Trouble in Paradise
01.28.2012 
What’s a paradise without a little trouble?
Just as Paris seems to be our kind of heaven, so the trouble we've been experiencing over the last year seems to be our idea of hell, we who value silence so highly.
These nineteenth century buildings are gorgeous, but sometimes living in one feels like being inside a drum. Music next door? You hear it. Laughing? That too. All of which is fine, the sounds of life around you.
But what if you have a neighbor who likes to make noise early in the morning or past midnight, just to wake you, just for the hell of it? Sudden, sharp noise, like shoes being thrown against the wall. And who must listen to her radio at full volume, disturbing us and her neighbors upstairs.
You have to take measures.
And we did: wrote her courteous letters. Brought her flowers. Wrote the owners of the apartment. Spoke to the gardienne. Spoke with our neighbor in the street.
Why she was so noisy?, we asked.
Because she felt like it, she said. And then came a litany of resentment, against Americans, against artists, against the owner of her apartment, and other vague resentments.
Resentment. I thought of Friedrich Nietzsche’s words about Buddhism, that “there is nothing to which [the Buddha's] doctrine is more opposed than the feeling of revenge, antipathy, ressentiment (“it is not by enmity that enmity is ended”—that is the stirring refrain of all Buddhism).”
We wrestled with how to handle this.
We spoke with friends, French and American. We talked to a lawyer, a doctor, a property manager, and others.
The advice was varied:
Get very tough, don't let them walk on you; that posture is all the French understand.
Women said, She needs some flowers.
Men said, She needs a good ----.
French people of all genders said, She’s crazy (déséquilibré, as the French so delicately put it).
She’s miserable, lonely.
She’s both.
Quelle bêtise!, said a French woman about the anti-American, anti-artist bias. What nonsense.
Monster-Baby-Tyrant is what we call this kind of behavior.
If you’re miserable, one way to handle it is to take it out on others. Scapegoating, it’s called.
If you want peace and compassion from others, you have to give it, we decided. Maybe over time this would have an effect. Maybe by setting an example of consideration towards her, she would follow suit.
We vowed we wouldn’t descend to her level and play our music or TV loud. We bought earphones, and watch our French films and news programs (one of the ways we study the language) without making noise to bother our neighbors.
We bought a fan, to create white noise between our bed and the wall adjoining our two apartments.
That inspired the first communication initiated by her, after six months of none. She left a note outside our door. There was a sound, she said, that disturbed her sleep. Perhaps we had heard it too?
Yes, we replied. We needed a way to block out your noise in the morning (and sometimes during the day and night too).
She handled this as any mature human being would and hired a lawyer. A lawyer? No dialogue at all? Why not just offer to be quieter, and come to some agreement with us so that we all could sleep peacefully, without the need for a fan?
We replied with a letter (through our lawyer) that described our mutual history, including the soundproofing we’d put in on our side, at the request of the owners of the apartment. If that didn’t work, they had promised, they’d soundproof their side, too.
We had asked our excellent contractor about his experience soundproofing Paris apartments. He’d done it, he said, but hadn’t found a really good method yet. He’d heard that there were better methods in the U.S.
We spent months researching American soundproofing. It didn’t seem like such a big challenge to me, since my father was a contractor, and so is my brother. Easy enough.
The material was shipped to France while we were still in the U.S. Our contractor did a beautiful job of lifting it by crane through a fifth floor window, installing it, and finishing off the walls so that the beauty of the crown molding stayed intact. All for a reasonable price.
It didn’t work. It helped. It would have worked if our neighbor were making a reasonable amount of noise.
But she wasn't. From the day we moved here one year ago (and even before that, we’d heard from previous occupants), she had begun her campaign of banging on the wall to express some chronic misery in her soul.
And then the owners of the apartment decided they didn’t want to spend the money, or risk losing the beautiful ceiling line by soundproofing on their side, or—who knows, maybe they knew it would do no good with a tenant on a rampage.
They also decided they no longer wanted her as a tenant, and asked her to leave.
But she hired a lawyer, and has stayed. French law is heavily on the side of the tenant; it is almost impossible to evict one.
After a while, we protected our sleep with not just a fan, but sleeping pills as well.
Several months later, I read an article about the harm that these pharmaceuticals do. We decided to kick them together, to get “moraline-free,” a word that Nietzsche coined. “… not virtue but fitness (Renaissance virtue, virtú, virtue that is moraline-free).” His ideal, ours too, is to live a healthy life.
To make it easier, I rented a studio for a few weeks where I could catch three birds—fish with one net:
Go down into depth and find my fiction voice again.
Get off the sleeping pill.
And give Richard the solitude to do the same.
It worked! We are both “moraline-free.” We both were able to shift gears and go into deeper artistic focus.
Now that the studio rental is over, and I’m back home, how will this drama unfold? Stay tuned.
Reader Comments (22)
Kaaren and Richard:
I'm so sorry that your idyllic life in Paris is being disrupted by a noisy psychopath. We have plenty of those here in L.A., as you no doubt remember. Do the French have the equivalent of a restraining order? If so, that seems to be what your attorney should be angling for. Otherwise, start a story or a cycle of poems about a noisy neighbor who awakes one morning from uneasy dreams to find herself transformed into a giant lobotomized insect . . .
But don't publish it.
Sending good thoughts your way,
Steve
Dear Steve,
We're so happy to hear from you, and grateful for your empathy. Since all life is drama, and no drama is compelling without the element of trouble, I guess this is ours.
Okay, you just tuned into some essential metaphor for this neighbor. I must tell you a story which will sound off-the-wall to you as a more rational member of the human race than I. I walked by the statue of St. Michel in Paris one night. Then that same night someone posted a link on Facebook to a ritual you can do to dissolve obstacles. it involved a certain prayer to Saint Michael. Synchronicity, you know? I'm not Catholic, but I thought, What do I have to lose? I said the prayer, closed my eyes, then on opening them, jumped. On the coffee table in front of me was a big bug, about two inches long. It was shaped like a cockroach, but wasn't one. My immediate thought was: the neighbor! Here she is, manifested by the prayer. I know, I know. I wrapped her little body in a Kleenex and put her on the window sill so she could make her way back home.
The strange thing is that we have never seen this kind of bug in our apartment before, not since we bought it five years ago. Never seen it anywhere else in Paris either.
I had the thought to write a story about it. Maybe I will.
What are you working on now? Has Sheyene returned to writing? How's Truman?
Thanks again, Steve. We miss you all.
Love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
so so sorry to hear about the loud loud one. but love love reading the text the image the text the image...this is clearly a "disturbing the peace" issue and can the gendarme be brought in? so sorry.
Someone once told me that you can't shame or appease someone unless he has a conscience. No conscience, no shame.
If a fan bugs her, then she has good ears. Can you get in cahoots with the other neighbors to bang pots and pans? kick walls? blare horns? play Journey's Don't Stop Believin' at full volume for a twelve-hour go? (I hear that's particularly effective when you want to roust cult leaders from their encampments.)
Maybe Saint Michael was trying to say that she's a bug you have to enfold in a tissue (of noise) and place elsewhere.
So glad you're back!
Dears,
Les Mis!!!! Oh my heavens, this is taking "life interrupted" to the extreme. Perhaps your neighbor needs a de-possession, subliminal tapes with "you are quiet and calm" imbedded in the music or, better yet, a massive prayer circle to send her peace to calm her tortured soul.. — She needs help! Too bad she's so loud about it and disturbing your paradise and peace. — I hope your exotic creature will carry her static energy away, up and out. Was your "bug" a scarab? A messenger of the Gods?
The good stuff: your month off and studio experience sounds like it was a huge reprieve and quite wonderful. A break in the cycle is always regenerative.
And, thanks for the reminder about the sleeping "medicine." I need to wean. Now where can I do my month?
Richard, as usual your photographs so beautifully illustrate the "telling." I always enjoy them and begin to salivate, wanting to move to Paris just for the walls, the architecture and "cool spotting."
Hey Guys... Happy one year in Paris anniversary!!
Love,
Joanne
Lisa!
Thank you, thank you! There are avenues for bringing in someone to make a report on noise next door. But they have to be there when it's going on, difficult when the noise is intermittent or very early. So glad you're enjoying the text/photos. Your empathy means a lot.
I think of you every time I see or hear any reference to Patti Smith!
XO,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Hi Anna,
That's an interesting truth. I've been struck with how completely lacking in empathy she is, and how that seems connected to a lack of imagination. How can you feel for anyone else if you cannot imagine that they have an inner life too? Is that what a sociopath is? Someone who can't imagine their way into another's heart and mind? Sometimes when I'm closing a door quietly late at night out of consideration for her, it strikes me as ludicrous, yet I can't stop being aware of her as a human being who needs her sleep, too.
Now that is an imaginative suggestion: neighbors all banding together to create dramatic noise. We should investigate this approach.
Saint Michael was definitely giving me a message. Maybe I'll take Steve's suggestion and tease out what it is by writing a story.
We're happy to be back too! And I love reading your good writing news. Best of luck on the series, and I'm impressed at your rewrite of ten chapters.
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Dear Joanne,
Oh what a cornucopia of good ideas. De-possession: call a priest or a medicine man. Subliminal tapes: call Stuart for some Buddhist tango tunes. A massive prayer circle: oh, that our friends and family might do this spontaneously. I think it would be effective.
It wasn't a scarab, but close. I can't even find a picture of it in online photos of insects of Paris.
Yes, going into solitude is a very good idea for everyone periodically. Could you go up to your place in Washington?
Richard already knows the Paris streets as well as anyone I've met. If you come to Paris, we'll go on some walkabouts!
One year--thanks for reminding us to celebrate that!
Much love,
Kaaren (& Richard)
Wow – this just sucks – period. For two people as nice as you to be forced to suffer fools is a grievance of the highest order. Where are the strong and who are the trusted that can rid this curse from your home? A god, a goddess, a totem, a Parisian zoning law expert, a voodoo priestess? Maybe we could petition all the living ex-members of Monty Python to come and perform the Spanish Inquisition on your neighbor. Dawna and I hope for swift justice and a return to peace love and understanding for two of the coolest people on the planet.
You are in a war in which i have been a soldier before. I have lost and i have won. No one should ever move into a new place without sleeping there for a week or longer first. But as hopeless as it seems, i hold hope still that there could be a way to work it out.
( the place i live in now when i first moved in -- a screeching parrot in the backyard, an ornery old coot with with a son just out of prison for manslaughter. we became best friends, family even after a month long noise war. )
Hire a detective. Find out all you can about this person. who they care about. what makes them tick. maybe there is some way to have a person they would LISTEN to ...get them to hear your side.
When all avenues have been exhausted. Fight din with cacophony. their own. Record their sounds and blast them back at them through the walls. ( that worked in one case) haunt them with their own noise pollution. (and after knowing what makes them tick...what might drive them out )
Dearest Kaaren & Richard,
Oh, I have such empathy for your situation. For about a year, we shared thin walls with a couple who were aggressively (and intentionally) noisy and rude and impossible; I'll spare you the ugly details, but I know it is just awful and draining to be subjected to such behavior. I'm so sorry your lives have been unsettled by this person, and for so long.
I think you and some other friends have hit on something here in terms of this woman's utter inability to have any sense of others' feelings or lives. This person seems trapped in her own bitter, angry shell. And who knows what terrible things may have happened in her life to shape her in this way, or maybe it's merely the way she's wired - "bad chemicals," as Vonnegut might say. In either case, though, it is unfair that you should have to bear the brunt of it. (I'm wondering - since she is so clearly irrational - if continued pressure on the apartment owner would help...)
I am happy, though, to hear that you've returned to fiction, Kaaren. And that both of you are consciously finding ways to take care of yourselves amid the nuttiness.
Sending you love and wishes for peace, peace, peace...
xoxo,
d
K&R,
I'm sending you both extra support and surrounding you with a cushion of care and quietude. Personally, I'm a bit fanatical about my private space and this definitely includes abating noise pollution. We all deserve some peace in our own homes, right? My occasional invasions are nothing like yours so I'm more appreciative about what I do have and empathize deeply with your dilemma. Walking around with noise-cancelling headphones (which I do...) or "cone of silence" ala Get Smart is not a solution (but does help momentarily).
YES on a group energetic intention of peace and quiet! Just let me know when and I'll be there.
Quietly,
Joanne
Ahhh to get an interview for a day or a week or a month with her....and Richard snapping photos....and some final magical story or book written about this woman who probably craves the attention of two American artists?? Just a thought! Empathetically yours....Suki
I will also share a story that helped me long ago....I wrote a note to a (Republican) Senator about the war and my opposition to it. My name and address was then added to the Republican's database. I wrote notes requesting my info be removed...I returned their rubbish....I called them and requested removal of my name and address. To no avail!! Finally a friend said, tell them you'll give a donation to the Democratic Party every time you receive one of their mailers. I did just that. And guess what? It worked. I was taken out of their database! Some equally trump would be fun to figure out... each noise coming from her apartment between midnight and six am would find you giving to some blatantly American artistic cause.....?? xo S
Michael,
I'm laughing and close to crying reading your note. It is such balm when friends not only empathize but even come up with ideas for solving this drama. A friend who told us the other night about her encounter in Paris with a voodoo priestess. Hmmmm. Perhaps a combination of magic, comedy and the law might work? Do you think Monty Python would accept our invitation to come and do a little Paris Play next door? Now that really would be cool.
Much love,
Kaaren & Richard
Steve!
When we bought this place, this neighbor was not yet a tenant and the apartment was quite peaceful.
We'd like to hear how you achieved peace with your neighbor with the screeching parrot. Please hold that thought that this can be worked out. I think so too. In fact, if we'd been in our native culture, in which we're fluent in the language, I think we'd have worked it out by now.
Your two ideas of hiring a detective, and fighting the noise by recording her noise are tactics worthy of Athena, a far better warrior than Ares because of her cool head and clever strategy.
Very grateful for the imaginative suggestions.
XO,
Kaaren & Richard
Dear Dawna,
I seem to recall your telling me about that situation with a neighbor.
It's just like you to try to imagine what made her this way. The bitter angry shell is probably not just the result of things that happened to her, but also caused those things to happen. Sort of an endless feedback loop.
The owners are sympathetic, and we'll be talking to them further, for sure.
Thank you so much for the good wishes for fiction and peace. Sending you the same!
Love,
Kaaren & Richard
Hmmm, Joanne,
You're giving us an idea. Thank you. Will keep you posted.
And thank you for the silent support...
XO,
Kaaren & Richard
Suki,
What a wild idea. Hilarious. Go over and invite her to participate in an American art project featuring... HER! That would cover her need for attention. Because we are aware that in some sad dear part of herself that's all she wants. Strange synchronicity: the day after posting this, the NY Times had an article on loneliness, how some lonely people are often aggressive and hostile. That seems so counter-intuitive, doesn't it? You lash out at others because you need connection? Gee, just not the most effective strategy.
Your story about how you got out of that Republican senator's data base is pretty crafty. I think what your and others' comments are giving us is a data base of imaginative approaches. Surely one of them will work.
Thank you for this, Suki.
Love,
Kaaren & Richard
Thought of you this week when I was at a friend's sound recording studio. Those rooms have to be absolutely sound proof -- so perhaps that is something to look into?
Though you'd shared some of the story with me, Kaaren -- I enjoyed reading it in the unfolding larger context of Paris Play. And the images were parfait!
See you in a couple of days!
xx
Amy,
Now you're talking! My fantasy is to line the room with cork a la Proust, then have it painted over it so that it looks like regular walls.
So many good ideas from the group brain that I'm pretty sure we'll solve this problem now.
Yes, see you soon!
XO,
Kaaren (& Richard)