The Freelance “Sorroundings”

I have recently had a major change in my life, and one of the consequences is that I have moved to another apartment.

Having my soon-to-e home-based work in mind, I have arranged one of the rooms as a studio/office in order to have a space for that activity alone.

I have put into practice all advice I have found for furniture, light, arrangements and such, but today I have realised there is something quite essential that I had not taken into consideration.

Since I work part-time in the mornings, I am not usually at home. Being Sunday, today I had a late breakfast, and was about to start my computer to check mails, new posts on the blogs I follow, etc., when I started to hear more noise than usual.

Yes, the neighbours upstairs. Yes, they have a cute litttle girl trampling up and down the apartment. And yes, her teenage brothers were trying to ignore the trampling by turning up the volume of their rap music. Some time later, it was the mother, cooking lunch while singing 80s songs. Not a bad singer altogether, but I could certainly do without that.

OK, let’s not panic. Not all is lost: at least, I haven’t bought the apartment, I can always move if it gets unbearable.

A little analysis and reasoning leaves me with the following:

a) This is Sunday morning, it is not an everyday thing. Kids go to school, parents have to work… week days won’t be like this.

b) In the worst case scenario, I could always synchronise schedules and do the things I do more concentration at times when they are less noisy.

c) I could talk to them about it, but I really doubt a 5-year-old girl and two teenagers are so easy to convince.

Of couse, I am anticipating things. Up to now, I have spent several afternoons at home and I haven't been bothered much. But the noise today has made me think.

What do you do about “sorroundings”? Have you ever had noisy neighbours issues? How did you manage?