Anyone in Shanghai?

[ninedragons]

Is there anyone in Shanghai? Construction noise from the flat below ours is driving me crazy, and I'd love to know if anyone has any legal alternatives to homicide, which I was seriously considering at 7.30 on Sunday morning when the drilling and banging started.

[ninedragons]

Well, let me know if you want any advice.

I would say that the people I know who've lived in the gated villa complexes out in Hongqiao tend to like Shanghai less than the people who live in flats and lane houses in the French Concession, where there's far more to do.

Good luck with your decision.

[Budababe]

Hi - have had a bit of a relevation tonight and DH reckons he could be transferred to Shanghai tomorrow if he wanted to and I said I would go!!!!! Having said never again to a move! So watch this space!

[slim22]

Hi

I'm in singapore so can't help with how nasty you can get.
Sympathise though.
No immediate neighbour doing work but here we have high rise condos being demolished and rebuilt left, right and centre 7/7.
Buy earplugs and do yoga?

[ninedragons]

Unplugging the karaoke machine made me snort.

There's a crack that runs the length of our ceiling that wasn't there before they started work, so hopefully that's the prod our landlady needs to go ballistic at them. Don't know if it's structural or not (hope not, it is directly above our bed), but either way she's unlikely to be thrilled about it.

[Budababe]

Sympathies!

We used to live in Vietnam and their total disregard for how their building work, painting, or loud music used to drive me totally barmy. I barged into one house one night and unplugged their sodding karaoke machine! Screamed and yelled at them and all they wanted to do was practice their English - at 2am!

Also stormed into a nightclub (in which there were about 6 people) and threatened to dismantle their equipment.

Hope you get some satisfaction.

[ninedragons]

Yeah, I know it was mean, but after six weeks of drilling on the party wall from 7 or 8am every single morning seven days a week, I don't think it was undeserved.

The owner really sealed his fate when he said that he didn't care that I was pregnant and needed to rest and not be stressed, all he cared about was his project. That's why I'd like to see him lose his flat.

[suzywong]

ooooo ninedragons! kudos to you and your husband - that's Meannnnnnnnnnnnnn. Meannn but fair.

[ninedragons]

sorry, meant to say that they've been going for six or seven weeks and it could easily take another two months. The owner is cheap and has hired untrained farmers from the provinces rather than qualified builders, so they're taking forever. They're removing the floors and the plaster on the walls with hammers and drills.

Where are you in Vietnam? Hanoi is one of my favourite cities in the world.

[ninedragons]

We shouted at the owner on Sunday morning. He was completely indifferent to the fact that I am pregnant, and that he signed a contract with the building management saying that no work could happen on the weekend.

My husband physically threw the builders out of the apartment block, and then went back to our flat, emptied the cat's utterly disgusting litter tray into a plastic bag, went back downstairs and carefully poured it through a window the builder had left open.

And the owner inadvertently let on that he might have bought the flat on behalf of his cousin in Seattle, in breach of the Shanghai residency requirements for property purchase, so we'll be reporting him to the Chinese authorities and his cousin to the US IRS, who will be up his bum for years if they think he's getting tens of thousands of dollars a year in rent that he's not declaring.

I would laugh myself halfway to death if he gets caught on the residency thing - I believe that the penalty is confiscation without compensation.

[globetrotterinvietnam]

Can't think of any suggestions, but have had the same thing happen to me...... How much longer do they intend to do work on the flat?

[suzywong]

you know that evil mothers in law would present their daughters in law with fine embroidered robes impregnated with poison. Do you reckon you could shake some cyanide into a boiler suit and persuade one of the builders to try it on?