As the last one of four, my building now also has a scaffold outside. The construction on this has finished yesterday, and this is the current view out of my living room:
It is not as bad as I thought though. When I saw the long black sheets being hung on the other buildings I almost despaired over the prospect of living in a cave for three months. However, as you can see, those sheets are surprisingly transparent even though the photo was taken when it was quite overcast. When I open the blinds and curtains, my apartment feels like in a light fog rather than in darkness. I am quite pleased by this unexpected turn of events.
So, I hope for the best for the following weeks with respect to noise. Just today I received the announcement that the walls will be repaired in the next two weeks and that roof repairs are scheduled for all of April. I already noticed that I can hear people walk on the roof, so I better make a list of cafes for emergency retreats.
Even though the renovation works have already been delayed by a week for some reason, the whole thing is extremely organised. At the entrance to our building there is a notice board where the main developments are documented. There is also a list of balconies where it is permitted to hang out laundry – updated daily in the morning. And for the really big things we receive a special announcement in our mailboxes, colour-coded depending on what will happen.
Two weeks ago we received a blue notice telling us that the scaffolding work will commence, and that we need to remove everything from our balconies. A special place downstairs was designated for each house so that any plants on the balconies can be put there as long as the scaffolding is up. Not that I could read any of this, but in Japan, nothing can be written without a little comic attached. This one essentially says “I can’t work like this!”