The more I consider the matter, the more I realize that the new apartment may be less noisy. I think I already mentioned loudspeaker trucks as one issue. In my current place, they are an endemic problem. On a regular basis, we have the junk dealers, the yam and gyoza salespeople, and whatever other vendors or special interest people that decide to harass us on any given day. In the winter, the kerosene seller comes through regularly with a mind-numbingly repetitive melody in dull but piercing electronic tones. And during election times, it’s a wall-to-wall scream-fest from morning till night for two or three weeks at a time. The new apartment building will be a lot less susceptible to that, as it is a single building along a major road, which noise trucks will be less likely to ply; it is not the sprawling residential complex with winding parking lot roads that attract these pests like magnets.

This week has been an example of that. For some reason, the issue loudspeaker trucks are out. I can’t make out what the occasion is, but several different trucks have been rolling by. One is for someone who might be a politician, but seems focused on telling one story having to do with AIDS–over and over again. The van, void of slogan banners, just a van with three loudspeakers mounted on top, passed through my neighborhood half a dozen times yesterday, a few of those times doing to drive-slowly-through-every-parking-lot thing. Another truck had a political party name and one candidate from the last mayoral election, but did not seem to be campaigning. Another truck had a banner for “Seikatsusha Net” (“生活者ネット“), which for all I can figure out, means “Living Net,” “living” in the sense of a person living a certain lifestyle. The noise truck passes are not regular and don’t follow a single theme. What the hell?

But perhaps the one element that is most relevant in terms of the timing of my move is a neighbor across the way. It seems that someone in the building right across from mine has gotten a new bundle of joy–a real screamer. And this tenant has chosen a room in their place to use as a nursery which faces right across from my place, maybe 50 feet distant. And this wonderful mother has decided to leave the windows, and sometimes the door as well, of her apartment open so as to give the child fresh air. Can’t fault her too much on either choice, I suppose, but the end result is that I’m getting treated to full-volume infant screaming on a regular basis now. Lucky me, this started just this week, days before I move out, and not a year or more before now.