Sandra Paterson: Away with noise, we need our kip

HUMOUR


I don't usually go driving in my pyjamas, but for several months this year it became a regular thing.

I would brush my teeth, turn out the lights and get into bed ... and then it would start again: The Noise.

Not a loud noise like a party or a car alarm, more like a mosquito - a high-pitched, intensely irritating noise coming from the direction of the industrial area a block away.

Sometimes I would go to bed and put a pillow over my head, trying, unsuccessfully, to think happy thoughts and fall asleep.

But other times I would get so mad I'd throw on my gumboots and a jacket, phone my long-suffering mother and beg her to babysit for 20 minutes, and march out the door in search of whatever-it-was.

I would drive along the streets, peering through the darkness at the rows of factories, then stop quietly every now and again on the side of the road like a burglar or some sort of industrial spy, hoping to hear The Noise and track it down.

But alas, whatever it was was of the stop-and-start variety. No sooner would I get out of the car then it would go away, only to start up again when I pulled back into the driveway.

The good folk at the city council were sympathetic but unhelpful. Unless I could tell them who or what was making the blasted noise, there was nothing they could do about it.

Never mind that I had to get a babysitter whenever I wanted to go on a seek-and-destroy mission.

As autumn shivered into winter, the sound continued day and night - although less noticeable in the daytime - and I suspect I became a little obsessed with it.

"So how is The Noise?" friends would inquire sympathetically, as if asking after a member of the family.

I became tired and frazzled and everyone suffered. Life just does not go well without enough sleep; and, like most mothers, I could do with more shuteye at the best of times.

Finally a friend took pity on me and went out one night to look for it, returning triumphantly with the news that The Noise was coming from a wood-treatment factory.

The next night I went out to see for myself, sneaking furtively through the darkness towards what turned out to be a giant, open-ended warehouse.

Excellent, I thought, now the council can come down on them like a ton of bricks. Or so I hoped.

"It appears there is a faulty valve in the factory's machinery and we've given them a month to fix it," said the noise control lady.

Another month of The Noise and I was fairly certain I would go completely batty. Eccentricity seems to run in the family but this was bound to hasten the process.

In the end, an angel of a neighbour saved the day. He, too, had been getting up in the night; in fact, there was probably a small pyjama-clad army of us, all out at different times, driving erratically around the streets.

He hand-delivered a letter containing telephone numbers for the council and the factory to all 143 houses on our street, urging the tired and grumpy to swamp them with complaints.

Within days The Noise had stopped; and peace settled over the suburb once again like a cosy blanket.

So I sympathise with the rural folk who are fed up with the giant turbine machines roaring outside their bedrooms in the wee small hours to protect vineyards and orchards from frost.

I sympathise with the Tauranga residents who had to fight to stop a helicopter rescue service building a landing pad next door earlier this year.

Protect your fruit? Good idea. Rescue people? Even better.

But if the neighbours were there first and bought their properties in good faith expecting a good night's sleep, then that is what they should have.

A decent kip is a sacred thing - up there with food, warmth and shelter - and should be enshrined in human rights legislation if it is not already.

Your right to make noise ends where your neighbour's right to hush begins.

And if these good people are anything like me, they will become highly unstable if you mess with their sleep and all sorts of trouble will ensue.

I hope the powers that be from the Environment Court are reading this. They are deliberating over whether to allow a fire station to be built about 100m from my house.

Splendid idea, fighting fires. But there are other places the station could go, where existing residents will not be disturbed.

So listen up. If I am woken in the middle of the night, I will turn up in my pyjamas - the fluffy, granny-like ones with pictures of bright yellow ducks on them - and my mental state will be questionable.

You have been warned.

* Sandy Paterson is a freelance journalist based in Tauranga.