Let me quickly set the scene, as I'm usually too long winded for my own good -- not that I'm complaining...
So, there's eight units in my condominium building, four per floor, two each per floor per front and back. The lower back unit behind my upper front one caught fire in January 2012, casuing me much consternation and a continuing lack of securital sense at home since.
Following the fire, my downstairs neighbors, those immediately below my unit, underwent partial renovation from water damage caused by an incident in December 2011 (their walls being open to expose the studs helped extinguish the fire handily). Now, I work overnights; since I've never been a morning person, the workload is much more to my capabilities, and it's the furthest away from a co-worker who, at the time, I was experiencing friction with.
Renovation and sleep are more combustible than me and that co-worker ever were.
I made it through the downstairs remodelling relatively unscathed as it was a lot of drywall finishing; that is some pneumatic nail gunning and/or screw gun work. There was some hammering, but for the most part I chose to stay at home and try to sleep through it.
Fast forward to the end of April 2012 and work to rebuild the two fire damaged units immediately behind me (top and bottom floors) began in earnest. Rather more specifically, the one top floor immediately behind me. I almost wonder if it were to be better homeless than the contractors cutting everything out with a saws-all and scabbing in replacement framework.
Okay, wishing one's self homeless is not good karma, but it's so frustrating (not to mention insanity invoking) to hear the rafters vibrate above me, forty feet away from where they're cutting (or ARE they on the other side of my ceiling after all...?).
The thumping of thge nail gun, the thrum of the air compressor, the radio and even the dude singing along with such are all quite tolerable and I've proven already I can sleep through that. In fact, I've come to find great irrational reassurance the guys are there working while I sleep because if something else catastrophic were to occur, they're awake to rouse me for an evacuation. But the saws-all and the sledgehammer banging have gotten to become more than I can stand. It's as if any minute they'll cut through my wall or one of them will fall through my ceiling while I try to sleep. Not to mention, the other night my downstairs neighbor, immediately below me, revealed a crucial truss was deemed of questionable condition as a result of the fire. Had it needed to be replaced, I would be staying someplace else, my cats would be either in a shelter of some foster home, and my place would be a bigger wreck than it already is with no ceiling or walls of its own. I'm at my wits end.
