Ivy Blossom lives Here

My neighbours two doors over are driving me up the bloody wall. I live in a four-storey condo building, where all the condos are two levels and are stacked two units high. The ground level condos have patios, mostly on shared courtyards, and the third/fourth floor units have balconies. (Every other unit actually has two balconies, and half the ground floor units have a patio AND a second floor balcony.) I live on the ground floor (patio, but no balcony, poo). On my courtyard, there are 7 units on the ground floor, 7 units above. And I have one set of neighbours, also ground floor (no balcony) who regularly disregard the fact that the courtyard is shared property. They sit outside with a radio blaring and SCREAM OBSCENITIES at each other. If you walk around toward the street outside the courtyard, you can still hear the cackling. SO LOUD.

Yeah, they also sit out there smoking cigarettes and pot, which really upset me when I was out here trying to get some fresh air during my cancer treatment. Actually that one the one and only time I went over there and asked them to go elsewhere. I really don't care what they're smoking, but I don't want to have to smoke it too, particularly when I'm sick, yanno?

Anyway, today this went on all afternoon and I finally got fed up when I heard the girl shout back at her family, who were inside: "I don't care. Is it 11pm?" I think they had just told her to put a lid on it. She's clearly under the mistaken impression that the by-laws of the city only enforce noise complaints after 11pm. This is completely incorrect.

This is what tipped me over the edge today. it's one thing to be noisy without really realizing how noisy you're being. This is clearly fairly deliberate.

So I started sneaking around looking for the super, or for security, to see what on earth I could do about it. I'd say something, but I'm honestly kind of scared about what they might do to my patio furniture if I pissed them off.

I met a woman around the corner taking her dog for a walk who, as it turns out, lives in the unit over them. They drive her nuts too, but apparently it's been getting better over time. Apparently there was a time not too long ago when the daughters of the family were teenagers and had parties every night. At least now it's confined to weekends. She also told me that the father of the clan hanged himself in our parking garage.Which might go some way toward explaining the total chaos of the household. A couple of weeks ago they woke me up in the middle of the night (no idea what time) having a SCREAMING fight.

Is it bad that I am hard-pressed to feel any real sympathy for them at this point? Well, no, I take that back: I think I feel some real sympathy for their mother, who is clearly unable to control her daughters. Possibly her noisy daughter is out on the patio so often because she's not allowed to spend time with her boyfriend in the house. (Today there was a fight among them about the fact that the family doesn't like the boyfriend. In front of the boyfriend. And he didn't even leave, he stuck around ALL DAY!)

I see what the city's by-laws are. I know that all of their neighbours absolutely LOATHE all the noise they make. One of their immediate neighbours is running for the condo board this year...I wonder if she can help.

This became an issue today because a) nice weather, and b) I just bought myself an outdoor couch. My cat thinks it's an outdoor cat bed, and is very pleased that I finally bought one for him. I have to fight him for space on it. But it's less fun to spend time out here curled up on my beautiful outdoor couch reading a fun book when there is SCREECHING and SWEARING coming from two doors over.

Argh.