The fine art of screaming

This week my boyfriend got another verdict regarding why he’s not getting any sick list money. Because the first doctor refused to put him on the sick list last Fall, he’s not entitled to any money, even if he’s just as ill today as he was back then. New reason, still no money. Indeed have to sell my house and live off the money. Talked to my Dad on the phone, he said we can live upstairs in their house. I said I don’t want to be living with the ghost of my grandpa, but Dad said it’s quiet now. If it wasn’t a relative, I’d be happy to share my space with the supernatural, but he didn’t like me much.

One thing that makes me want to move is the neighbour’s kid. She’s screaming her lungs out from morning until dark. Today she didn’t go indoors until after 10 PM. The kid is five… why don’t they bring her inside earlier? It’s horrible… a torture to be outdoors. You couldn’t believe it if you haven’t experienced it yourself.

Her parents never tell her to stop screaming and they don’t give a damn about us neighbours. The owners of the little summer houses in the neighbourhood don’t come here much anymore… less noise back in town. I don’t mind if kids are noisy when they play, but this fog horn is yelling because she wants to make her family upset and obey her every whim. Her seven-year-old brother confessed to my boyfriend that his sister is making him miserable.

There is nothing to do about it! Studied the law book and it’s vague about how much one can pester neighbours sound-wise. The police don’t bother to come here, no use in asking them. Those lowlife parents let her scream for hour upon hour. She’s not shutting up for more than a minute, and they don’t make her stay inside because they can’t stand her. They have put fences and gates and stuff around their garden and monitor her through their windows.

We moved from the flat eight years ago because the neighbour downstairs was playing music all through the night, plus beating up her kid until he screamed, and threatened to do something bad to our cats if we asked her to pipe it down a so that we could get some sleep. Now we have lived with the new neighbours from hell for two years. They don’t even leave for vacation, so we can get a week or two to rest our ears, because they let their grandparents baby-sit when they go abroad.

This morning she woke me up again, even as all our windows and doors were shut and the bedroom faces away from their garden. Today she yelled she wanted to play hide-and-seek, but she couldn’t hide for a minute without screaming again. Put on the latest CD with my favourite band outdoors on the porch, Toten Hosen, but even as it’s tempting to put my foot down and have a little sound war, I don’t dare to let the people next door have any reason to be upset with us. I remember too well the nerveracking situation of neighbours making subtle threats. Also, my boyfriend just gets angry when I talk about it, and says I should just hire a hit man and kill off the kid. That’s no help.

Today I cried because of not being able to stay in the garden. It was the first sunny day after a rainy week. Earplugs don’t help - the shrill shrieks penetrate them. Yes, goes for industry headphones, too. I look like an idiot with those yellow things on my ears, but I don’t mind. Thing is you get a headache from the static pressure, and not being able to hear the wind in the trees or the birds is down-heartening.