Simply exhausted
Since probably the moment of conception, I have been exhausted. Not tired, not fatigued, but flat-out, bone-weary exhausted. All the books promise that the pregnant woman's energy levels should improve in the second trimester; maybe I've been expecting too much, but that hasn't really been the case here. Yes, I don't need to take a nap every afternoon, and I don't go to bed at 8 pm quite so often, but I'm still so very very tired. At times, it has been so bad that I've actually wished for the good ol' days of mono, when I was a relative bundle of energy.
Add this to living in a neighbourhood that is surrounded by construction, where work is allowed Monday-Friday from 7:30 am through 7:00 pm, and again on Saturdays from 9:00 am through 5:00 pm. The one person allegedly responsible for enforcing the rules works for the developer of most of the sites. Can you see what this means?
Yes, yet again this morning I was woken up before 7 am. At 6:52 am, to be precise, by a construction vehicle backing up. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. That is the soundtrack of my day. (I know I'm supposed to listen to Mozart, for the sake of kleines Bärchen, but all I hear, all day, six days a week, is BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Our child will want to be an alarm clock when s/he grows up.) By 7:00 (still a half hour before the start of permitted work hours), construction trucks lined the streets in our neighbourhood, workers were loitering in the streets, and a hose had already been attached to the fire hydrant and strung along the street. By 7:15, hammering had begun in earnest at the site closest to the master bedroom's main windows.
Werner, of course, sleeps right through it. And then spends all day at his office.
But, even if it doesn't bother him, it upsets me. Since I've been working from a home office for the last couple of years, I don't have an office to which I can escape. Oftentimes, it is too noisy to work from home. Our home office overlooks what may be the noisiest area, but because we're surrounded by construction sites, there is not one room in the house which is quiet. Not one. (Well, perhaps the basement vestibule is somewhat sheltered, but we can't exactly set up a desk down there. And it may be out of WiFi range, anyway.) So even though I could theoretically take my laptop and work in another room, there's really no point. I need the bathroom too frequently to go to a library or coffee shop - I'd have to pack up my computer, etc., every 20 minutes and haul them off to the ladies. (Maybe I should just set up in the library's loo?)
Being surrounded by noise also means that there is no quiet spot to sleep. Again, the basement vestibule might be somewhat protected from much of the noise, but again it is hardly amenable to anything more than storage. I'm woken up early and cannot nap during the day because of the volume.
When I had surgery last fall, my first days at home were marked by concrete being poured at one site (meaning that, at any given time, at least three cement mixers were operating outside our windows - yes, right outside our house) and drilling (for geothermal heating, maybe?) was happening at another site. (For the record, I doubt this particular site will ever be completed. They broke ground more than a year ago, and have only just finished tarpapering the exterior walls. This despite working whenever they damn well please.) Since I couldn't do anything or go anywhere (and sure couldn't sleep with all the noise and vibration), I lay back on the couch and watched the 'popcorn' fall from the ceiling. I miss snow, but this wasn't exactly the kind of snowstorm I've been hoping for.
I'm not sure the lack of rest was all that beneficial to my recovery, but I knew before we moved in that there would be construction in the neighbourhood. What I didn't expect was that the one person listed as the complaints contact would be employed by the developer, and would find every possible loophole to avoid enforcing the rules. This means work has begun anywhere from 6:00 am and ended after 9:00 pm. In the 11 months we've lived here, and the countless complaints I've made to this person, only one fine has been levied in response to a breach of the rules. One. And that fine was just $1,000. Since this person - and our own shameless builder - have repeatedly reminded us that the construction environment is hot and you have to do what you can to get the trades, it seems to me that $1,000 would merely be the cost of doing business. It isn't nearly enough to compel compliance with the rules. What's worse, perhaps, is that $1,000 going from one of the developer's accounts to another (remember, the prisoner is guarding the inmates?) doesn't give us back the quiet time we've lost. As far as I'm concerned, the only fair and effective method of enforcement would be to shut down the sites for an equivalent amount of time - for every one minute worked outside the permitted hours, the site would be shut down for one minute. If this calculus was at play, I'm sure we'd be treated to a wonderful 3-week vacation from the ruckus.
But it will never happen. No matter how much money we've already paid to the developer and no matter how much we pay in property taxes, the 'enforcement' person is out to protect his boss, not us. So I will continue to grow ever more exhausted. I'm already so tired that for hours on end I cannot peel myself off the couch, but apparently this will only get worse since sleep is not a right in our neighbourhood.
Cranky and exhausted pregnant woman signing off. For now.
Add this to living in a neighbourhood that is surrounded by construction, where work is allowed Monday-Friday from 7:30 am through 7:00 pm, and again on Saturdays from 9:00 am through 5:00 pm. The one person allegedly responsible for enforcing the rules works for the developer of most of the sites. Can you see what this means?
Yes, yet again this morning I was woken up before 7 am. At 6:52 am, to be precise, by a construction vehicle backing up. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. That is the soundtrack of my day. (I know I'm supposed to listen to Mozart, for the sake of kleines Bärchen, but all I hear, all day, six days a week, is BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. Our child will want to be an alarm clock when s/he grows up.) By 7:00 (still a half hour before the start of permitted work hours), construction trucks lined the streets in our neighbourhood, workers were loitering in the streets, and a hose had already been attached to the fire hydrant and strung along the street. By 7:15, hammering had begun in earnest at the site closest to the master bedroom's main windows.
Werner, of course, sleeps right through it. And then spends all day at his office.
But, even if it doesn't bother him, it upsets me. Since I've been working from a home office for the last couple of years, I don't have an office to which I can escape. Oftentimes, it is too noisy to work from home. Our home office overlooks what may be the noisiest area, but because we're surrounded by construction sites, there is not one room in the house which is quiet. Not one. (Well, perhaps the basement vestibule is somewhat sheltered, but we can't exactly set up a desk down there. And it may be out of WiFi range, anyway.) So even though I could theoretically take my laptop and work in another room, there's really no point. I need the bathroom too frequently to go to a library or coffee shop - I'd have to pack up my computer, etc., every 20 minutes and haul them off to the ladies. (Maybe I should just set up in the library's loo?)
Being surrounded by noise also means that there is no quiet spot to sleep. Again, the basement vestibule might be somewhat protected from much of the noise, but again it is hardly amenable to anything more than storage. I'm woken up early and cannot nap during the day because of the volume.
When I had surgery last fall, my first days at home were marked by concrete being poured at one site (meaning that, at any given time, at least three cement mixers were operating outside our windows - yes, right outside our house) and drilling (for geothermal heating, maybe?) was happening at another site. (For the record, I doubt this particular site will ever be completed. They broke ground more than a year ago, and have only just finished tarpapering the exterior walls. This despite working whenever they damn well please.) Since I couldn't do anything or go anywhere (and sure couldn't sleep with all the noise and vibration), I lay back on the couch and watched the 'popcorn' fall from the ceiling. I miss snow, but this wasn't exactly the kind of snowstorm I've been hoping for.
I'm not sure the lack of rest was all that beneficial to my recovery, but I knew before we moved in that there would be construction in the neighbourhood. What I didn't expect was that the one person listed as the complaints contact would be employed by the developer, and would find every possible loophole to avoid enforcing the rules. This means work has begun anywhere from 6:00 am and ended after 9:00 pm. In the 11 months we've lived here, and the countless complaints I've made to this person, only one fine has been levied in response to a breach of the rules. One. And that fine was just $1,000. Since this person - and our own shameless builder - have repeatedly reminded us that the construction environment is hot and you have to do what you can to get the trades, it seems to me that $1,000 would merely be the cost of doing business. It isn't nearly enough to compel compliance with the rules. What's worse, perhaps, is that $1,000 going from one of the developer's accounts to another (remember, the prisoner is guarding the inmates?) doesn't give us back the quiet time we've lost. As far as I'm concerned, the only fair and effective method of enforcement would be to shut down the sites for an equivalent amount of time - for every one minute worked outside the permitted hours, the site would be shut down for one minute. If this calculus was at play, I'm sure we'd be treated to a wonderful 3-week vacation from the ruckus.
But it will never happen. No matter how much money we've already paid to the developer and no matter how much we pay in property taxes, the 'enforcement' person is out to protect his boss, not us. So I will continue to grow ever more exhausted. I'm already so tired that for hours on end I cannot peel myself off the couch, but apparently this will only get worse since sleep is not a right in our neighbourhood.
Cranky and exhausted pregnant woman signing off. For now.
posted by Melanie A at 7:52 a.m.
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