Upstairs

Where we lived before, we always had upstairs neighbours. Tommy was used to the sound of their door closing, people walking up the stairs and walking around overhead, as well as general background noise associated with having an ‘upstairs’. Since we moved into our new flat we haven’t had any upstairs neighbours. Until last week.

It all started on Monday evening of last week, when we heard the door opening and closing a few times, with the footsteps on the stairs, general walking around etc… The door to upstairs is right by our door, so to start with, it was very confusing for Tommy to hear the door open and close without anyone walking in our hall! He would get up from his bed, (a miracle in itself sometimes!) and bark in the hall towards the door. It didn’t help matters that we had forgotten how to placate Tommy with a ‘thank you Tommy’ and ignore him – we would moan and shout ‘shut up’ which to Tommy, made him think we were joining in.

The next few days, more people turned up to move in. We have 5 adults living upstairs now. That is a lot of footfall on the stairs! We remembered by Wednesday what it was we originally said to Tommy and it has worked. By Friday he had started it ignore the upstairs door opening and closing.

On our last walk Saturday night, he saw a cat, which never fails to ‘pump him up’. Then on the walk back down the road, there were two people standing by their car having a cigarette. They were talking loudly and waving their arms around. This also ‘stimulated’ Tommy and he had a couple of barks. I told him it was nothing to do with him and to walk on. He was still ears and tail up but had come down from ‘defcon 1’. When we got in I settled him down in the kitchen, but he was still quite alert. It was about 2:30am. Then upstairs came in. The door opening and closing was just too much for Tommy who started on a big barking session only to have me come out of the bedroom to tell him off. He gruffed but went back to bed. Then someone else came in. Tommy went a bit gruffy but not enough to warrant getting out of bed again. Then the door opened for a third time! This time boyfriend got up and shut Tommy in the kitchen. This is something we never do, although it worked and from 3:30am he slept.

We have now found out that most of upstairs works at the casino. We’re hoping that Tommy will get used to the door opening, shutting and footfall on the stairs very quickly otherwise I have no idea when we’ll sleep again!