I live in a tenement block of 6 flats. At times it is like the UN. A real integrated community of different races! The guy next door seems to disappear for a few weeks at a time then is knocking about for a few weeks, must work offshore. Nice chap.
This building is quiet but my last one had its moments.
Usually on a Saturday and/or Sunday morning I would be lying in bed dozing, with the then missus when we would hear a whimpering noise, not from an animal, but from a human. After a couple tentative creeping up the stair sessions, I narrowed down the noise to one of the 2 flats on the top floor. We were on the 1st floor of a 4 storey tenement so the noise must have been pretty loud in the flat where it was coming from. Anyhoo, it turned out to be a couple confirming their love for each other. Fair enough, nothing wrong with that I hear you all say and I agree, until it turned out that the whimpering was not coming from the female. I know this because the couple next door to the whimperers had a microphone and an amp which they apparently hooked up and placed the microphone next to the adjoining wall.
Then for a while there was a chap whose girl was a larger lady. Their bedroom was above mine, the floors were thin and their mattress springs needed oiled. 'Nuff said.
Then there was someone in another building who was so loud, I could hear them in my living room! Embarrassing when my parents were in visiting!
And one final tale of my old flat that does not have anything to do with my neighbours sexual goings on.
I awoke one morning at about 4am to a loud thump. I think my buzzer went but 'cos I was asleep I couldn't be sure. Next thing I know there is a mass of shouting in the back garden with someone shouting get off and other people shouting to stay still and get down on the ground. I tentatively looked out from behind my bedroom curtains to see a bloke being arrested by several members of the local law enforcement society. Must have been a raid on one of the tenements along the street going by the amount of police outside one of the buildings and this guy must have legged it.
The next day when leaving for work, I noticed that there was a hole in the door where the lock once lived. So someone bust a lock which was at my head height (around 1.7m off the ground) on a solid timber (oak I think) door! Someone must have had a sore shoulder.
Sadly nothing as exciting as gardening at 2am!
Le coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point. 
