The House on Maple Street

My boyfriend and I just found our perfect starter home. It was a one bedroom duplex and the rent was just lower than what we were looking for to test drive our future together. It did need some updates but the space was perfect. Other than having my home office in the kitchen, we could not have asked for more.

It was an historic neighborhood within walking distance of the Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings and the restaurants downtown Saturday nights. There were paved parks to walk throughout the little community and boutique coffee shops to meet with friends.

Our only issue was the neighbors. Their three bedroom side of the duplex extended above our kitchen and living room. With the home being so old; there was not much insulation to dull the noise. At first, we just noticed the typical children running back and forth during the evenings. Soon though, their roughhousing sounded like the ceiling would cave in. It was almost like they were bowling during a WWE Wrestling match.

One night while we were watching a movie and having a glass of wine, the ruckus was so loud that our pictures we just hung fell off their nails. My boyfriend shouted at them to be quiet but I think they just got louder. We ended up going into our bedroom and finishing the movie in there. It was a bit quieter with the door to the living room closed.

As the weeks stretched on, the noises kept coming. While working in my kitchen office one morning, I heard a man screaming at a lady. She yelled back which set him off even more. There was a crash of something that sounded like glass and then stomping away. The silence was almost as uncomfortable as the screaming.

Days passed without a peep. I was starting to get into a routine with the new home. I worked during the day and cooked amazing meals at night. My boyfriend and I would walk into town to grab a drink and fall asleep in the new bed we ordered.

There was a shared deck out back where we set up our grill to relax and cook dinners on nice summer evenings. He really enjoyed grilling up new recipes he found on Pinterest and I really enjoyed eating them. He was a great chef when it came to mastering the grill. Some nights we would just sit out there under the stars and watch the lightning bugs come to life. Their little green flickering of lights illuminated the darkness around us.

One morning, I jumped onto a Zoom call to catch up with a colleague. Just as we were about to get into some analytics of a project we were working on, there was a huge thump above my head. The man’s voice started screaming again and the woman screeched back at him. My partner asked if I needed to call the police. I just waved it off saying that this happened on a regular basis, annoyed that the noises started again.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I chatted with my boyfriend and we decided to finally make the call to our landlord. It just wasn’t right that these people could make so much noise and not even consider the others living just on the other side of the wall. It wasn’t fair to us to have to deal with this insanity.

Our landlord sounded a bit confused when we explained our situation. We told her about the noises at night with the kids above the ceiling and about the probable domestic violence situation of the parents. We weren’t ones to complain but this was just out of control. Finally when we finished telling our stories, she spoke up.

“Honey, there isn’t anyone who lives in that side of the house. I was just over there yesterday for a showing.”

*****

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