Dave really isn't here, man.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Damnitall.

My husband and I live in a nice, cozy little apartment in Ballard. It is more expensive than our other apartment, but so worth it, because hell - it’s Ballard. My husband grew up just up the hill from here. It’s a pleasant, quiet neighbourhood; safe, and friendly. And then we got some new neighbours.

Now, it’s probably still safe, and it’s still a friendly place. It’s not so quiet as it used to be.

These neighbours are kind of… kitty corner to our apartment - below us and over one. Their bedroom window is almost directly below my head when I sleep in my bed.

These people make noise. Sex? No, no. If it were sex I’d forgive them. After all, I’m not the quietest girl in bed myself. No, it’s not sex. They fight a lot. They yell and scream. They throw things. Smashy things. When they’re not yelling or throwing smashy things, I think they move furniture. Refridgerators, sofas, beds, or something. Heavy furniture. Bump, thump, thud, scrape, scrape, scrape. I wouldn’t care too much about this, even though I’m a daytime sleeper… if it happened in the daytime. Oh, no. This happens around oh… 3:30am. On a weeknight, when my husband needs to be up at 5am. I don’t know what was so important one night that they had to haul it through the very narrow alley at 2am, scraping metal against metal all the way. Much yelling, scraping, yelling, and more scraping. It took them an excruciating hour and a half to get whatever the hell it was through that tiny space. I stepped out in my pyjamas and offered them some help, and they just yelled back that they were fine. Uh huh. I went back inside. I didn’t see what it was. I didn’t care.

So, eventually… the night noises stop. They yell in the daytime now. That’s okay. I don’t have a job. I can move to the sofa and cover my head with cushions if I want sleep. I was more concerned for my husband. He’s been sleeping pretty good lately.

Heavy sigh.

Recently, something new has started happening. Starting at around 2am, on completely random nights… a tapping has begun. Remember that window that is just below my head when I sleep? The tapping is on that window. And through the paperthin walls, I hear:

taptaptap… tap tap tap…

(stage whisper): “Hey, Dave!”

taptaptaptap

“Dave? Dave it’s me.”

taptaptap

“Dave? Hey, Dave?”

taptaptaptap

Okay. So, again, I’m a pretty mild mannered, easy going kind of girl. Someone needs Dave. Okay. That’s fine. That’s hunky dunky dory. That is jackanory. Allll righty then.

taptaptaptap

“Dave? Dave it’s me.”

This goes on, folks, for, literally, LITERALLY, hours. HOURS. They never go to the door, they never speak louder than that weird stage whisper, and they always taptaptaptap on that damnitall window. They start at roughly 2am. At 5am, they are still doing it.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.

Random nights. Always a different person. One night it was a woman, or someone dressed as a woman. I heard her clickclickclick heels first. Then she began.

taptaptaptap

(husky female voice) “David? David it’s me.”

taptaptap
The kicker? Dave never answers them. Ever. I wonder if Dave is even there. I wonder if a Dave even exists.

I don’t sleep much anyway, and thankfully, by the time this weird stuff starts up, my husband is deep in dreamland, and rarely hears it.

I decided to mention it here tonight, because it happened again… except with a twist:

Someone tapped on *my living room window * and started saying, “Dave? Dave it’s me.”

I very quietly got up, crept across the apartment, and turned off the nearby lamps, hopefully symbolising that nobody in this household was going to answer the door at 2am. It worked…

And then, five minutes later, on that damnitall window that’s almost directly below my head when I sleep, I hear:

taptaptaptap

“Dave, are you there? Dave, it’s me.”
:dubious:

2

Weird. And really, really creepy.

Maybe they’re all fans of the British series, The Leage of Gentlemen.

In a somewhat similar vein… I work at a refuge which is situated in one of the more colourful parts of Sydney. We have about four brothels in the street, situated on either side of us and across the road. Because we have lights on all through the night, we often get mistaken for one of the other kinds of establishments that have a light on all through the night. We are constantly getting guys knocking at the door, looking for a little more than we can offer, and have to direct them a couple doors down. I’ve often been tempted to put a sign up on the door, especially on Friday and Saturday nights, saying, “The light is not red.” I swear to god, if one more guy

a) stares at me nervously, waiting for me to ofter our rates
b) leers through the door at me suggestively, or
c) asks me if I can fix someone up for him and his “little friend”

I will either lose my mind, my temper, or my virginity.

3

Perhaps they are delusional and think they are a character in, “2001: A Space Odessey”

Seriously, if it happens again, call the police and let them know there is somone bothering you.

4

Well, if the window’s below you, I think a nice big bucket of water is called for. Give them a reasonable amount of time first, though.

5

…Or a bucket of - something…

6

Or you just give out a blood-freezing scream, run out in your underwear and assault them with a giant rubber penis, like that one poster here did to those poor bible salesmen.

7

Anastasaeon, another noise!? Darlin’, you live in the noisiest part a Ballard it seems. (They aren’t seagulls with band instruments?) :smiley:
You wanta come over and sleep on my couch, you can. I live in a quiet part of town. We just have Sand Point Way wizzing by.
Seriously, are they drug dealers? Except, they can’t be very successful if they never answer the window.
Do you have a window that overlooks theirs? Ever thought of having an overwhelming need to toss a big pan of ice water out the window just as the tapping starts?
Or just taptaptap on your window whispering, “Dave is dead. He will never answer.” or maybe “Wait right there, while I call officer Dave to help you”

Sorry to make light, but you have the funniest disturbances… :cool:

8

You obviously live next to Cheech and Chong:

9

(answering telephone) Hello.

This is Dave. Any messages for me?

10

Hey, maybe they are murdering people!
Cheerful thought of the day
Or just nuts. Are they in the same building? Maybe you can drop a note to the manager asking them to keep the noise down during the wee hours of the morning…

11

Yeah, I think every apartment building and duplex I’ve lived in has had “quiet hours” specified in the lease. 10 pm to 7 am or something. If not, it still sounds like they might qualify for “disturbing the peace.”
Or, if you don’t want to bother with authorities, these might do the trick.

12

Can you install a big bright floodlight somehow so that when someone taps you can shine a spotlight on them? Might make them stay away next time. At least it might give them a heart attack.

13

These are our rules - you got the time correct, too.

It was pretty bad noise-wise a couple of months ago, and my husband did get upset enough to call the police, twice in one night one time, but as far as we know, they never showed up. We did mention it to our manager while he was out here one day, and maybe he did warn them - the yelling did switch to daytime. They don’t move stuff around as much anymore. I still hear people getting in around 1:30am, but that’s not my business and not too noisy. They might have a night-shift job.

As for the tapping, well… I’m not sure if it counts as disturbing the peace - they are pretty quiet. But they are disturbing my peace, I suppose. I hear them just fine because of where I am.

The window is almost directly under my head when I sleep - almost. In order to dump something on those people, I’d have to aim diagonally and shoot for under a set of stairs… it’s an odd angle. Trust me, if I could have dumped something on them, I’d have certainly done so by now - that’s my kind of plan!

picunurse - my husband has this notion that it’s because we live at the bottom of the hill here in Ballard, instead of at the top. He insists it gets quieter and less"disruptive" the higher up one goes. We are next to Market Street, and Ballard Avenue - the one place my husband told me to stay away from at night in this neighbourhood. :wink:

There are some interesting noises around here - but I tend only to report the more unusual and entertaining ones. The noisiest thing on this street 90% of the time is those recycling trucks who dump all that glass and scare the bejaysus out me. :stuck_out_tongue:
I would love dearly to play a nasty little trick on one of these people some time, but I think next time it happens I’m just going to try calling the police. Especially if someone tries knocking on my living room eindow at 2am again - that freaked me out a little bit. My mind processes that it’s either an emergency or a burglar, so that’s what I’ll tell the police. I’ll tell them I’m holding a lamp over my head by the door or something. :smiley: No more of this “disturbing the peace” crap, that doesn’t seem to get anyone out here.

I thought it might be drugs, but as** picunurse ** points out, Dave would be a terrible dealer if he never answered his window. Maybe a lot of people live there, and work or go out at different hours, and don’t own a key for some reason, and they just want Dave to let them back in to their own apartment? But Dave is a deep sleeper and/or can’t be bothered. Though that doesn’t explain why I got a knock on my window last night. Or maybe it does, if the person had just come home from Ballard Ave. :smack:

Now I just have to wait for it to happen again. Random night. It might be tonight, it might not be for another week. But sometime soon, I’ll hear that

taptaptaptap

“Hey, Dave? Dave, it’s me.”

(they never, ever identify themselves as anyone other than “me”, either. Weird.)

14

Open the window, stick your head out, and say in a very loud voice, “I don’t think Dave’s there.” Then just stare at them until they leave.

15

[QUOTE=Anastasaeon]
These are our rules - you got the time correct, too.

[QUOTE]

BWA ha! I’m psychic, psychic I tells ya!

Or was that psychotic?

(size=1)Wanders off to find meds.(/size)

16

Boy, ain’t that just about the crappiest coding ever. No more unmedicated coding for me!

17

Dave deals drugs.

The tapper is a junkie desperate for their fix.

Sounds straightforward enough to me! :stuck_out_tongue:

18

Mix sugar with chili pepper.

Put in envelope.

Leave envelope by Dave’s window.

19

Hilarity ensues!

I personally vote for paint balloon bombs.