Drunken Elephants Upstairs

The house we stay in at the beach is an older one, and it wasn't built with any kind of soundproofing. We're used to hearing the thumping of people walking around in the upstairs unit - and the banging when our friends with kids stay up there. The noise doesn't usually bother us, mostly because it stops at bedtime, and we've certainly never been woken up in the middle of the night by upstairs neighbors.

Until this year.

This was the 7th time we've stayed at this place, and it's the first time we've had a problem with the folks upstairs.

We knew we were in trouble when four cars pulled into the driveway and 11 college-aged kids emerged. Our fears were confirmed when they sat out on their balcony and turned on their boom box - which we could hear all the way down on the beach. B hobbled out on our deck and shouted at them to turn down the music, which they did.

But then they all came down to the beach and turned on their music right next to us. Turns out their cooler had a built-in CD player with speakers in the lid. Bonus - they could drink beer and annoy us all at the same time.

But the fun really began at about 1am, when they were good and drunk and sitting out on their balcony blasting country music. Again, B went out and shouted at them. They turned down their music and went inside, and that's when the elephant wrestling started. They made so much noise that we were afraid that they were going to come through the ceiling. The kids were so worn out from playing on the beach, that they slept through it all. Not so with the adults.

It was pretty much the same situation every night - they'd get drunk, play their music too loud, and tromple around upstairs like drunken elephants. One night, they livened things up by going out, which started out great - there was no noise from upstairs. But then they came in at 2am, drunk and singing "Sweet Caroline" at the top of their lungs.

On our last full day at the beach, they all came staggering downstairs at about 3pm and set up camp 10 feet from us on the beach - never mind that the beach was completely empty in both directions - and turned on their nifty boom box/cooler. At this point, B had had quite enough. He hobbled over on his crutch and asked them to either turn down the music or move further down the beach.

One of the young men came over and politely introduced himself and called B "Sir" and apologized for being annoying. We chit-chatted with him for a minute, and Campbell gave him a high-five while bouncing around. All the girls in their group glared daggers at us, but the boy was very nice. We thought that maybe this would solve the problem - we'd had a polite, civilized discussion about the noise and disruption.

We thought wrong.

I was asleep in the back bedroom with Elizabeth where the white noise machine was turned on full volume, so I missed all the fun. But B had fallen asleep on the sofa, which he often does because it's easier for him to prop up his still-broken foot. He was woken up at 3am by a bunch of the upstairs neighbors hammering on our door and yelling, "DUDE! Let us in. DUDE! The lock isn't working. DUDE!" Then they yelled downstairs to the kids down at the car about how the lock wasn't working.

That's when B yanked the front door open to some very startled and drunk kids and yelled something along the lines of "Shut the F*CK UP. You're at the wrong door, you drunk morons. It's 3am so shut the hell up."

The next morning, B was in a foul mood, so I escaped with the kids down to the beach. At noon it was obvious that the kids upstairs weren't moving out that day, and we decided to head for home a day early instead of enduring another night of listening to them stomp around.

We called the landlord, who is super nice, on our way off the island and told him what was going on. He apologized profusely (but didn't offer to refund the night we weren't using) and said he would send his wife over to talk to them. He also told us that we should have called him because he would have rousted them out of there. And really, we should have. But each day we thought they'd get the point and be more quiet. Unfortunately, they didn't.

I was so upset and frustrated at the whole situation that I seriously considered hitting their cars with the last few eggs in the refrigerator. But then I decided that wouldn't set a good example for the girls.

Sometimes it's no fun being a responsible adult, especially when dealing with drunken elephants.