My downstairs neighbor (Who moved in last spring) Tends to Play his television from midnight to 6 am Every day and is waking me up, it’s is not loud mind ya but disturbing. I have complained to the management, security guard, but to no avail, have threatened to call the police on him, and no reaction. The police here just roll up, get out and listen for 5 seconds and leave. IS watching television during those times midnight to 6 am unreasonable? Shouldn’t I have the right to sleep in Peace and quiet? I have lived in my place for 20 years. How should I escalate the situation? I’m thinking about suing him but under what cause? Should I Get the police supervisor to come and have a conversation with him? I’m at my wits end trying to get some sleep. I am tired of listening to his television all morning.
I assume that before complaining to management and the police, you talked to your neighbor and asked him not to have the TV volume up too loud during “quiet” hours?
If not, give that a try.
If all else fails, get yourself some ear plugs, a white noise machine, or move.
Did that. But management doesn’t want people knocking on door confronting people. I try to wear ear plugs but that only works half the time and it’s giving me ear aches. I can’t move(And why should I since i’ve lived here longer than he has).
Most municipalities have noise ordinances. Look yours up in the local books, or ask the city or local police about the law. Then get a decibel meter and a video camera (or your phone) and record the noise levels at night over several nights. Present the evidence to the local PD and see if they do anything more about that. If not, complain to their supervisors or the city council (if a small town).
Where is his tv compared to where you sleep? Maybe try sleeping in another room. Try sleeping with white noise (there are whole YouTube channels with up to 8 hours of sound). Put down some nice thick rugs. Oh and talk to the guy - speak nicely don’t get angry (mentally tell management to piss off until they do their job and they have not right to dictate who you talk to or not)). You realise that the bloke is probably using his tv as a white noise machine so he can sleep.
Speaking as the downstairs neighbor (not yours, I’ve lived in my apartment for 4 years) who works night shift, and who watches TV or plays video games at those hours on nights off, no, watching TV at that time of night is not unreasonable in and of itself. That it is keeping you up at night is unfortunate, and ideally your apartment manager can either directly talk to him or send him a letter informing him that his television volume is loud enough to be keeping you up, and politely ask him to be more cognizant of it’s volume during those hours. He may not be aware of how loud it actually is.
In general, yes you should, but consider a thought experiment:
Assuming your neighbor works night shift, imagine what he gets to hear while he’s trying to sleep. Depending on the soundproofing, every step you take in your apartment may sound like you’re stomping around in steel toed boots to him, and imagine what he hears when/if you run a vacuum cleaner. While you are watching TV or listening to music, he may be likewise trying to sleep, to which he should also have a right, shouldn’t he?
If he’s not violating any local noise ordinances (based on your reports that the police aren’t doing anything after listening to the amount of noise coming from his apartment), and your landlord/apartment manager isn’t doing anything further, you may just have to come up with creative ways to drown out his TV. Earplugs might not work for you, but have you tried a white noise machine of some kind, like say, a box fan?
I’m not a fan of earplugs myself. Instead, I use a white noise CD I burned and just put it on repeat. I work second shift, so sleep from about 4am to 12pm. (except when I fall asleep early and then am up for a couple hours before I take a second sleep, like I’m doing now) I have the white noise loud enough to mask pretty much anything. My neighbor and her dogs coming and going from their morning sojourn, the grade school’s kids screaming at recess across the street, my cats digging around their litter box, the leaf blowers in the courtyard in the summer and snow blowers in the winter. I sleep quite well, even with the sun lighting my bedroom.
Living in an apartment for as long as the OP claims, I find it hard to believe nothing like this has come up before.
In my experience of apartment living, management, and police… no one is going to fix this problem for you. You have to put up with it until one of you moves away.
Keep working with the earplugs. Try different brands. You will, after time, get used to them.
I feel for you. I’m pretty sensitive to noise, and have dealt with stuff like this in various apartments with varying degrees of success. Lucky for me the place where I live now has a hard and fast policy: “whatever noise you’re making stays within your apartment”. The manager deals with any complaints quickly and evictions for bothering other tenants are not unheard (ha) of. Unfortunately, the manager has no control of the Sunday afternoon drumming sessions at the church across the street or the comings and goings at all hours in the cul-de-sac outside my bedroom window. I hate sleeping with earplugs too, but that’s the only thing that works in that situation. Living in your own house could make things better, but there’s no guarantee that the people next door aren’t a bunch of noisy yahoos.
The bottom line for me is, I have be able to have peace and quiet in my home. I don’t care what time it is, I don’t want to hear music thumping or people stomping around. If noise from apartment neighbors meant that I have to go someplace else for my “quiet enjoyment”, I would have to move. As a last resort you could always escalate and make a whole lot of noise yourself–maybe turn your music up to 11 and take off for a couple of hours to go for a walk or run errands.
You sound like a reasonable person who wouldn’t do anything rash so I would say confront the person and ask them if they could be more quiet while you are sleeping. If they just laugh at you then you start getting other people involved. You will have to be a PITA to other people, though. The worst case scenario is if the guy says he will comply but doesn’t change his behavior. Then you’re dealing with a sociopath.
The OP hasn’t made it clear that the neighbor is actually doing anything wrong. You’re allowed to watch TV at a “not loud” volume in your own home. If the building is constructed so that normal life noises like television are audible in other apartments, that may just be how it is.
Well, I think it comes down to being respectful of others. If she thinks it’s too loud, then she can ask the person to turn it down. There’s a couple of different ways the guy can respond. One, he can be respectful and seriously consider it. If the volume is normal then he can say, “Come on in, would you like a cup of coffee? Hey, come over to the TV for a sec, does it seem loud?” Option two is that he is not respectful (‘considerate’, is maybe the better term), and gets an attitude that, “Hey, this is my place and I pay rent too and I don’t think it’s loud so bug off.” I think the first option is the appropriate one.
Definitely get a fan. But not just a little desk fan- get a box fan. I lived in apartments for years and suffered greatly from others’ noise, until I got one, and now I could live almost anywhere and sleep blissfully every night. A box fan is loud and perfect for masking sound. It does take a few nights to get used to it, but you do- now the only problem is that if I want to sleep elsewhere, I have to either take it with me or take forever to get to sleep, because I’m so used to it and I need it. But it’s well worth it. You will be so happy that you did it, you’ll probably want to send me chocolate.
This is the crux of the matter, and the answer is no, it’s not. People have their own lives and schedules and can’t be expected to conform to your expectations about when to watch television. It seems as if no one besides you finds the noise excessive (police, management, other neighbors) so you’ll need to work out a solution, as the problem seems to lie solely with you.
That said, the last 10 years of my previous job, I got home at 1am. I simply had a drink and turned in when I got home - by the time I got up everyone else was gone to work and no one would care what I did. My co-workers all claimed they had to wind down, and stayed up until six or seven in the morning.
Due to circs, I lived in an apartment over a retired dude who played his TV at full volume from about 11am until 4am every day. He was very hard of hearing, so he needed it to be that loud (he refused to use headphones – too uncomforable – or get hearing aids – too expensive. I had to move my bedroom from the original room to another, and could still make out precisely what he was watching. He also blasted the TV in his living room, so there wasn’t any place in my apartment where I couldn’t hear him.
Management would do nothing. His wife tried to keep it under control, but when she went on holidays, he’d blast it at top volume – beating on his door at 1am was useless because he couldn’t hear.
I had to get up at 4am several times a week for my work, so he was just shutting down by the time I got up. I could hear the TV plainly over white noise and fans; the only earplugs that blocked it out also effectively blocked out my alarm clock.
When I finally moved out, he and his wife were very upset – ‘What if someone noisy moves in over us?’ they asked me. (They used to complain to management if I flushed the toilet after 9pm, or walked around past that time, as well.)
I second-third the box fan & earplugs. I’ve had mixed success asking people nicely to turn stuff down. You might encounter a reasonable person who didn’t know how loud they were being, but sometimes it only pisses 'em off & makes them even louder, sadly. Yes you have a right to quiet enjoyment of your place, but trying to enforce that can be more hassle than its worth. Like Alice, if I’m travelling Il’l bring my fan with me if I can, crazy as it sounds (has to be a car trip obviosly!). Plus, I always run hot so I like the breeze on me when I’m sleeping!
Legal reasonable noise hours are seven A.M. to ten PM .
Tenant has no right to make disturbing noise to other tenants at any time .
Unfortunately, you may have to move . The neighbor doesn’t care .
The management doesn’t care . The police won’t come for a television problem .
Another night shifter checking in. I have to admit, I’m having a hard time mustering up any sympathy for the OP. Try getting some shut eye when your neighbor is mowing the lawn! Jeez!
But anyway, I’d invest in some earplugs.