Nighttime Disturbances in Pink

A question plagued us: Should we change accommodations? There’s a budget hotel nearby, so it seems best to quickly check the reviews: 'Worst, worst, worst hotel ever!' Okay, that doesn't seem like a solution either. Here we'd just be trading one problem for another. So it’s best to stay put for now and keep assessing the situation.

The next morning, the cleaning concierge in a white tank top and white shorts, which made her pink underwear slightly visible, took it upon herself to scrub the terrace. A commendable effort, actually, if only she hadn’t then tried to scrub her dirty feet from this task with a kitchen brush. After her work was done, she set off with clean feet to run some errands. Our hope that she would return with a new kitchen brush was dashed when we saw her coming back with flowers and decorative items, which was somehow endearing, considering the kitchen lacked basic supplies like enough plates, cups, cutlery, etc. She clearly has different priorities...

Later in the day, her husband appeared. He waddled around the kitchen with his bare torso and a noticeable shiner above his right eye, grinning as he announced that he also lived here. What a delight! During the day, you hardly hear them, but at night they come alive. They vacuum, operate an extremely loud kitchen mixer that is oddly present, do laundry, and sing while cleaning. The most annoying part is that the doorbell rings multiple times at night. The bell is set up so that it can be heard throughout the house, making it an extreme nuisance. We have no idea who is asking for entry each time. Sometimes it's new guests, but sometimes it seems the cleaning concierge and her husband receive visitors too. We dealt with the smoke detector that kept us awake all night by quickly climbing on a chair and unscrewing the culprit. But unfortunately, we can't deal with the visitors in the same way. More diplomacy is required here. However, the nighttime ringing actually improved starting from the fourth night. Some things resolve themselves.

One evening, when we returned home, the bewildered landlord (a spoiled rich young man) was sitting on the balcony. Although we greeted him loudly, he didn’t hear us. He also didn’t notice that we were using the washing machine and dryer. Even the fact that two other guests came home with a dog and chatted with us seemed to go over his head. We went to bed around 11:00 PM and...couldn’t sleep. Extremely loud music was playing in the kitchen, not bad music, but definitely way too loud. Mrs. Waas stormed into the kitchen in her nightgown. The landlord had turned his phone all the way up. As soon as he saw Mrs. Waas, he exclaimed: 'Oh sorry! I thought I was home alone. Sorry, sorry.' The obliviousness of some people is hard to grasp. What he was doing there at night, we couldn’t really figure out...

The grand finale occurred on the last evening: When we returned home, there was a very agitated couple with their parents and their very humorous son in the living room. They had booked a room, but the landlord couldn’t find their reservation. There were multiple phone calls back and forth, and they shouted at each other. The landlord didn’t listen properly anymore and shouted into the phone, asking what was so hard about sending him a screenshot of the reservation confirmation, then hung up. 10 minutes later, he came by in person. His explanation was that the guests had probably fallen victim to phishing while booking. The guests then attempted to reach booking.com by phone. With booking.com on hold, they left our lovely place, which was a shame because with their alcohol breath and bickering and their ever-grinning son, they would’ve blended perfectly into our shared flat. We even advised them that the landlord is truly very confused and that they should take a good look at the phishing theory.

Anyone who thinks we could have enjoyed our nighttime peace has underestimated the cleaning concierge. At night, she rang like crazy and knocked on our window. Clearly slightly dazed, she had lost her key and her phone. She borrowed Mr. Sleeve's phone to reach her husband, but he didn’t answer. So she set off again to find him. She must have found her key again because she returned and let herself in. A few hours later, we were awakened by the arrival of new guests. There were also discussions here, the content of which we couldn't quite grasp through the closed door due to our sleepiness. The guests were presumably dissatisfied with their room and wanted to change. Since our cleaning concierge (obviously still a bit dazed) wasn’t sure if our room was occupied, she knocked on our door to ask just that. We patiently explained that we lived here. Such things can slip one's mind.

The next morning, we wanted to say goodbye. (The term Check-Out would be too much.) She was once again clad in pink underwear and hugged Mrs. Waas, thanked us, and said that we had been the best guests she had ever had. Unfortunately, we couldn't return that compliment. But we did feel a bit wistful when it became clear that we would never see this place again and instead would spend the next nights in a nice centrally located clean hotel with comfortable beds and no nighttime disturbances. Such experiences don’t make for a good story.