LIVING

Tony lives in the Eixample:

“I’ve had problems with noise from different tenants who’ve rented the flat next door. Sometimes it’s a case of recognising that the walls are paper-thin, though, and it’s not always that the noise is unreasonable. What’s more, I’m noise sensitive and a light sleeper, but although I often wear earplugs, sometimes that isn’t enough.

When I can’t sleep because of the noise, I feel angry and frustrated, sometimes even vindictive. Once, after being kept awake all night by some neighbours, I was so furious that when I left for work in the morning, and assuming that they were sleeping, I kept my finger on their doorbell until one of them answered angrily. I said nothing and just walked away. It was very immature but I had needed to relieve the frustration. It’s not the right way to act, though. I think the best thing to do is speak directly to the neighbours, but when I get wrenched from my sleep at three in the morning, I normally end up just banging very loudly on the walls which usually works.

My landlord happens to be the landlord of the other flat so I’ve just kept complaining to him. I think other neighbours have, too. In fact he’s thrown tenants out before because of such complaints. Anyway, recently he added a clause to the rental contract stipulating no loud noise after 12pm, and things have been a lot better.”

Julie lives with her partner in Clot:

“Furniture scraping, a small child running, objects dropping on the floor, loud voices… Every day, this tends to be my 7am wake-up call, courtesy of the family above. The fact that I also usually fall asleep to the sound of their chatter from their terrace can leave me feeling like I’m part of the happy family. Except it’s only them whooping excitedly when their little one achieves another personal best in hurtling down the length of their flat. He celebrates by leaping about with joy and his parents shout for him to do it again, and again, and again.