One of the biggest challenges that often faces me where I live downtown is, well, living downtown. I am glad to note here that I am not living in the heart of the so-called Entertainment District, where on weekends it's all noise and drunken fights etcetera, but on the fringes (when haven't I found myself living on the fringes?) near the bridge where things tend to be more toned down. But I also live next door to a social housing complex for the hard to house.
This isn't exactly the pot calling the kettle black, by the way. I also live in social housing but most of us here do have basic life and social skills, many of us (me for example) work for a living, and we are a category one building. The place next door is category two. I don't want to know what category three would be like.
Many of the tenants that I see leaving or entering the building next door look like they have spent many years living on the street, have addictions, mental illnesses, and simply look horrible. We also have tenants in my building who live with mental illness, about forty percent of the tenants here.
What we don't have here in Candela Place is a huge problem with noise. There are no party animals living here, neither are any of us in the state of prolonged adolescence that often earmarks adults with already a host of other problems. Right now there is one unfortunate individual in the building next door who is a prolonged adolescent, his stereo is cranked up, window wide open out of which from time to time he whoops very loudly. He appears to be alone, is likely drunk or high on something, probably very lonely It is also the weekend following welfare day.
If he is making this kind of noise at night I will generally call the management of his building and they do take care to try to calm him down. They have had to call police on him on occasion and I suspect that his tenancy is under review, to say the least. Today, he was acting out on this Sunday afternoon. It is still daytime and even though I would like to be able to relax and chill a bit in my own apartment on a Sunday afternoon I choose instead to close my window. Yes, this does deprive me of fresh air but it also gives me some peace and quiet. Trade-offs, eh? When it got stuffy I made sure my kitchen exhaust fan was on and opened the window. The white noise effectively blocked everything else. He has since quietened down, perhaps management in his building just gave his ass a good kick, but who knows. My window is open, the fan is off and it is nice and tranquil right now.
I really have little choice but to put up with this guy's and other people's racket. We do live in a free country and even if I don't approve of his choice of intoxicants who am I to deny him the right to enjoying himself? I know nothing about this person. I have no idea how he has suffered, what kind of upbringing he has had, what kind of home, if any, he lived in, who abused him, what kind of limitations he has to live with. He might be living with a mental illness, or an addiction (probably) or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (likely) I do suspect that he has suffered a lot, though, and I imagine that in order to help him and others like him to integrate into society the rest of us are going to have to be patient and prepare to suffer a bit. In the meantime, once or twice a month when he gets particularly gamey I can turn on my fan, wear earplugs and as a last resort call his building managers and or police.
It's better than leaving them to rot on the street and as it takes a village to raise a child it also takes a city to rehabilitate the homeless.
Two hours have passed since I started writing this. It has been quiet as a day in the country for the past hour and a half. I am going to enjoy it as long as it lasts.
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