  AAAARGH.

Here, let me show you...

welcome to hell
(ganked from googlemaps, edited by an exhausted fraggle)

My building:

• Mr and Mrs Loud-Speaker, 1st floor: obviously deaf judging by the level of noise emanating from their sound system.  Quite handy for the removal of dust from the rafters, though.
  
• Mademoiselle Poaimon (Player Of All Instruments, Master Of None), 2nd floor:  nice girl, studying literature I think, just not real musician material, sadly.  Enjoys jam sessions with her friends in her flat, complete with keyboards, vocals, bass guitar and an over-excited amp.
  
• Miss Saxomophone, recent replacee of Death Metal Boy in the ground floor studio apartment.  Also learning to play the bongos.  I kid you not.
  
• The Klaxon Boys in the back flat, ground floor.  Four pre-schoolers (read: 1st year uni students - but they look so yoooouuuuuuuuuuuuuung) who seem to adore shrieking, yelling, shouting and blowing their klaxon horn in the stairwell at 4 in the morning.  Bless 'em.
  
• Laughing Girl, 3rd floor above me: not there all the time, and has the BEST infectious laugh ever.  It's just not quite so appreciated when it's a constant through to 3am.
  
• Punk Girls, my new neighbours on the 2nd floor.  Likes are: slamming their toilet door shut; inviting many, many people into their poky wee flat; having loud parties that last until 5:30am.  Dislikes are: respecting their neighbours; cooking food that isn't fried or cremated.  (Their kitchen/living-room window is at right angles to my bedroom window in a wee courtyard in the centre of the adjoining buildings.)
  

And that's just this building...  Looking further afield we have:

• The Pisser Boys, 1st floor, opposite building: penchant for french rap parties and weeing off their balcony onto the street below.  Gardyloooo...
  
• Scratchy Pistol Boy, top floor, opposite building: has an obvious hatred for pigeons, judging by his love of shooting them with his air pistol.  Also an aficionado of the ancient art of 'scratching' records, that 80s Dj-ing phenomenon involving scratching a record back and forth on the turntable and destroying the needle.  Updated for 00s computers and cds, of course.
• Piano Man, 1st (2nd?) floor in the building to the left: Practises  either jazz or Beethoven all day long - a particular favourite being the Pathetique Sonata.  Is also know for his enjoyment of playing loud and obscure Romantic piano concerti recordings from 7 to 9am.
• The Party Animals, bottom floor, 2 buildings away to the left: Generous souls who hold open-air parties for the whole neighbourhood, all from the comfort of their own front room and wide-open windows.  They also have a rather disturbing love of Cyndi Lauper.

I didn't put them all in the piccie, because it was just too depressing!

Of course, you can't forget about the students who like to hang around the square with their carry-outs, getting drunk and disorderly and abusing the poor old fire-hydrant, the litter bins, the benches and each other.  The use of tinny mobile-phone musical accompaniment may not be obligatory, but is preferred.

Last night I was kept awake until 4am.  Friday night it was 5:40 before the noise stopped.  Today I put on my big girl pants and went round to complain, receiving embarrassed apologies in return.  No promises of it never happening again, though.  I was also informed that they think my singing is cool.  So cool in fact that it was accompanied by a thumbs-up.  Wow.  It must be cool then, and they weren't just trying to deflect my attention away from my original complaint.

I hope to God that I get some sleep tonight as I'll be leaving here at 9am to get to rehearsals in Blois, because at the moment my throat is scratchy and I have a temperature. 

I think I need the number of some heavies on speed dial!