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It has been 3 years and 8 months since I had moved into the senior apartments. My old place was a Studio so the room was cramped. But the current one I reside is much more spacious and has a bedroom, along with a kitchen and living room. Also the old place was a high-rise building and was in the middle of the city so the noise was very loud. The current place of my residence is outskirts of the city next to a college campus, and a huge forest on the other side. The apartment is nearly inside the forest so it is fresh and quite.
My wife and I had moved into the near front in the2nd floor. I had learned on the day that I moved that the elderly couple, apparently the husband on the 3rd floor were not quite. The noise of his voice was not the problem but of his walking made the floor creak loudly at times repeatedly.
Whenever I attempt to read, write journal near my desk about a foot steps distance away, I hear from the kitchen with a machine-like continually going around making a loud buzzing noise which was very bothersome. I wanted to speak to him out about this noise regulations, but seeing his weight, there was no alternative way; I decided to forget about it. It’s not like he had the choice to make the noise – the building was nearly 40 years old, and was made of wood so the noise was natural…
The main problem is that the noise continues to happen during the middle of the night. Sometimes I would wake up 2AM in the early morning to meditate the word or write something, the noise of the upper floor walking to the kitchen was very irritating. I usually wake up around 4AM in the morning to give prayer and meditate, but his footsteps up ahead were always heard.
When I see the news on about Korea, I hear many bad things happening because of noise complaint issues, sometimes to murder cases. It is natural that the person’s mind turns sharp with repeated noise and I feel it too sometimes. Whenever there is a carpet cleaning, or vacuums or even moving tables or chairs it makes a loud noise.
On the other hand, there is an elderly Korean woman living below us. As I am conscious of the noise upstairs, I try hard to walk quietly and try not to drop things on the floor. Whenever I ask her to see if we are making any noise complain, she says it is very quiet and is instead worried that because she has hard time hearing, turns high on her TV volume – making more disturbances on upper floor instead. But there is no such problem of bother in the first floor.
Out of many Koreans here, I usually have a coffee with another elderly men who is about my age. I had many talks of things here and there and, one thing that always pops up is of noise regulations. Doing laundries past 10PM in the night, gathering water in the bathtub past well into midnight, a personal laundry dryer being run very late, personal AC fans running etc. to the upper floor person walking around with their shoes very loudly – so much so that the elder would knock on the ceiling or throw balls up there to complain about the noise. Sometimes he would knock on the room to discuss about it but the person doesn’t answer… Many times after failing to contact this person he would go to the Management to talk to the noise maker, but only to have it last few days then the loudness starts again.
The one surprising thing was, about a month or so ago the person living above me started to have a major change! It does not still mean that the weight problem is still with the husband – I greet him lightly during passing-by, the surprise was that during the time periods of 2AM, 4AM, or even 8AM in the morning, the noise is gone! I wonder what kind of change had happened.
One guess is, the person had become aware of the noise or had changed their sleeping time pattern to night time and activities during daytime… Anyway the person was more careful upstairs so that my wife and I can finally rest easier. I give thanks to the husband and wife upstairs of the quietness we finally got.
(July 4th, 2016 – Freedom from Noise!)
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The pair of Geese that left… 
Noise Complain Issues