Quiet Down, Kids

Over the past two months, I've been in touch with my building management company a couple times about the increase, not just in noise, but in the lack of respect for neighbors in my building. First there was the flute and violin playing next door, then there were the doors constantly being propped open, and then there were the parties two weekends in a row where college students would hang out right outside the front door of the building until early hours of the morning, talking loudly and smoking. And it's not that I have a problem with them smoking, per se, it's just that the weather was nice those nights and my windows were open, and the smell of the cigarettes wafted up to my apartment. And worse, on Columbus Day, I left the building and found all kinds of trash — cigarette butts, empty cigarette boxes, crushed cans of beer — in the flowerbeds outside the front door.

When the building managers told me that if I had a problem with the noise in the future, I should just call the Brookline police, I thought that was going a little too far. But now I see that I'm not alone and in fact, there have been problems with college students all over Brookline. My friend Berk forwarded me the latest e-newsletter from the Town of Brookline, which contained this item:

<< Over the last two weekends, the Brookline Police Department has initiated a concerted effort to deal with the quality of life issues that have been eroding from the neighborhoods adjacent to Boston University. As the student population has increased exponentially in the neighborhood over the last five or six years, neighbors have been subjected to a campuslike atmosphere that has greatly disturbed the tranquility of their lives. Loud parties and roving college students (some under the influence of alcohol) being loud and disruptive along the streets have been a frequent scene during Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. To try and bring this behavior under control the Brookline Police have assigned extra patrols over the last two weekends and plan to continue until the problem is brought under control.

During the last two weekends the Brookline Police Department has seen numbers of students arrested or summons into court for such violations as public drinking, disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, minors in possession of alcohol, drug offenses, driving under the influence of alcohol, and protective custody. The students have all been from Boston University.

The Brookline Police Department will continue its efforts to bring this aberrant behavior under control until the campus like behavior of the student residents of the neighborhoods ceases, and a more community style atmosphere, in which one another’s right to peaceful coexistence is restored. >>

Blah blah blah, if you're going to live so close to B.U. you should know what you're getting into. Sure, whatever. I've made no secret of how much I enjoy it when the students aren't here, but as any Bostonian must, I've learned to live with them when they are. After all, I was in college once too (even if it was a bit more tranquil). And hell, I've even lived in Allston. But I've lived here in this building on a quiet street in Brookline for more than five and a half years and I've never seen or heard it as bad as it's been these past two months. It can't just be the increased number of college students, though that is a factor. There have always been college students here and there always will be. It must be an increase in the type of students: selfish ones who just don't care about their noise level and have no consideration for their neighbors and who feel that they're just as entitled to enjoy living here as the rest of us. And that last part is true, but those who are causing so much of a disturbance should be a little more respectful.

Anyway, even though I have yet to contact the police (and I don't think I will), I guess it's nice to know that I'm not the only one complaining. Let's see if there's strength in numbers and we can get things back the way they used to be.

(Jeeeeez, writing this post makes me feel so old!)

Update, 9:45 a.m.: According to Universal Hub (who got it from B.U.'s Daily Free Press), B.U. students are planning a protest of Brookline police where they'd congregate outside multiple residential buildings peacefully, just waiting for the police to arrive and arrest them. Oh, please. That's so typical, and pretty indicative of why we residents are annoyed in the first place.