Good News

Good news this week for two reasons...

I finished my block 5 exams last week and had a good two days off. The exams went well enough, but I won't find out my grades for a few days still. The better news is that our noise problem has been solved! If you haven't been down to visit, I will explain...

The apartment tower next to us has a single air conditioning tower for their entire building, which was built at the end of their parking garage. This building is about 25 stories high and its air conditioner is huge. Later, our apartment building was constructed such that our apartment is within 50 ft or so of this huge air conditioning unit. We picked out our first apartment without knowing that it was there, so it was quite a shock last summer when we first moved in and heard this thing running. We eventually got used to it, so much so that we decided to move to an apartment on the same side of our complex even though we know how loud the noise is. In summer, we have our windows shut anyway, and in winter the thing shuts off completely for a few months.

After we moved, a new person moved into our old unit and was shocked with the nose as well. We know this because a manager at our complex asked us what we thought about the noise when the guy wanted them to pay for him to move across the complex. I guess he decided to stay put and a few weeks later he slipped a note under everyone's door on our side of the complex. Apparently, he had called the police and they did determine that the air conditioner violated the sound limit for both day and night time by more than 10 decibels (5 times louder than legally allowed). He filed complaints with the mayor's office and wanted all of us to do the same.

We decided we did not care enough to call and complain, but a few days ago I saw some guys doing work on the air conditioner, and now it has become substantially quieter! It is now quiet enough for us to use our balcony, and we can barely hear it at all when we are inside. It turns out that the squeaky wheel does get the grease.