Ear to the floor

There's a new noise to complain about at the Love Shack. It's a more or less continuous high-pitched whine, like a blow dryer or a dustbuster. At first I thought I was just hearing things. Getting old. Crazy person, overly sensitive to sound, self-diagnosed with misophonia, any little noise can grate on my nerves. Maybe it's just some kind of ringing in my ears, the kind of ringing that happened when I laid my head on my purring cat for too long. (Fun at first but not recommended.)

I put my ear to the wall between my apartment and my noisy neighbor. When she's home I can hear all kinds of things. I don't even have to try. I hear her blowing her nose. I hear her toilet flush. I hear her getting lucky on Saturday nights. (When the bed starts shaking, I'm tempted to pound on the wall, just for the hell of it.) This time I heard nothing. Hard to believe, but I don't think the noise is coming from her place. Unless her little dog is using the blow dryer to dry his short and curlies.

I made like an Indian, oh sorry, Native American, and put my ear to the floor. Amazing what you can hear when you do that. (If you don't mind getting cooties.) The floor was gently humming.

Was the noise in the basement? I got my laundry room key and went downstairs to have a look. The basement in this old triplex is mostly a dank, dark, unfinished cave. The laundry room is lit by two bare bulbs, festooned with spider webs, dust, and lint from years of tenants' laundry. It's cold in summer, colder in winter, not pleasant. The front side, though, is a different story. In the front of the triplex, a very steep driveway used to lead to a pair of very narrow garages, built for very narrow cars. Think Model T and you might have it. Some years ago someone bricked up the wall with glass bricks. The sun coming in through the bricks refracts the light, illuminating piles of furniture and boxes. (My landlords use the brightly lit front space for storage.) One of the old wooden garage doors is still in place, giving the place some authenticity.

I skulked through the basement, listening carefully while dodging spider webs and a smelly wetsuit (my noisy neighbor is a surfer, did I mention that?). All I heard was the usual cracking and sighing of an old crumbling shack. Nothing in the basement was making the whining noise, although I could still hear it. It was in the walls, in the floors, not loud, just an insidious whine that set my teeth on edge.

I heard it best in my bedroom and bathroom, which means it is probably something in my silent neighbor's apartment. Her name is Mary. I rarely see her. She's a ghost, compared to Joy, my neighbor on the other side (the one with the pooping dog). What is Mary doing over there?

Maybe it's a dentist's drill, maybe she's practicing to be a dental tech. No, maybe it's a hair dryer, maybe she had a stroke while sitting under a hair dryer and now she's a mummy, toasting in the heat while the dryer whines on and on. I know, maybe she's got a roombot! That would be cool. Except wouldn't the whining sound change as it bashed into walls and ran over shoes and stuff? I don't know. If I had a roombot, my cat would shred my favorite books, destroy my clothes, and then hide under the bed till next Christmas.

I have no idea if the whining is actually constant. I do leave the Love Shack once in a while. I don't know what happens when I'm gone. My cat could be watching porn for all I know. My cat could be in cahoots with my neighbor. With both my neighbors! To drive me crazy. Does that sound crazy? Well, whatever. After three days of the mysterious whine, one day I came home, and it was gone.

Then a few days later I got home, and it was back. Looks like I'd better learn to live with it. I'm trying. I've managed to set aside my curiosity about its source long enough to take my afternoon naps between morning and evening classes. I've written a note, in my mind, several notes, actually, something along the lines of: Dear neighbor, what is that odd sound, do you hear it? Is it perhaps coming from your apartment? If so, would you please SHUT IT OFF!

This weekend the noise is off. Not on. Whatever. I don't even know what makes the noise. Maybe it's my ears after all. Maybe it is a function of how much salt I eat, or how much sleep I get, or how addicted I am to Scandal. I don't know. I'm beginning to think the universe is testing me to find out how spiritually evolved I am. The doctoral saga. The career college meltdown. The dog poop. The whining noise.

On the bright side, my sister's boyfriend has surfaced in SE Asia and reports he is intact. She's ecstatic, despite winter storm Nemo burying Boston in two feet of wet snow. I'm happy for her. Love is a wonderful thing. So I hear. Hmmm. I'm not sure I can trust my ears on that, either. Oh well.