It’s Thursday night and my neighbors across the street are at it again. Old Man Jenkins next door is shaking his cane and yelling out the window at a noisy hoard of students. Their music is not only keeping me and my building up, but also a family three blocks away.

Mom and Dad had finally gotten the kids ready for bed at a decent time and put the baby down as a huge drop of bass suddenly sends the tyke into a new fit. It’s like this on their whole street and the other streets near them for another two to three blocks.

Tomorrow, when the kids drowsily walk to school from being up all night, they’ll try to dodge shattered Burnett’s Vodka bottles and pieces of charred couch.

A family pet will come home with shredded paws from that same glass.

But it’s okay. Chico’s a party school, right? And if they don’t like it, they shouldn’t have moved here.

Wrong.

What many people are forgetting is that Chico is actually a family town that just happens to have a college in it. It’s not like when summer starts the whole town shuts down for two months and nothing happens. People have jobs here, raise their families here, make lives here. We disrupt these lives every week when we try to get back our “party school” image that is probably better left dead.

Students should try to be considerate for those around them who are trying to live happily and healthily.

This is their town, and most of us are just passing through.

I’m not saying don’t have fun or don’t party, but rather to be respectful about it. Don’t go raging for three to four days straight, lighting couches on fire and breaking bottles in the street, and please turn the music down a little.

If that seems like a tall order, think about it from the people of Chico’s perspective: would you like it if people came into your hometown and partied like it was 1999 while you were trying to sleep?

Megan Mann can be reached at [email protected] or @meganisthemann on Twitter.