struggling

I usually try not to talk about certain personal issues on my blog mainly so I don't bore you but right now my family really needs your prayers.

We moved to our current home in October 2006. We had just purchased our first home and were very excited to have a place that was over 850sf to call home and to have more than one bedroom! Our building was brand spankin' new at the time and we were the only ones to move in on our side. Shortly thereafter the family just above us moved in. Right away we started having problems with them.

First, we were awoken somewhere in the middle of the night to the sound of banging. For reasons unknown to us,  the man of the house decided that it was a good time to start hanging things on the walls. My husband politely banged back to let the man know that it was disturbing us. The noise stopped.

Then about once a week or so, we would hear the sound of water splashing onto concrete outside. To our surprise, our neighbors decided to spray their back patio down with water to clean it from food debris. The problem with that was all of their food debris among other things were dropped down onto our patio. It was so disgusting to find food particles strewn all of our property along with a huge watery mess that took hours to dry up. We complained to them and the HOA but the activity continued. Finally after over a year of weekly patio cleanings, they were sent a fine notice from the HOA and it finally ceased.

Then they decided to build some sort of room on one side of their patio causing an ugly eyesore. In the process of them painting it, paint was sprayed onto our patio, patio railings and onto my husbands car. We complained again to the HOA and eventually they were forced to take down the room which we later found out to be a prayer room of some sort, we believe they may be Hindu or something like that. They also were ordered to clean up all the paint that they caused to come onto our property. They never did so the HOA sent a team out to clean it.

Finally, last April while I was sitting on my couch, I started hearing loud banging noises coming from their unit. Worried, I called my husband to let him know that some sort of construction was going on and I hoped that they weren't putting in hardwood floors.

They were.

I forgot to mention that in the midst of all of the above mentioned hassles, they were completely loud walkers at all hours of the day and night along with their small child who ran non stop across our entire house. We sent numerous letters to them asking them politely to walk softer during the evening hours and early morning hours. They seemed cooperative but we had to continually remind them of how loud they actually were.

Getting back to the hardwood floor issue, we found out through the HOA that they had approved their request to put in hardwood floors due to an allergy of their daughters. They were supposed to put in a high quality sound proofing padding underneath their hardwood flooring but they instead went the cheap route and basically added nothing more than maybe an inch of padding. This increased the transfer of noise tremendously. So much so that it has basically become unbearable to live in our home. I have been brought to tears a few times because the noise is so bad. One of those times was the day after Christmas last year.

After a lengthy HOA battle they are now forced to remove their hardwood flooring and replace it back with carpeting. When they agreed to just put the carpet back in, we then realized that the whole child allergy thing  was a big lie otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to put it back in. Since they signed the new agreement, we believe they have started to retaliate against us. The daily and nightly noise is so bad it's obvious they are walking harder and much heavier and they allow their daughter to run constantly throughout their home, on our ceiling. I'm awoken every morning to loud footsteps above my head and at 1:30 in the morning every night. In addition to the heavy footsteps, they constantly drop things onto the floor, move their kitchen table and chairs across the floors and other things I can't think of right now.

It's horrible. I can't stand living here anymore. I love my home but the noise is driving me crazy. I'm constantly on edge wondering when the next footsteps will be slammed against their floor or when their daughter will decide to gallup across the floor. I can literally hear where they are almost all the time in their home. I can hear when someone walks from their master bedroom to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the hallway and so on. I hate it. Hate it. I haven't exactly been the best Christian during this experience. I'm so angry and upset all the time that I think horrible rotten things that I'd like to do to them. I hate what this is doing to me. I'm not a violent person so why do my thoughts go that direction? I want to hold onto my Lord during this time but it's a daily struggle for me. Sometimes I can't even bring myself to pray about it. That makes me sad.

In an attempt to not let this get the better of me, I want to ask if you all would pray over this situation for my family. You can be praying for 1) Peace and patience 2) To not allow the noise to bother me so much and know that carpeting is on it's way and the noise will get better soon and 3) That we would be a godly example to our neighbors even though we're upset with them. I want to show Christ's love to them but I'm really struggling with that.

Thank you if you took the time to read this lengthy post, it means a lot to me to know there are others praying for us.