Wendyl Nissen: Give peace a chance

"That's it, I'm sleeping in the lounge tomorrow and every weekend from now on," I grumbled, as I rolled out of bed after yet another broken Friday night sleep.

"Was it something I said?" asked the husband. "Or did?"

"The noise! I can't stand the noise any more!" I shouted.

Our bedroom is at the front of our house situated on a rise above our street. It is a sound trap for anything which happens down there.

A simple "beep" of a car unlocking magnifies 10 times, the rolling open of the van door when the guy across the road leaves at 5am sounds like a volcano erupting. I can even hear the click-clack of a dog's feet pattering past at 2am.

All of these sounds I am used to. In fact, I am a very tolerant person when it comes to noise.

"What's wrong with the sound of people having a good time?" I used to say benevolently. "A little music never killed anyone." I would then happily roll over and doze back off to loud music, able to sleep through it.

Once, when we were living in another street, we had a few friends around, who were a bit rowdy leaving about 10pm. A neighbour responded by distributing a leaflet to the entire street suggesting that people rise up and make themselves heard about noise in the street, knock on our door and tell us we were disturbing the peace.

I responded by distributing a leaflet which suggested that people should not put up with neighbours putting unsolicited leaflets in their mailboxes inciting violence and intolerance in society.

We moved out a few months later and I recently overheard this woman walking in the park complaining about the state of a neighbour's property: "We'll just say it is a fire risk," she said caustically. I was glad I had left her to it.

We do, however, live in the inner city. We have the police helicopter overhead most days, sirens roaring past a few times every day and night, and once we were even woken by a policeman and his dog chasing a guy who had run through our garden.

We're also at the mercy of several thousand power tools as lovely old villas are renovated into minimalist show homes. But my decision to leave my marital bed had nothing to do with the crime activity or renovation dreams of our suburb. It was brought about by the fact that my street plays home to people who have loud conversations - all night. "You're a f***ing legend you gorgeous bitch, do it again!" shouted a young woman.

I peered out of the window drowsily, expecting at least a netball team, and see three women. Tottering, falling all over each other and not really heading in any direction. Half an hour later they are still there.

"You're a f***ing legend, did I tell you that?" They must have nodded off for a while because a few hours later they were at it again. "God you're just amazing, I f***ing love you."

If they were young men it would be a more physical conversation which starts with: "What the f*** did you say, you f***ing dickhead?"

Then the unmistakable squelch of flesh hitting flesh, grunting, bodies hitting asphalt, girls screaming "stop it, stop it!", and then someone would break them up and they'd all sob and say how much they love each other.

I then put the phone back in its cradle, having ascertained an ambulance won't be needed tonight. Most Friday and Saturday nights these "conversations in Grey Lynn" occur three or four times, finally wrapping up about 6am.

I blame pharmaceuticals which keep people awake all night. In the old days, they just got drunk and fell asleep by 1am. And I'm about to research the possibility that our street is the centre of some force field only people with white powder in their veins can detect.

A leaflet was dropped in our letterbox recently, written by a television production company which had discovered that our street had lodged a high number of noise control complaints and would we like to be part of a show about it? I threw it in the rubbish and headed off to the back lounge and the relief of our sofa bed.