Growing up in the city, our little girl has grown accustomed to the sounds of garbage trucks passing, sirens blaring, dogs barking, or the crunch of an occasional fender-bender floating up into the windows of our apartment. More often than not, if she's sleeping none of these sounds cause her to stir. Even summer thunderstorms have passed without rousing her. But there's one sound that seems to disturb her with great regularity: the squeaking floor boards in our apartment.
We are blessed with a good deal of space for a New York apartment, and don't pay anywhere near market value thanks to rent-stabilization, and the fact that my wife has been residing in it for well over a decade. But as the case in a lot of New York apartments, she came in as sublet, and the people that were there before her were there for a while- so when she finally was added to the lease, it was just a continuation of the previous tenants' lease agreements. Good news? Rent-stabilization. Bad news? There hasn't been any serious work done in our apartment for who knows how long, and, short of moving all of our stuff out of the place, it's not going to happen anytime soon.
We're not just talking about a creaky spot here or there. A good deal of the floors in our place squeak and groan when stepped on- in pretty much every room. In our little one's room we laid down a nice thick area rug, not only for decorative purposes, but in the hopes that it would muffle the creakiness of the floors. Well, it was a nice thought, anyway.
When putting our little girl down for a nap, or for the night- we have to choose our path out wisely so as not to hit a loud spot and stir her. Even more dicey a situation is when she is already asleep and we are going in to check on her, because that involves both an entrance and exit. And don't fool yourself into thinking just because you found a reasonably creak-free route on the way in it's going to be the same on the way out. Tip-toeing doesn't really do the trick, either- that's good to mask a footfall, but once the weight of your foot goes into the floorboard, it's curtains... well, floorboards. I'm thinking maybe what we need is a simple zip-wire, or even a Tarzan rope which will allow entry into the room with having to put our feet on the floor... although that might pose a problem when putting her in the crib... I mean I suppose we could practice with a doll first... Okay, okay... maybe some sort of conveyor belt...
Until we have one of those devices installed , a very common conversation in our house will continue to be: "I'm going to go check on her." "Okay, don't wake her." We'll just have to count on the floorboard-gods to show us the us path as we enter the room to check on sleeping beauty... and then hope that a garbage truck smashes into a parked car outside when we do, so she won't be disturbed.
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