Rusty Pipes

Met the upstairs neighbor this morning. if you know me, you know this is never a good thing. here's the long story part: for about 6 months now, someone's pipes, whenever turned on, make this horrifying screeching sound which i can only say sounds like someone killing a dolphin. i don't like the sound myself. it is a bit intrusive, especially at 6am when i'm trying to make genius or look at porn. did i mention that the noise comes to ally and i in our bedroom.

But we've been able to put up with the noise. A little back story to ally and my apartment living. we've suffered: neighbor's loud televisions coming through our wall; a dog that barked into our bedroom window at 1am, every night, until i had to call the cops and physically threaten the owner; an upstairs neighbor in 2-apartment conversion, who loved country music and like to slam the house's storm door; an hispanic kid blasting club and rap music in our first brookyn apartment; gang members outside blasting rap until whenever; a clarinet player; a welfare mother playing hip hop and shouting at her foster child with mental problems. Let me just say that a little pipe squeaking is nothing compared to the above. we simply assumed it was the upstairs neighbor.

this morning is happened. we heard the squeaking and ally and i mocked the sound of it and made usually laughs, then i layed back down on the couch with my breakfast of gas-xx pills, sudafed nasal decongestant, and pepto-bismol. not moments later we heard a loud rattle upstairs, and then someone fucking BLASTING 1980s music down on our living room. I was startled. We've been in our place a year, and the most we hear are the chinese ladies grandkids pounding. Immediately i put on my clothes and ally and i raced up a flight of stairs to the apartment we could hear the music through. i pounded on the door. this was 7:15 am. It was soon opened by a very thin, angry old man. i told him about the noise, and he basically told me to fuck myself, because he's been under the assumption that ally and i are the pipe squeakers. Us! So i get pissed and tell him HE'S the pipe squeaker. of course he denies this, and we have this standoff. Then we begin assuring the guy we're not, and he's not, and soon the angers breaks down into this lovefest over hating the REAL pipe squeaker.

All the while this is going on, the dude's music is blaring and probably waking up everyone else in the building. but we're all still standing there talking about our hatred of noise. "We don't even have tv." "i'm quiet." "we're librarians and like classical music." blah blah blah, until i thought we'd be inviting each other to dinner. then i make the mistake of telling the guy we'll go and talk to the super about the noise, even though i can't fucking believe pipe squeaking is what drove this guy to insanity and music blaring madness.

A little about our super--he's good at two things 1) staring in our window whenever he's outside 2)smoking in the elevator.

So me, ally, and neighbor guy are off our rockers if we think the pipe squeaking will cease. neighbor guy better get some earplug, or do what we do, which is run our fans year round to block out noise, because otherwise it's gonna be a long cruel winter for him....and us. However, the real pipe squeaker will probably rest easy at night, dreaming long and hard about that hot 15 minute shower he/she takes every morning.