The drummer nextdoor

The house came with its old sounds – the squeaks in the floorboards, the click and hum of the furnace, the buzz of the fluorescent lights in the basement. Sounds so familiar to the 16-year previous residents as to not even register. Other sounds I suspected were out of their elderly hearing range, such as the high-pitched squeal of the ventilator on the roof directly above the bedroom, turning freely in the night wind and filling the neighborhood with its rusty protests.

The first time the life flight helicopter buzzed our house, coming in for a landing at the hospital four blocks north of us, I thought we were under attack. The late evening train whistle rolling up the hillside from the tracks on the other side of the interstate was a familiar sound – farther and fainter than it had been in our last place.

The low occasional cooing and rustling of the neighbors pigeons housed in short, dark coops against the back fence was a welcome one, as was the flapping of their wings in concert as they circled our block in tight formations.

But the least welcome sound, one the previous tenants must have heard all too well and one they were no doubt relieved to be leaving behind, was the drumming.

We heard it first on that Saturday we moved in. While carrying in boxes, we craned our necks around the corner, trying to find the house, shielded by trees, from which the incessant beats were issuing one after the other. Cymbals crashed and the bass thumped as we settled the dining room table and stacked boxes against walls.

“I wonder how often this happens,” I thought, peering in the direction of the suspected house – white siding, perfectly innocent-looking.

I had always imagined having more control over the home-buying process. Perhaps we didn’t exercise as much care as we could have, but given our budget and the timing of our 6-month rental running up, I felt like we eventually had to go for what seemed like the best bet rather than an ideal. Given our restrictions, more and more of our stipulations were left by the wayside as we looked for the best house that would fit our price range.

And it’s a good house. But every house comes with surprises, of which a nearby drummer is a fairly mild one. Two or three houses away, his daily practices only faintly reach our house, and mainly the west end where the bedrooms are. Mostly, the drummer—whom we still haven’t met after six months of living here—restricts his performances to the afternoons, while I’m at work. But Saturday and Sunday bring no respite. Luckily, our young children don’t seem to be bothered by the muffled but discernible drumming when it is time for their naps, but that doesn’t stop us parents from muttering about the irritation when we’re pulling the doors closed behind us.

When it comes to nuisances like drumming, there can be no preventing it. Moving unwittingly into a neighborhood reigned by an amateur percussionist is only one way – imagine the disappointment of neighbors of a previously quiet block when a new percussionist moves in, or when a previously likeable high-schooler takes up the habit. My wife was just such a high-schooler, though she confesses that her drum set (which we sold only a few years ago) never saw as much use or created as much ruckus as our neighbor’s.

A man’s home is his castle. Within the walls of his castle, a man can and should be expected to pursue his own interests, however noisy. Though there are parts of me that would not hesitate to erect a sound-proof bubble along all the borders of my property, there’s another part that is glad my fences are only four foot high chain link, allowing easy sight lines around the neighborhood. I don’t want to be completely isolated from my neighbors, and that requires tolerance.

For now, I suppose I should just be grateful that all winter our neighbor has practiced with his garage door closed.