I’ve been called a Grinch by the neighbours. 

Perhaps I am…

Because I don’t like loud African techno music blasting through my floor for 3 days continuously, from the moment I wake up til the moment I head back to bed. Because I really don’t enjoy being able to hear that music through my active noise cancellation headphones and feeling the beat pumping up from the floor. Because perhaps I don’t think it’s normal, not even for the festive holidays of the year, to be forced to wear headphones to filter out that noise they call music. Because in those 20 days a year that I have time off work, I like just hanging at home in peace and quiet hygge, away from the hustle and bustle of the office life. I don’t believe most of my neighbours even know what it means to be “tired from work”, considering the fact that since they’ve moved in over the past years, I’ve only seen them rocking the single mum on Belgian OCMW financial benefit life style. The parents of the owners of the loud music collection do work, but having half a football team of kids and all their girl- and boyfriends in a 2 bedroom flat causes a whole other level of nuisance.

I’m apparently also a grinch because I don’t like the unsettling noise of people partying in the flat next doors when 40 thousand new people get infected with the Omikron Covid every day. Because obviously, those people enter and exit that flat through the same hallway as I do, holding the same door knobs as I do. Because I don’t like cooking in the kitchen, and being able to completely follow next door’s conversation between two or three Nigerian women who feel the need to conversate so loudly one would believe they’re still selling fish on the market in Abuja. Because I am not fond of being woken up at 8 am on a Saturday off, by the 3 and 5 year old kids upstairs who believe the hallway is an extra play room for them to practise their karaoke. Neither from the boy downstairs who hasn’t realized yet that digital piano’s come with amazing headsets these days. Because if I’m hearing “frère Jacques in canon” one more time, I’m gonna get my shotgun out.  

I hate the nauseating strong smell of fried fish with rice in the hallway that greets me every single damn day coming home from work. And I sigh loudly after finding out the floor of the stairs is smothered in blue glue-ish substance from either toothpaste or slushies from one of the kids JUST after I cleaned it the day before.

Also because I don’t condone the ex husband of the African lady upstairs to come round my block at all times of the night, just to “bring back a toy from the kids”. Mmmhm. Just as I didn’t enjoy being scared shitless by the sound of breaking glass at the front door, when he kicked in the window to get in forcefully. Because fuck it, I don’t enjoy getting an e-mail from the landlord altogether requesting “to not open the door for this person” because he’s not allowed close to his ex wife by court order. Tell me, how does any of this concern me? You think I prefer getting stabbed because I refuse entry to a known criminal? No thank you sir. I don’t want my household to be caught in the middle of a conflict that isn’t ours and I frown upon getting the response “stay out of my buuuusiness” when telling them to shut the hell up after half an hour of screaming bloody murder in the hallway. Nothing but nuisance, those people, bloody oil to the fire of my grinchy personality.

I’m a grinch because I hate paying four times a year to get the (common area) drains unclogged in the basement, because of cultural differences (assumingly so), which makes it impossible for the neighbouring ladies to understand that tampons don’t belong in the toilet. Because whenever it stinks in the hallway, I know I’ll be the one calling the services to literally clean up the shit from the floor. Because I don’t like it when my landlady asks me to write a notification note concerning something in the building, I get passive aggressive responses on said notes, as if I personally molest their right to be. Is it really SO inconvenient to limit showering for half a day because it’s Sunday evening and the plumber only comes by the next day to fix a leak in the basement, that it warrants shooting the messenger? I’m also a grinch because I find it odd that when the fire alarm in the building goes off, nobody else but me gives a shit and nobody else but me informs the authorities if needed. Because honestly nobody else gives a flying fuck about anything, except when they are told to turn down the volume of their music. Many fucks are given then.

You know what, I’m a Grinch and I’m completely fine with that.

Better look before you leap, if you’re hunting for a new apartment to rent these days.  #Goodneighboursmatter.

I had a good intention to whine less in 2022. I will. I promise. Starting tomorrow 🙂

Merry Grinchmas you guys.