The Creepy Thread

[brightpearl]

^Oh, I've had my share of unpleasant domestic visitors. I grew up near the coast, and there were tons of those huge tree roaches. They come out at night and fly around, land on you. Or you get up in the dark, go downstairs, and hear a nasty, papery crunch when you grab the bannister.

You could also hear the salt marsh mosquitos smacking against the ceiling when you turned out the light, waiting for you to settle down so they could suck blood out of your tender eyelids.
There, I've brought it back 'round to creepy.

Right now, I have a fat black cat that understands the theory of doorknob opening. If he had thumbs, he could do it. As it is, he just rattles the hell out of the cast iron doorknob on the bedroom door at 3 am all the time, when his tummy is rumbly. Scares the piss out of me every time.

[brightpearl]

m'kay, I posted a nasty cockroach story, but it isn't showing up.


oh, there it is...
wtf?

[Jack Flanders]

Good-luck this morning - maybe the neighbor's floor will be quiet today!!

[Jack Flanders]

Good luck this Morning!!! I reposted because I didn't think the other went thru -having some problems posting. Is any one else?

[brightpearl]

^Yeah, they're showing up this morning, but the posts I made in it starts over and the what? threads didn't bump the threads to the top. I haven't sacrificed a virgin toaster to the interwebs gods in a while...maybe that'll do the trick.

[T.I.P.]

ok i managed to record the neighbor this morning at...4:50 AM...

At least there was very little sound from outside (in some other recordings I made during the session you can hear the birds waking up)...

I denoised the recording, and though a lot of background noise is left you can almost make out what he is saying (french spoken with an african accent).
Apparently he gets excited during his phone calls, and though this one didn't hit the usual crescendo you can tell that he likes repeating stuff.

I'm not too comfy about publicly posting the sound snippet of my neighbor on the phone, even if he is kept anonymous. I've already pm'd those whose expressed their interest, but if anyone else from the board is interested he/she can pm me and i will send them the link.

[auntie aubrey]

good cripes. i'll keep my 400 lb midget and his exuberant bouncing boxer dog.

my theory is that he's having an emotionally abusive long-distance relationship.

[T.I.P.]

actually, it's not that loud in reality..i'm quite happy with my ceiling microphone recording; he is almost audible and comprehensible (i can pick out a few words once in a while). From inside my room he is not so loud.

Still, you're right, the fact that i can hear him at all is already too loud. My apratement building is very bad in terms of sound isolation. It's ironic given that I am destined to work, at least partly, in that very field.

What do do ? It's not that easy. I could go and tell him that he is too loud; but that would be running the risk of finding out that he is an asshole. And then his noise would go from "wierd" to "invasive" given the emotional affect I would be attaching to it. It helped that my previous neighbor (the walrus) was a nice guy. They even put in thick carpeting to reduce the noise at one point (it didn't). But still, it helped to know that he was a nice guy. Didn't sound as loud as if I thought he were an asshole.

I'm pondering sending him a CD of himself, just so he realizes how much everyone else can hear him. It might embarass him into talking less loud.

In any case, it's no biggie. I'm moving out soon anyways, and possibly to New York, so I consider this to be training

[auntie aubrey]

you're right about the emotional involvement thing. the 400 lb midget only really bothers me if i let myself imagine for a moment that he's actually just a normal guy, kind of a bro, who i see in the breezeway occasionally.

my husband and i have crafted a whole story around him to act as a coping mechanism. in our story, the 400 lb midget is a big fan of toast, which he eats at every one of his 9 daily meals. so when we hear him stomping back and forth, we know he's pacing, muttering, "i like toast!" while he decides whether to crisp up yet another loaf in the ol' toaster.

in a rarer version of the story, the 400 lb midget is not a midget at all, but rather a 400 lb average height guy whose furniture is all built at loft-level. kind of like a dorm room, with everything raised up off the floor in an effort to create more square footage for storage of a dozen mini-fridges, in which he keeps an assortment of delicious snack treats. in this version of the story much of the noise we hear results from him leaping up and down from different pieces of elevated furniture, as he moves from fridge to fridge looking for a bite to eat. sometimes he loses the urge to leap so he instead slides the fridges around the floor in an effort to bring the treats within reach.

these stories have allowed us to retain our sanity.

[funkytuba]

omg... a creepy addition to a creepy investigation
I played the file in itunes, having filtered for "neighbor" but I left it on shuffle.

the next song?

Mr Roger's Neighborhood

[funkytuba]

my guesses:

• -- practicing for an audition
• -- trying to get someone to wire him €3.500 as a "enablement fee" so that he can release funds left uninherited when a large wealthy family was killed in a terrific car crash in africa somewhere for consideration of which the person will receive a courteous 35%
• -- it didnt' sound emphatic enough for actual wanking, maybe he was coaching someone else over the phone
• -- badly practicing for an audition as a mime
• -- encouraging an egg to finish boiling
• -- other

[auntie aubrey]

Originally Posted by funkytuba

encouraging an egg to finish boiling

this one gets my vote.

[T.I.P.]

Originally Posted by funkytuba

my guesses:[*]-- practicing for an audition

that was my original guess but it's not quite right

Originally Posted by funkytuba

[*]-- trying to get someone to wire him €3.500 as a "enablement fee" so that he can release funds left uninherited when a large wealthy family was killed in a terrific car crash in africa somewhere for consideration of which the person will receive a courteous 35%

lol
i get those every once in a while in my email box. Never by phone though.

Originally Posted by funkytuba

[*]-- it didnt' sound emphatic enough for actual wanking, maybe he was coaching someone else over the phone

it kinda does sound like coaching, doesn't it ?

[T.I.P.]

Originally Posted by funkytuba

omg... a creepy addition to a creepy investigation
I played the file in itunes, having filtered for "neighbor" but I left it on shuffle.

the next song?

Mr Roger's Neighborhood

the creepy part is that you had Mr Roger's Neighborhood on your itunes in the first place

[Frieda]

it sounds like he is very serious in what he says. he might be reading somekind of statement, practising an audition, french pronuncation homework, convincing somebody or something. he doesn't show much emotional change during the conversation, but he emphasizes words like comme d'habitude, prochaine, etc. like a news guy does while reading the bulletin. the intonation sounds normal to me, not agitated.

what is he saying? i can make out some words but it's a bit too faint for me.

and what's the high drum roll thingy at 1:06? is that also part of this daily thing? or some other background noise? your stomach?