Gloom for improvement
Dec. 3rd, 2007 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
j4Things I am stressed about (ignore this if you don't want to read stressy whinging):
The car. It needs to go for an MOT. However I can't get it to the MOT because it doesn't start. I think it just has a flat battery, and I do have a battery charger, but using that involves getting the battery out of the car, and when I came to look at it, I found that the connectors are so muck-encrusted I can't even tell what tools I'd need to get them undone. It doesn't help that there are no daylight hours any more in which to investigate.
Next weekend. I am carol-singing in Cambridge on the Saturday, and singing in London on the Sunday, and meeting people in Cambridge on the Monday (long weekend!), and the logistics of where to stay are doing my head in. I would be tempted to just drive there and sleep in the car, except see above. I suppose I could hire a useful car as well as paying hundreds of pounds to maintain a useless car.
Noise. The noise from the Iceland delivery vans etc outside our bedroom window, every morning from 6am (or 4am on one occasion), is ridiculously loud. I mean, I don't have a decibel-o-meter or whatever I'd need, but it's louder than I would ever put music on in the house. If I'm tired enough I can sleep through it; if I'm un-tired enough I can put up with being woken at 6am; but usually I'm somewhere between "tired enough to sleep through explosions" and "un-tired enough to wake up early", so I just get tireder. The options for dealing with this as far as I can see are:
1. move house. NOT AN OPTION. I mean, I honestly just couldn't face it unless there was no choice eg if the landlady actually kicked us out.
2. move rooms so we sleep at the front of the house. This is possible, but would really upset me. We'd have to swap the bedroom and the living room, which means a) a bedroom with gigantic condensation-covered patio windows, which would get damp and so freezing cold in winter that we'd have to have the heating on all the time; b) a bedroom in the room which is obviously shaped like a living room, and a living room which is small and dark and inhospitable and in the wrong place, so I'd never want to invite anybody round; c) either having to move three enormous wardrobes (difficult) or have the wardrobes in the living room (stupid); d) days of faffing around with furniture which would basically be nearly as much hassle as moving; e) still having the risk of noise all night because the local yoof buzz around the carpark on their scooters, and have loud offensive shouting matches, and use their cars as loud revving stereo-systems, and so on. I could probably sleep through that as easily as the clanging from Iceland, but it's less predictable.
3. get double glazing. This really is the ideal thing as it'd make it quieter/warmer without us having to move everything around. But because we don't own the house it may not be possible. If you were a landlady, how would you react to a request like "please can we pay to have double glazing installed in your house?" -- would you think we were barmy? Would you consider it?
4. burn down Iceland.
5. complain to the council about noise etc etc. Probably not possible as presumably businesses are allowed to make whatever noise they damn well like at any time of the day or night, because they have money and therefore the council don't want to piss them off.
6. try to get used to earplugs (I find them really unpleasant and uncomfortable, to the point of them making me feel slightly nauseous, and I really can't imagine being able to sleep with them in, but I suppose if I used them all the time I might get used to it).
7. ??? What options have I missed?
General lack of grip. I just feel like it's all slipping out of my control, and I'm running out of time to get things done in (there's no particular deadline, I just have this underlying sense of panic and being-late-for-things even when I'm not), and I want a month off to 'set my lands in order'.
It's not "I can't cope"; it's "I'm so tired of coping and it just never lets up and I start to wonder what the point of it all is anyway."
The car. It needs to go for an MOT. However I can't get it to the MOT because it doesn't start. I think it just has a flat battery, and I do have a battery charger, but using that involves getting the battery out of the car, and when I came to look at it, I found that the connectors are so muck-encrusted I can't even tell what tools I'd need to get them undone. It doesn't help that there are no daylight hours any more in which to investigate.
Next weekend. I am carol-singing in Cambridge on the Saturday, and singing in London on the Sunday, and meeting people in Cambridge on the Monday (long weekend!), and the logistics of where to stay are doing my head in. I would be tempted to just drive there and sleep in the car, except see above. I suppose I could hire a useful car as well as paying hundreds of pounds to maintain a useless car.
Noise. The noise from the Iceland delivery vans etc outside our bedroom window, every morning from 6am (or 4am on one occasion), is ridiculously loud. I mean, I don't have a decibel-o-meter or whatever I'd need, but it's louder than I would ever put music on in the house. If I'm tired enough I can sleep through it; if I'm un-tired enough I can put up with being woken at 6am; but usually I'm somewhere between "tired enough to sleep through explosions" and "un-tired enough to wake up early", so I just get tireder. The options for dealing with this as far as I can see are:
1. move house. NOT AN OPTION. I mean, I honestly just couldn't face it unless there was no choice eg if the landlady actually kicked us out.
2. move rooms so we sleep at the front of the house. This is possible, but would really upset me. We'd have to swap the bedroom and the living room, which means a) a bedroom with gigantic condensation-covered patio windows, which would get damp and so freezing cold in winter that we'd have to have the heating on all the time; b) a bedroom in the room which is obviously shaped like a living room, and a living room which is small and dark and inhospitable and in the wrong place, so I'd never want to invite anybody round; c) either having to move three enormous wardrobes (difficult) or have the wardrobes in the living room (stupid); d) days of faffing around with furniture which would basically be nearly as much hassle as moving; e) still having the risk of noise all night because the local yoof buzz around the carpark on their scooters, and have loud offensive shouting matches, and use their cars as loud revving stereo-systems, and so on. I could probably sleep through that as easily as the clanging from Iceland, but it's less predictable.
3. get double glazing. This really is the ideal thing as it'd make it quieter/warmer without us having to move everything around. But because we don't own the house it may not be possible. If you were a landlady, how would you react to a request like "please can we pay to have double glazing installed in your house?" -- would you think we were barmy? Would you consider it?
4. burn down Iceland.
5. complain to the council about noise etc etc. Probably not possible as presumably businesses are allowed to make whatever noise they damn well like at any time of the day or night, because they have money and therefore the council don't want to piss them off.
6. try to get used to earplugs (I find them really unpleasant and uncomfortable, to the point of them making me feel slightly nauseous, and I really can't imagine being able to sleep with them in, but I suppose if I used them all the time I might get used to it).
7. ??? What options have I missed?
General lack of grip. I just feel like it's all slipping out of my control, and I'm running out of time to get things done in (there's no particular deadline, I just have this underlying sense of panic and being-late-for-things even when I'm not), and I want a month off to 'set my lands in order'.
It's not "I can't cope"; it's "I'm so tired of coping and it just never lets up and I start to wonder what the point of it all is anyway."
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no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 08:13 pm (UTC)It's certainly worth talking to the council - after all, you pay for their services. There could be arguments both ways though - for example, if Iceland have always done things this way then is it something you could reasonably have known about when you moved in? (On the other hand, if they have changed their business practices recently I would have thought that was quite a strong case).
no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 08:33 pm (UTC)Is it something you could reasonably have known about when you moved in?
Well, we knew it wasn't going to be the sort of house where the only sound in the morning was the skylark bursting into song... ;) ...I mean, it's in a shopping precinct, with a car-park on either side. I just didn't realise that it was going to be deliveries at such horrible hours of the morning, every morning, and at such a high level of noise. (As I said somewhere above, I used to have a room opposite the M&S delivery bay, and that was noisy, but nowhere near as bad or as frequent... I guess M&S's noise is as much higher quality than Iceland's as their food is...) And the agency/landlady didn't emphasise the noisiness when we took the place, for obvious reasons!
But yeah, basically, you're right, it's my own fault for not checking everything out properly (in my defence I had 4 weeks to find somewhere to live in Oxford and no opportunity to visit this place before taking it, though I'd been here before when
Also while I pay for the council's services I don't pay for Iceland's, but Iceland pay the council far more than I do, so it's obvious whose argument would carry more force.
no subject
Date: 2007-12-03 09:45 pm (UTC)Secondary glazing isn't as good as "real" double-glazing but it will have some effect, is cheaper and easier (i.e. less disruptive) to install (which may be particularly important if you're not the owner of the property).
I don't think you should be too concerned about the David vs Goliath aspect of your noise problem. If you had a domestic neighbour who behaved unreasonably on a regular basis, you'd want it dealt with; this should be no different. On the other hand, I expect in a domestic context you're expected to broach the subject and try to deal with things yourself first, before bringing in the authorities. Perhaps you could pop in to Iceland or write to the Store Manager to see whether there is anything they can do? The problem is caused by ignorance or carelessness rather than malice, and the last thing they want is unhappy neighbours - a little bit of bad feeling can have a big commercial impact.