About the time I became best friends with Noise Control

On the weekend I was rather surprised.  We got home on Saturday to a note in our mail box saying that the people directly opposite us would be having a party to celebrate their 17 year old son's birthday and that they expected 45 teenagers and supervised by a few adults.  Urgh!  That could only mean one thing I thought - loud music until the early hours of the morning with noisy teenagers running up and down the street. 

Now I have to explain a little at this point - I don't like noise.  I don't mind hearing the train that comes past, I don't mind the sheep in the paddock behind us and so on.  I really don't mind any of that.  Music noise? At all hours of the night? Not so much.  Now I'm a great fan of music.  I loved going to the Simple Plan and Bonnie Tyler concerts.  I often listen to the music Paul has been sharing with me, but when the neighbours have a party and all you hear is the base noise in your house until whatever time at night, that can get to me a bit. 

In 2006 / 2007 we moved to Tawa (one of the suburbs of Wellington) and it was a rather nice (older house) and at first everything went well (except for the kindy down the road - but that's a story for another time).  Then one Saturday late morning I was outside hanging out the laundry and suddenly heard this extremely loud music right next door.  Sigh!  Really?  Did they have to turn it up so incredibly loud?  Not wanting to cause trouble, I left it knowing that we would be going out soon and that maybe, just maybe the music might be finished by the time we came back.  Thankfully it was.  (I would find out later that the incredibly loud music I thought was right next door actually came from inside the house 2 houses away from us).

This was really just the beginning.

Every single weekend and several afternoons in the week the extremely loud music would start up and would keep going driving us completely insane until finally I had enough and rang noise control.  They would then come out, assess the noise and then if they thought it was causing a disturbance would then issue a 72 hour ban on all music.  After the 72 hours the music started up all over again.  So we'd have to ring.  Again.

Now I have to also add I was pregnant with Caitlyn at the time and really didn't cope with lack of sleep thanks to this annoyance.  I did waddle up their drive one evening at around 10 as I was trying to get Bianca (who was 3 at the time) asleep and they had the music blaring, sat outside on their deck laughing and talking so loud the whole street could pretty much hear what they were up to.  So as I waddled up there about 8 months pregnant, they saw me and I asked if they wouldn't mind just making things a bit quieter this lady looked at me and then shouted that they could make as much noise as they wanted until 11pm.  So I looked at her and said "fine, I'll go back home and let noise control know".  My threat worked thankfully because by the time I got home all was quiet.


I'll never forget one day this song was playing so loud I could sing along from our house (if I could sing and if I was actually in the mood to sing which I wasn't on this day) (it was playing inside this house 2 houses away from us).

This was a constant battle for 9 months (the duration of our rental agreement) and noise control and I became pretty good friends.

There was also one day that we got it from the people on the other side right next door.  They knew Caitlyn was just born and their daughter living with them also just had her baby and so one Saturday they informed us they were going to host a 21st party and so we should expect a bit of noise.  Yes, quite a bit of really loud noise until about 3 the next morning.

Not fun I tell you.  So since then I have become rather sensitive to noisy neighbourhood parties. 

So I dreaded this past Saturday night knowing that it would be 45 teenagers at this party.  Much to my surprise I woke up the next morning realising it must have been the quietest party ever.  Didn't hear a single noise.  I think I can deal with that :-).