I think that when noises go to a high volume, it becomes abnormal and not healthy for living beings. Functioning mentally with such unpleasant noise is far from being possible, and obviously, productivity will be lessened. Everything should have a limit, as much as people want to exercise freedom at some point in their lives. I do not fancy pollution of any kind, be it noise, water, land, or air pollution, and whatever I can do to avoid polluting my environment or curtail it, I will do that. Today, I am going to share with you my experience with noise pollution, as I have been unlucky with neighbors in the city of Lagos State, Nigeria, where I reside.
You know, I was thinking that the best thing that would happen to me if I really want to enjoy a serene environment is to live in an estate because estates should be more organized, there will be rules and security, and this should make it safe for a living. However, I have been disappointed with the estates I have lived in so far and the one I am still living here in the city of Lagos, Nigeria.
If you take a closer look at this image above, you will discover that buildings are attached to each other, and that's how we live closely with each other in my former estate. So there's this, my neighbor, then; they are a group of bachelors who live together in one house. These guys nearly turned the house into a clubhouse, especially from Friday to Sunday night. Other days, they will start playing loud music using big speakers at 5 a.m. With the kind of noise, saying my morning prayer in peace was a hassle. My sister, who lived with me then, found it difficult to study her books at the early hours of the day. The worst part of it is the almost sleepless nights they cause us every weekend. They usually invite their female friends who spend weekends with them, and they keep partying all through the nights of every weekend. At a point, I was pushed to report them to the estate management, but I didn't. Instead, I politely talked to one of them, expressing my worries and the degree of disturbance from their noises, but all was to no avail.
Fast forward to when I relocated to my current residence. I met another episode of continuous noise pollution from my close neighbor. You know, living in Nigeria, you may have a high tendency to face electricity challenges, depending on the area where you reside. For most people like me who reside in middle- and low-class areas, electricity is always a major problem here, and because of it, many people are resorting to getting alternative power supplies. For people who cannot afford solar, they buy generators. These generators are one major source of noise pollution that is very common. I won't deny that I don't contribute to this noise pollution either because I use a generator as well, but I make sure to service it more often in a way to reduce some noise and even smoke.
Some people are really wealthy; my neighbor's generator has always been on from the first day I packed in here to this very minute I type. This man has a security guy on standby; once Nepa takes the light, they switch to the generator immediately. The noise from his house usually interrupts my sleep or discussions with anyone in my house, and even phone calls. Then some afternoon, when I want to think of my beautiful content to write and publish in hive, this man's generator wouldn't allow me to think deeply, lolz. I used to pray that there's always nepa light so we could live without those noises from my neighbor's house.
When the cost of gasoline became so high in my country, I strongly thought that this neighbor of mine would reduce the way he uses generators, but nothing changed. He is just so rich to afford the current cost of gasoline and uses his dearly used generator daily to generate noise pollution, and you know what? It's completely impossible for me to stop him from doing that. I can only manage, and hopefully, I will be blessed enough to relocate to a more serene and less noisy environment.
This is my entry to the #hivelearners community contest on the topic titled Noise pollution
Please note that the thumbnail was designed using Canva, while the second image is mine.
