Demon workmen on my street

By Lesley Hart

Published:

MY HEAD’S burst, and not because I’ve been battering it against a wall – battering it against a wall would be a relief (it is a relief – I’ve tried it a few times).

No, it’s more like a wall of noise has been battering me about the head, poking me in the eye and slapping me in the chops all at once. And no, it’s not because I’m hooked on Big Brother again – god forbid.

Workmen have taken root outside my house. All day long they carve up concrete, scrape, drill, bang and generally rip the ears off of anyone within a half mile radius.

And this week I’m at the epicentre: it’s happening literally inches from my bedroom window.

I’d say they were “on my doorstep” but they’ve actually cut my doorstep up and thrown it away – I kid you not.

In my dark moments, I get to thinking they’re doing it on purpose just to torment me.

I picture them appearing in a puff of smoke first thing in the morning, demon like – all red eyed and dripping fanged: pure evil - to arrange their instruments of torture.

Once set up (as close to my window as inhumanly possible) they crank up the volume to 11, Spinal Tap style, then as soon as the clock strikes 8 (or slightly before) they let rip.

From 8am until 5pm, Monday to Friday these workmen wreak hell on the residents of my street, and beyond.

Mercifully, a well-timed spell in the north-east had spared me the torture of living in among it for a few weeks.

Less well timed was my return, which saw me arrive as they were landing on my doorstep (when I still had a doorstep – now there’s just a wobbly plank of wood).

To say that it’s been unpleasant, and distracting, and has made me want to rip the heads off people, is a serious understatement.

One inspired thought that came to me in the midst of it all was that when one sense is overused and abused, it spills over into the other senses, so that you can literally “feel” noise, and see it, and taste it, and smell it.

I can even see dead people (like the wee boy in The Sixth Sense) – mainly demon workmen with their heads ripped off.

So extremes of noise pollution can, according to my own empirical findings, have an interesting synaesthetic effect.

Equally, however, I am in danger of losing one or two senses if it goes on much longer: hearing and humour being top of the list.

This may in turn heighten my sixth sense (where I see dead people with their heads ripped off), if I haven’t already ripped off my own head.

To be fair, these demon workmen do try to project an air of benign friendliness, smiling sweetly and saying hi whenever I see them, but this does little to soften the blow when I ask questions like: “How long will this be going on for?” and they reply, “About 12 weeks”.

Bearing in mind that these things tend to run over by weeks at a time – sometimes months – 12 weeks minimum is a depressing thought.

If they were doing something of obvious use, rather than just carving up and relaying slabs, it wouldn’t seem so gratuitous, so cruel.

But as far as I can see there’s been no improvement – just concrete carnage.

Not being the property owner, I wasn’t really consulted on the why’s and wherefores of this work, and am sure as heck not paying for it.

The landlord mentioned something about it before my flatmate Kelly and I moved in, in March, but I think we just blocked it out of our minds.

We loved our new house. I suppose we didn’t want anything to spoil it.

Kelly gets a slightly better deal noise-wise at her side of the house - if only because the building work that’s happening outside her window (a new block of flats, barely started) is slightly further away.

We thought this new house would be less chaotic and more peaceful than the last, but noise pollution is taking its toll.

It can be very stressful living in din all day long, and stress as we know is a killer.

The World Health Organisation last year proved a link between noise and illness, revealing that thousands of British people are dying each year due to chronic noise exposure.

Of the 101,000 deaths caused by coronary heart disease in 2006, 3,030 were caused by excessive noise, including daytime traffic.

Now that we have proof that noise pollution has an impact on our health the authorities are being forced to take it more seriously.

Already, the EU has issued a directive whereby densely-populated areas of Europe are obliged to digitise noise maps showing where traffic noise and volume is greatest. This, however, does nothing to highlight student hotspots, primary schools, nightclubs, football pitches and other noise polluters, nor any bit of concrete soon to be ripped up.

Which brings me (rather reluctantly) back to my house in Glasgow – but not for long, thank goodness.

In a couple of weeks time I’ll be heading to Mull to rehearse Macbeth, and then touring around until mid-October – which amounts to around 12 weeks, at the end of which the demon workmen on my street will hopefully have gone back to the burning fire from whence they came, headless, and never to return.