Good Thing You’re Alive, Because I’m Going To Kill You

As a student, my wife used to live in an apartment block that was built specifically for students. The insulation of the building was extremely poor. When someone walked through the corridor on the same level, it was clearly audible in her studio apartment. During winter, it was next to impossible to warm it up, while during summer, the heat was intense because the architect apparently thought a black building would look nice. And obviously, she could hear every sound her next-door neighbours made. Luckily, her best friend was one of them and she, like my wife, couldn’t stand loud noises.

One day, my wife woke up to the “lovely” sound of her other neighbour’s radio, which was playing quite loud. Since she spent most of the day at home, this made the day quite tense. Several times she walked over and rang the door in the hope that he would turn down the music. He never answered, apparently since the music was so loud.

By night, my wife was obviously fed up. She wanted to go to sleep, which the loud music made impossible for her due to her light sleeping. After some final attempts to get his attention, she decided enough was enough and called the police.

When the police arrived, they couldn’t get him to respond, either. My wife, however, had also mentioned to them that she had tried to talk to her neighbour the whole day, but that he never answered the door, while the music kept playing. She had noticed that it was now taking strangely long for him to reply and suggested that something could have happened to the neighbour. This was enough reason for the police to try and force the door open. They didn’t manage. Another student, who walked by, ironically did. (No, he was no burglar. He just had experience with accidentally locking himself out.)

Now, what on earth had happened to the neighbour? Was he dead? Or just completely stoned? No, nothing of the sort. Turns out, he wasn’t even home that day. And that he had forgotten to turn off the alarm of his clock radio.