I hate my neighbors. I’ve been sitting here trying to write something philosophical and erudite about life in the ‘hood, but as the banging continues, I just decided to come out with it. Our neighbors hate silence—that could be the only explanation for the continual relentless unending NOISE that emanates from their yard. All day long, year round, day in and day out, nothing but hammering, drilling, sawing, power sanding. Even at 11 p.m. on a rainy winter weeknight, the pounding continues.
This morning, I grabbed my coffee, and, ever hopeful, headed to the backyard to sit in the sunshine on our deck. And for exactly two seconds I reveled in the bliss of singing birds and a summer morning, sipping coffee, reading. A rare Friday. A great start to a long weekend. And then the banging started.
An hour has gone by and the pounding continues. I put up with it for about a half hour, maybe 45 minutes, but when I felt the scream building deep inside me, I picked up my stuff and stomped back to the house before I let loose with a very undignified scream. I could feel the words building and my mind spinning—I had to get inside quickly. I did not want to be that crazy person screaming over the fence.
Then I remembered. We have outdoor stereo speakers. We have SiriusXM radio. I dialed in the rap station and turned it up. I can hardly hear the banging now, beyond the banging bass. Beyond the lyrics, a satisfying spray of nigga, fuck, pussy, shit, ho, bitch. The royal penis is clean your highness. Offensive? I hope so.
We’ve had too many conversations with these people across the fence. The time to talk is over. I can work with Flo Rida, Snoop and TPain, Drake, Usher, Kanye pounding in the background. But the neighbors can’t both hammer and cover their ears at the same time.
Pamela Helberg 
A never-ending construction project? I feel your pain and support your coping mechanism.
I was thinking of you last night when I heard my downstairs neighbor yell “NO!” at one of the kids for the 150th time. I'm going to try your rap music remedy and see how that goes. Brilliant.
Funny story similar to this:
Here in Phinneylake, we have neighbors whose dilapidated house is built _right_on_ our shared property line – thankfully kitty-corner to our lot.
There's a lot of yelling that goes on in that house; all hours of the day and night. Sometimes at 4am in the morning, sometimes all evening long. So we listened, and I wondered if I should call the police.
But then we listened some more, and got snippets of information from the neighbors. It's not people yelling at eachother, it's an older person, mentally disturbed, it turns out. A woman. And when we listened more closely, we figured out she is yelling out song lyrics in a boisterous, senile-rap fashion. Like an aged, female version of EMINEM, a capella.
Still and all, there's the yelling…