Back in March, we finally moved out of our small basement suite and into the main floor of a house on Bridgeport Road in Richmond (BC, Canada for those who are confusing it with the numerous other places of the same name). We understood that there would be a fair bit of noise, the house literally shakes as trucks drive by and planes fly past to the nearby airport, but given the location's convenience for my wife's daily commute, plus the much larger space, we imagined that we would be quite happy with it.

Indeed we have been happy, but someone else is not. On the west side of the basement lives a couple that at first we only considered quirky. The very first night that we stayed they complained of noise from us, which we thought must have been a simple misunderstanding since as far as we could tell we had been very quiet. Still, we took conscientious actions such as locking the cats up at night on the east side of the house, tip-toeing whenever we get up for a midnight snack and alerting our neighbours whenever we expect guests to come over.

After that first complaint, they seemed very civil and invited us into their apartment for us to hear the sounds. Just like upstairs, the basement shook whenever trucks drove by and as well you could in fact hear every footstep above. Nevertheless, having lived in a basement suite for so long ourselves, we know that such sounds are commonplace and considering the location... We assumed there would be a little tolerance on both sides.

Unfortunately, they have taken every possible sound personally. Despite our best efforts to stay silent, we have made some noise, just like any other family in their day to day lives might. And it's true that I'm often awake at night. However, there have been many nights when I've been quietly at my computer or even sound asleep when they have seen fit to pound on the walls and scream about the noise.

This past week, the situation has escalated. They have been rudely shouting on a continuous basis, claiming that we have "provoked them" into doing so. They insist that I in particular have some evil desire to disturb them. They are absolutely convinced that I do so on purpose. The truth is that while we've been occasionally exasperated with their anger and violent tempers, we have never once banged a wall or stomped on the floor as they claim.

It has gotten so personal that this morning when my wife was making her breakfast that they shouted such nasty phrases at her for doing so at 7:30am, which they consider unreasonable (they believe that "normal" people should not make noise after 10pm or before 10am). Amira ended up leaving for work visibly shaken and crying.

We have now made our third complaint to our landlord, but he is concerned about the difficulties in evicting people who are so paranoid to think that we are all out to get them. They also deny everything of course, claiming that we are too noisy for them to bear. They have made it very clear that if we try to have them evicted they will retaliate. They also mocked me when I said I was considering calling the police, claiming that they have friends in the police department and we have nothing to prove anyway.

Just an hour ago, jacklynz and I were taking the garbage out and our neighbours rushed out of their suite, threatening and insulting us and even spat on jacklynz before we could go back into our place.

Now we are concerned about our property stored in the crawlspace in the basement, and you can imagine what else we are worried about. We'll be leaving the webcam on in our place, considering it an added security caution.

Still, we would like to live in peace here, we love the place and our neighbourhood. If they don't leave (by one means or another) we will have to.