Neighbor non-stop accusations
We live next door of an elderly woman who just keeps insisting that we are bothering her with our noise.
The first time she called the police on us because she said that we were listening to loud music and bothering her. Nobody in our family has the hobby of listening to loud music. We told the police and they believed us so it ended just there.
The next year she told us that our balcony looked bad and that we should install a plank or a barrier to it so it was more aesthetic. We don't have the money and we live in a somewhat rundown apartment building with matching balconies, and balcony installations need permits. There's no time or money to do it and all of the rest of the balconies are the same. She bothered us a ton that year with constant visits. You can't put this or that in the balcony, no sofa, no small table, no chairs. You cannot dry your clothes in the balcony (we use a drying rack and so it's not visible from the street) even when other neighbors dangle their drying clothes on their balcony. Do this or don't do that that's against the law (told us that there's a new law against visibly drying clothes in a balcony, it been a few years and I still haven't seen anyone getting into trouble about it)
The next year she said that it was too noisy when we shower, even when the shower is at the other end of our apartment, farthest from hers, the noise you can hear from our living room next to her apartment is so small that most of the time you don't know someone is showering right now.
Then last year she kept insisting that since 10:30 pm, when she goes to bed, that we are dragging a chair in our apartment non-stop not letting her rest. The only people that are at home at that hour is my mom and my little sister, the two work in the summer and only return after 10:30 pm, maybe take a shower and go to their rooms to look at dramas or play games for a little and then go to sleep because they need to wake up early. There's no chair in any bedroom. Then my dad and me return 2 hours later to a sleeping house maybe take a shower and my dad sits in the sofa to play idle games and I go to read a novel. Then comes the old lady telling us that we are dragging a chair non-stop since 10:30 pm. It's like 1:00 am in the morning and we are tired from work and we just wanna rest. We keep insisting that it's not us it's the apartment above us and she keeps saying she knows it's us and not the apartment above. Never listens to us.
Today she once again returned saying we keep dragging the chair non-stop. We keep arguing that's not us. It's still school year so my sis and I don't work full time, nobody was dragging a chair, my mom was already asleep and my dad only returned at 11:30 as work isn't so busy as when is summertime. My sis and me are in our rooms using our laptops on our bed because our room is so tiny they there's only room for a small table. My dad sits on a mat on the floor to play some idle Candy Crush like game before going to sleep. Nobody is near a chair and hasn't been since finishing dinner at 6:30 pm. She threatens to call the police saying she doesn't really wanna do it (didn't stop her from calling them all these years), insists that's us, doesn't listen and goes away mad.
My dad is laughing because e thinks she is crazy. He's even more mad because she keeps bothering us.
We don't have any grievance with her, we didn't even know her before she came to us saying we were bothering her with loud music.
I have the hobby of taking care of plants, every time I see even a hint of her on her balcony I just crouch down to take care of the few on the floor and retreat into my room to avoid her because I really don't want to have anything do with her. Then I go to tend the rest of my plants during the night. Can't even do my hobby in peace because any conversation she starts is her complaining about us.
We are Chinese and my parents are not fluent in Spanish (we live in Spain in a touristic zone, next to a few nightclub so it naturally loud in Summer) so it's mostly me trying to talk to the old lady. I'm a timid person and I've always explained things clearly and politely, my dad is sometimes next to me to yell at her that's not us making the noise. This year I finally snapped and raised my voice, also tried to interrupt her argument but she's so insistent that it's impossible and she leaves.
So I'm mad, my dad is mad and my sister is also mad. Then I just go to calm them down and tell them to ignore her because it's useless to talk to her because she never listens and she has always the stance of "I'm always right". Let her call the police and whatever it won't be the first or last time. She made me regret that time I worried about her health because some kind old people came asking about her worried about something happened to her because she hadn't contacted them for a while and she wasn't responding.
We are a somewhat poor (several of my grandparents had some health issues so our savings got affected and my parents had to go to China so for one or two months all our income was me working during weekend while studying and taking care of my the underage sister alone) working class family, we don't really have spare time to bother our neighbor, we live in a small apartment without any sound insulation so any other apartment next to hers can be the culprit of the sound but she only comes to complain to us. My parents are working, my sister is studying for the exams she need to take to enter university, and I'm also busy studying and working weekends because my scores tanked due a few personal issues and I've got left behind to repeat my uni credits which got more expensive as a repeat student. Nobody in our home has been dragging a chair all week long to bother the old lady.
That's all I wanted to say, needed to tell this to anyone. Sorry for dragging this out and keep repeating the same thing. Also apologies for any writing mistakes, English is not my first language and I wrote this on a phone.