Turn down the volume By Brenda Erickson News-Chronicle If there is indeed a hell, I have a pretty good idea what it's like. The fiery gates have paper-thin walls, and Satan's neighbor just got a new stereo system. Unfortunately for me, I'm already there. I moved to my country duplex in search of quiet. Like my father, who is awakened every morning at about 5:30 a.m. by a neighbor's dog that won't stop barking, I hate noise. I hate trucks that backfire, dogs that bark, car stereos that can be heard several blocks away and the beep that some trucks make when they're backing up. I really hate that beep. So I sought a quiet place for myself, and thought that I had found it. I live in a duplex in a small farming community where neighbors follow Ben Franklin's "early to bed, early to rise" philosophy almost religiously. My neighbors next door were a young couple with a new baby, and although I worried for a while about the baby crying in the middle of the night, I never heard a peep from them, not from the baby, and not from his parents. I loved my neighbors. But then, they moved. Enter the neighbor from hell, a younger guy who I'm certain no longer has any eardrums. He can't possibly, because he plays his music so loud that I can hear it in my driveway, parked in the car with the windows shut. Now just to clarify, it's not the music I oppose, even though his hip-hop tastes don't merge with my own personal favorites, like Lyle Lovett, Van Morrison and the vocalists who sing those amazing jazz standards, like Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Louis Armstrong. I love music. But I don't expect that my neighbor shares my taste in tunes, and I don't play my stereo loud enough for him to hear it. My neighbor, unfortunately, isn't as thoughtful. At first, the stereo was upstairs, and the vibrating bass tones rattled the art on my walls and made my floor buzz with a rhythmic "thump, thump, thump" that only paused between songs, and often continued all night long. After a while, the guy got a pool table for his basement, and the stereo equipment moved downstairs. There, only a bit of plywood separated my basement from his, and the throbbing bass soon encompassed my entire two-bedroom apartment. I'm sure you can imagine my joy. And it's not as if my neighbor doesn't know he's driving me crazy. Many times I've gone next door to ask if he might turn down the volume so my floors would stop buzzing, and he almost always does. Each time, I think the problem's been solved, until the next day, when the volume level returns to its eardrum-shattering decibles, sometimes so loud he and friends don't even hear me knocking. I no longer bother going next door. Instead, I pound on the basement wall and debate whether or not it's worth it to call the police. Before reaching my 40s, I've become the witchy old woman next door, and I'm not very happy about it. One night, he and one of his friends came over to question why I had a problem with their music. Brilliant question, that. He said he absolutely couldn't turn his tunes down any lower than they already were, and if I didn't like it, that was my problem. I love my neighbor. Lately, when returning home from work, I cringe as I turn the corner, praying that I've beaten him home and will have a few minutes of peace. I rarely succeed. And on weekends, the music never ends, playing on into the night and starting up again early in the morning, or later, just when I think I might take a much-needed nap. With a fan for white noise and a pair of factory-quality ear plugs, I can't hear my own phone ring, but I can still hear that throbbing "thump, thump, thump" of my neighbor's bass, and it's making me crazy. I hope I have better luck next time.