The sound of silence signaled the end of CNY disruption

Alas! I hear the beautiful sound of silence. The construction work which has been winding down during the last three days had stopped completely.

For the past three weeks prior to the start of the CNY celebrations my family had to put up with the jarring noises and dust coming from my next-door neighbour who had been busy remodeling his house.

Not a day went by without the peace being disturbed by the the sound of construction activities eg knocking, demolishing, grinding, sawing, hammering, welding, and hacking works. Apart from the noises, we had to clean the floor and the furnishings at least once a day when construction dust, cement and sand particles blown by the wind would invade our home.

While I accepted the situation with equanimity my wife, being less charitable with the situation was quite upset with the noise and dust intrusion. She complained loudly why she had to clean up stuffs left behind by other people.

There is nothing much that can be done about the situation other than to learn to live with it the best way you can. You can't stop the guy from doing renovating work within his property. That is his right as the owner of the property.

As for the sound and dust they are the by-product of construction activity that is hard to control. Sound is easily transmitted through the air and if there is a strong wind blowing in addition to sound the wind carries the dust particles from place to place along its path.

If you stop for one minute to think about the situation his family was worse off than mine because the family had to deal with the inconveniences and disruptions to normal life daily as they had to live in the house while the chaotic renovation work was happening all round them. Just imagine how many times a day the family had to clean up and rearrange the furnishings to make way for the construction work.

While maintaining my equanimity I did what I could to relief my wife's emotional anguish by being available to listen to her woes calmly without being judgmental or critical.

In the end we also received some benefits from the neighbour's house renovation work. He has extended his car porch roof to cover ours and as a result our car porch is now completely sheltered from the rain where before in a heavy downpour some rain carried by the wind would inevitably enter our car porch through the open space under the roof. The new curb that was constructed at the edge of his driveway extension had stopped the rain water runoff from overflowing into our side of the boundary. He had also cut down some branches of the tree so there is more headroom and space to park our second car.