What is not widely known is that there is
in fact a regulation that forbids all the restaurants in Paris to make noise
after 22:30. However, the authority will
force it only if a resident of the building places a call to the police. Therefore, it is one regulation that is defunct
because most tenants do not know this.
Hell, even I did not know this until so informed by Mme. Landlord. Then what about the owner-residents, you may
ask. After the arrival of AIRBNB, the
landlords now prefer to lend their apartments out for a big profit while they
move to the suburbs. They do not care if
their tenants suffer any noise. There
will always be unsuspecting tenants applying for apartments in Paris. Their cold attitude hardened even more by the
system of AIRBNB.
Therefore, it fell on me to call the police
because the tenants on the same floors had already left. Their landlords did not knock the rent down
like my landlord. She was a rare
gem. Mme. Landlord would call the police
herself, but she did not live in the building.
So with a shaking hand I dialed 17, the police. The message was given in French and
English. Relieved, I opted for
English. However, the person who took
the call blatantly lied to me that ‘Paris never sleeps’ and hang up. He thought I was a tourist. So, I tried again in French which was not
good yet. The woman who took my call had
no patient and hang up. I thought I
heard a jeering laughter of Mme. Empathy as the music blasted on filling up my
apartment along with the extractor vibrating noise. I had to cower back to the small corner of my
kitchen and cried.
The following day, I rehearsed my lines over and over. I called the police for the third time and a young man answered. He tried to pull one over me, but I insisted in French that it was against the rule to be noisy after 22:30. I live in Paris, I added. He uttered, 'Ah' and transferred me to the police station of the appropriate district. A sympathetic major answered my call and he took the address of the restaurant from HELL. He also took down my phone number and promised to send his men. After the call, I waited without much hope.
The following day, I rehearsed my lines over and over. I called the police for the third time and a young man answered. He tried to pull one over me, but I insisted in French that it was against the rule to be noisy after 22:30. I live in Paris, I added. He uttered, 'Ah' and transferred me to the police station of the appropriate district. A sympathetic major answered my call and he took the address of the restaurant from HELL. He also took down my phone number and promised to send his men. After the call, I waited without much hope.
Then it happened. 30
minutes later, all the noise stopped, the ventilator and the
music. Well, not all because I could hear a hysterical voice of a
woman. Mme. Empathy? Or her new
waitress? Whoever. The police in Paris had taken my call
seriously and stopped the devil…for the night. I would have to place
several more calls before the police would intervene on a larger
scale. Still, the battle was on.
