Neighbor Screaming: Impact on Kids & Peaceful Parenting

I’m lying in bed trying to read. The apartment is quiet, the children – ten-year-old Lukáš and twelve-year-old Terezka – should already be sleeping in their room, which unfortunately shares the unfortunate paper wall with the neighbors’ bedroom. And then it comes. At first it’s just a muffled call. Laughter. Clinking glasses. That would be nice. But then that specific, rhythmic sound is heard. Boom. Boom. Boom.The headboard hitting the wall. And then a loud, completely uncontrolled female scream. These are not romantic sighs. It’s a scream, as if someone was murdering her there, interspersed with very explicit screams like: “Yes! More! That’s it!”I freeze under the covers. My first thought does not belong to me, but to the children. Can he hear it? Of course he hears it. Even a deaf person would hear that.

It used to be easier when they were smaller. “The neighbors are working out,” I said. Or, “I guess they’re moving a closet.” But Terezka is twelve. He already has a cell phone, he goes online. He knows very well that no one moves a wardrobe at a quarter to eleven at night with such frequency and sound accompaniment. Last week at breakfast the moment I was dreading came. Lukáš was stirring the cocoa and suddenly asked: “Mom, why did the lady next door have such a stomach ache yesterday? She was moaning terribly.” Terezka kicked him under the table and turned red as a tomato. “That wasn’t the belly, you moron,” she hissed at him. She looked at me. There was a mixture of curiosity, disgust and embarrassment in those eyes. “Neighbors like each other,” the dumbest cliché fell out of me. “And sometimes they’re loud about it.” “It’s disgusting,” concluded Terezka and left for the room. She was right. In this performance, when their intimacy is forced into our ears through the panel, that is disgusting.

I could turn a blind eye to weekend nights. But our neighbors, a young childless couple, don’t seem to know a calendar or a watch. A fortnight ago, my mother came to visit. A conservative lady who blushes even at the kissing scene in Ordinance. We sat in the living room, drank coffee, the children played Man, don’t be mad. It was half past three in the afternoon. And suddenly… Ahhh! God! The volume was so loud that Grandma’s spoon clinked against her saucer. There was a grave silence. “They must be joking,” said Mom. The children started giggling. Lukáš put his hands over his ears and started to do “blah blah blah”so he wouldn’t hear it. I jumped up and turned the radio on full blast. I felt humiliated. In my own apartment, over family coffee, I had to scream over the orgasm of a strange woman in order to maintain at least the appearance of dignity in front of my own mother and children.

I decided to solve it. Polite, neighborly. I don’t want to stop them from loving, I just want a little consideration. I met a neighbor (let’s call her Simona) by the mailboxes. She is such a self-confident twenty-five-year-old who thinks she owns the world. “Hello, Simon,” I began, my heart pounding. “Can I ask you something?” She took off her headphones and measured me with her eyes. “Well?” “You know, the walls are really thin in here. And we have a nursery right next to your bedroom…” “Huh?” she interrupted me. “The thing is… well, at night, and sometimes in the afternoon, everything can be heard from you. Really everything. The kids ask about it, it’s annoying. Could you be a little quieter? Or maybe move your bed away from the wall?”

I expected an apology. I expected: “Jesus, I’m sorry, we had no idea.” Simona smirked instead. In the most arrogant way. “Ms. Nováková, the fact that you are already out of season and a guy won’t touch you is not my problem. Buy earplugs or explain to the children how they came about. We will not limit ourselves.” She put on her headphones and left.

I stood there with my mouth open. After the season? It’s probably gotten worse since then. I feel like they do it on purpose. That they turn up the volume just to prove to me who is the master of the situation here. Terezka woke up last night. She followed me into the bedroom, pillow in hand. “Mom, I can’t sleep there. They’re screaming again.” I had to take her to bed with me. A twelve-year-old girl who should have her peace of mind. She was lying next to me, looking at the ceiling and listening to the sounds from the apartment next door. “Why are they so ruthless?” she asked quietly. I didn’t know what to say to her. That some people are just cattle? That the freedom of one ends where the freedom of another begins? Those are nice phrases, but they’re useless in a block of flats at three in the morning.

I considered paying them back. That I’ll play the brass band at full blast at six in the morning while they’re sleeping. But I’m not that type. I don’t want to stoop to their level. And most importantly – I don’t want to drag children into this war more than they already are. For now, we just suffer in silence. But every other one “Yes, like that!” it builds such a wave of rage in me that I fear the day I can’t stand it and do something I’ll regret. Maybe I’ll call the police on them for disturbing the peace. Although… explaining to the police that the neighbors are having too loud sex? Another embarrassment I would have to endure.