Advanced physics

What do you think, how far does sound spread? For instance, if we live on the ninth floor, and according to the paper at the entrance, they're renovating on the second floor, could we hear it? At least this is what we were told, when we asked the caretaker to find out who's been drilling all week long. We told her that we could hear it so loud, as if it was coming from right above us, and definitely not below.

But the man who lives there said it was not him, so surely it could not be so. Eventhough later we regularly heard hammering, too, which couldn't be led by the concrete walls through seven floors, for sure. Also, when we had the window open, we could hear the drilling from the second floor, but only very distantly.

This we have experienced before a few times. Someone put up a note downstairs, saying sorry for the noise on the first, second, third floor, even in the other end of the house. Then, all of a sudden, somebody started to drill, hammer, and all that, so we could hear it as close as if it came from the other side of the wall. Surely, we were misled by our senses.

Or another example, the water. Do you think it should take three whole months for water to come down from the roof through the tenth floor to our ceiling on the ninth? I can't believe it. Even if I was told by the caretaker whom I had to ask to check it with our upstairs neighbour.

The reason for this is that in this block, for some reason, the flats are divided on locked corridors on both sides of the elevators. So, I cannot go up to their door and knock on it. The other reason I prefer to do it so, is because we've been leaked from above through a few years. But back then there was another family renting that place.

It's true though that late September 2014 these new lodgers also managed to do it, soon after they'd moved in. Then, almost as if it was an anniversary, and they felt obliged to repeat it, it happened again last autumn, around the same time.

So we asked the caretaker's help, who walked up with us to their door, and was told by them that they'd renovated the whole place, so it couldn't come from them. At this moment she suddenly remembered that the representative of the block told her they had to get the isolation on the roof fixed, because it was destroyed by the huge storm in the summer.

Now, the storm happened late June, and several people suffered damages in their flats, but not us. The storm was not only wind, but it was also accompanied by heavy rain fall. Also, later on, during the summer we had some enormous downpours, yet we have not been leaked. Only then, three months later, the water reached us, through some cracks in the wall, according to the caretaker's theory.

Somewhat later we heard that they were finally able to fix the roof. I hope it also means that we can have the ceiling painted without having new spots appearing on it again, before it gets dry. This has happened repeatedly throughout some years. The renovations however are audibly ongoing all the time. For what reason, who knows?