Fence Hopping

It was somewhere between 11 and midnight. I was getting ready for bed, exhausted and ready to sleep as soon as possible. But I kept hearing voices laughing and hooting over the sound of dice being shaken in a can.

It was our neighbors, behind and catty-corner to us. They like to sit on their back patio and play games with their guests, I guess. They weren't doing anything particularly offensive--just playing some kind of dice game, laughing and talking loudly.

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Something about the acoustics of the surrounding houses and yards seems to bounce the sound right up to our windows. With the windows open and the silence of the night, we could clearly hear conversation carried on in a normal voice if we wanted to. Even with the windows closed their laughter and shouts of gaiety pierced through our home.

Last time they had a party like this, they kept going until 3 or 4 AM, making it impossible to sleep even with the windows closed and the bathroom fan on. They even woke the kids on the other end of the house several times.

Between still trying to get over being sick, and Baby E having had a reaction today, I really didn't want to be awake all night with the neighbors' party again. I knew I probably wasn't the only one bothered. The neighbors on one side of us go to bed early and have mentioned being wakened in the wee hours of the morning by the backyard neighbors (or their dog) before. The neighbors on the other side of us have an almost one-week-old baby.

I had to do something.

I thought about telephoning, but I wasn't sure I had the right number. I'd tried calling them the day after last time. The phone had been answered by what sounded like a teenaged boy. After I explained that I was the neighbor and asked for the woman who owns the house, he stammered a bit and told me that nobody by that name lived there. I had double-checked the number several times, and called my next-door neighbor to see if she had the same number for them. She did. I was pretty sure it was the right number, but I wasn't going to risk it so late at night.

I thought about hopping in my car and driving over there. Although our yards touch at the corners, their house is on a different street from ours. It's 5 or 6 blocks to walk from one house to the other around the corners. The front door idea seemed a little odd, though. I wasn't sure they'd answer the doorbell, and somehow it didn't feel quite safe to be ringing a near-stranger's doorbell in the middle of the night and maybe getting into an altercation with someone who may be angry or drunk or something, for all I knew.

I'd tried calling to them out the window last time, "Excuse me, are you aware that it's 2 AM and people are trying to sleep?" But they hadn't seemed to hear me.

Calling the police seemed like overkill, since I hadn't even tried talking to them personally about it yet.

So I walked out into the back yard, to the corner that touched the corner of their yard. The fences are six feet tall in our neighborhood--smooth cedar panels with nothing for feet to grip. I'm 5' 2", so the top was well above my head. Since it was a corner, though, I could grab onto the tops of both fences and brace my feet on the sides.

For a moment I didn't think I'd be able to pull myself up. Then I was scaling the fence, awkwardly clambering atop the boards.

The people sitting around the backyard table looked up as I settled myself comfortably astride the fence. I wish I had a picture of their faces as they glanced up to see what must have seemed something of a ghostly apparition sitting atop the back fence in the dark.

"Hello!" I said in bright, cheery tones.

The neighbor lady looked like she might bolt or scream for a moment, but then she realized I must be just the crazy neighbor. "Uh, hi?"

"I don't know if you realize this, but we can hear you loud and clear inside our house."

"Oh? What time is it?"

"I don't know, almost midnight?" I looked at my watch. "Oh, it's 11:20. A few weeks ago we could hear you until 3 or 4 in the morning. I just wanted to let you know. My kids are trying to sleep, and the noise wakes them up."

"That was, like, a month and a half ago."

"Maybe. I don't know, 6 or 8 weeks ago? It woke the kids several times. Anyway, I thought you might want to know we could hear you quite loudly."

"Have you tried a fan? Sometimes that masks noises."

"Yes, we tried the fan."

"Do you have the windows open?"

"No, they're all closed. Something about the way the noise bounces off the courtyard or something, just makes the sound carry, I guess . . . "

"That's weird. So, we're being too loud. We're not going to be out here much longer, anyway. We're just celebrating my nephew's graduation."

"Okay, well, have fun. I hope you have a good night."

"We'll try to be quieter."

"Thanks, I really appreciate it."

"Good job getting up on the fence like that, by the way. That was impressive."

I laughed. "Thanks. I just figured you probably didn't know we could hear you so well. Thought you'd want to know."

"We'll try to be really really quiet."

"Thank you very much. Enjoy your party. Good night."

I strained my hip a bit hopping down in the dark, but it was worth it.

If I'm feeling up to it tomorrow, I might take them cookies or something to thank them for quieting down and to let them know there are no hard feelings. I really didn't want to spoil their party, but, you know, I think I'd want to know if my party was keeping the neighbors awake like that.