top of page
Search
Writer's pictureSuzanne Casamento

THIS is Why We Need to Speak Up

In June, I moved into a new apartment. It's a side-by-side duplex with a shared wall. Little did I know that the wall would be ridiculously thin.


I can hear my neighbor yawn.


And I'm sure she can hear me fart.


It's annoying as hell.


The first month I lived there, the woman who rents the apartment was away and her mother stayed there to take care of her cats.


Her mother loves cop shows. I know this because every night I heard blaring sirens, rumbling doomed music, and explosions like they were happening in my living room.


My neighbor hung her TV with a sound bar on a shared wall. There are three other walls in her living room, but she chose the shared wall.


Yet, I have a feeling that even if her TV was on a different wall, I’d still hear every shot fired, every victim scream, and every skid in every police chase.


When my neighbor got back from her trip, I sent her a friendly text suggesting we get together and brainstorm ways to deal with thin walls. Before we arranged a time to meet, she texted, “No one has ever complained before.”


Ten minutes before our arranged meeting time, her mother arrived. When we met, her mother roared, “I will not take that television down off that wall! I paid to have that television hung on that wall!” Her mother was so angry. Like a grizzly bear ripping the head off salmon.


“I'm not asking you to take it down,” I said, heart pounding. My brain got fuzzy and all I wanted to do was get out of there. I calmly suggested we turn on her TV and go over to my apartment and listen.


My neighbor turned on a show featuring two people talking quietly. No sirens. No doom music. No victims screaming. When we went over to my apartment, we could barely hear it.


I looked like a crazy lady.


“You can hear nothing!” the mother snapped.


“I don’t want to argue with you,” I said in a soft voice.


“No one has ever complained before. I never complain,” my neighbor said.


“Well, if something I'm doing is bothering you, I don’t want you to feel like you can’t complain. You need to feel comfortable too,” I said.


“I’m fine and I’m not going to walk on eggshells,” she said.


Before she left, she agreed to take some foam soundproofing panels I'd purchased and put them behind her TV. They do nothing. When I try and watch TV in my living room, I get so distracted by her TV that I can’t focus on mine. So, I don’t watch TV in my living room.


My neighbor is a medical student. I hear every zoom class she takes. I hear her bitch about work to her friends on the phone. I hear her fight with her mother.


Recently, I wrote to my landlord and asked about soundproofing.


“No one has ever complained before,” he wrote back.


So, now, when I can literally hear the woman next door yawn, I look like a whiny complainer.


Because my next-door neighbor and the tenant before me never told anyone that they could hear every word of their neighbor’s private conversations, I look unreasonable.


THIS is why we need to speak up.


You may be fine with "sucking it up" or "dealing with it" or doing whatever you have to do to ignore the fact that you're uncomfortable because you don’t want to have a confrontation or "cause trouble" or whatever, but by doing that, you not only prolong your own discomfort, you screw the person behind you.


And shouldn't we be looking out for each other? Shouldn't we be thinking about the people who will come after us?


So, when something isn’t working for me, I share it. I tell whoever owns the thing that isn’t working for me that it isn’t working for me. Because if I don’t tell them, how will they ever know?


In what situations have you spoken up? And how do you think it impacted the people who came after you?

White wall with a sideboard and wool art above it.
The shared wall. Although there's now another wool piece next to the one pictured plus a whole lot of frequency water and oils on those shelves.


198 views4 comments

Recent Posts

See All

4 commentaires


heidi.green
heidi.green
27 déc. 2023

Suzanne, I absolutely agree with speaking up. I have a reputation for it, and even though I'm super nice every time I do it, many people don't react well to what feels like critical feedback. Often they want to justify their behavior as "not that bad" or make you a bad (or crazy) person. I send dishes back in restaurants and complain to management when warranted. (I also share praise for exceptional service with management when warranted.) I push back when people make racist, sexist, anti-LGBTQ+, ageist, size-ist, etc. comments and jokes. I stand up for people's rights when they are being treated badly. I recently pushed back on some insulting language on a listserve. I am always diplomatic and…


J'aime
Suzanne Casamento
Suzanne Casamento
27 déc. 2023
En réponse à

How fantastic that after you stood up on the listserv, ground rules were put in place! That's the perfect example of standing up so other people will be protected. Nice work! 💕

J'aime

nickandbeth
nickandbeth
23 déc. 2023

Kind of along the same lines: When we were on our last cruise, we befriended a delightful elderly couple from Ireland. He was a cook in the army. When he became post military, he started a catering business. I asked his wife if it was hard to go out to eat with him. She rolled her eyes and said “It’s impossible.” He said “You have to tell a cook when they are doing something wrong or they will continue to do it wrong and lose customers. A good cook will listen to suggestions and make the right changes so he can present the best meal possible.“

Modifié
J'aime
Suzanne Casamento
Suzanne Casamento
23 déc. 2023
En réponse à

YESSSS. You got the point! That's exactly it. We have to say something when something is wrong or other people will suffer. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. And Merry Christmas! ❤️

J'aime
bottom of page