Assclown neighbors complained about me!!

The BBQ Pit
21

I live in a victorian house that’s been converted into 5 apartments. The walls are so freakin’ thin here it’s not even funny. Of course I didn’t realize that until recently.

I can be sort of a loud talker and laugher but never really though anything of it until recently. I guess my “next door” neighbor never really had company before because I just recently heard her talking to someone through my living room wall. Just talking. I was immediately horrified remembering all of the time my X and I had little ahem episodes right there on the living room rug. I mean, if I can hear her just talking so clearly, I can only imagine what she’s heard.

X an I have broken up since then but needless to say, I still make an extra effort to be super quiet when I have friends over or whatever.

Point is, sometimes you don’t realize how loud you’re really being, or how thin your walls actually are. Neither do your neighbors, most likely. That’s why I think if it really bothers you, just freakin’ tell the “offender” polietly (maybe something like "man, I never knew how thin these walls are! as an intro or something) about the noise before calling the cops, or suffering silently.

And no wild monkey love if you don’t know how thin your walls are. :wink:

22

Now see, this infuriates me.

Last year, I was living in the bottom floor of a two-floor apartment set. For three years, a family of 3 lived above me. I never heard a peep from them. Occasionally I would have to dodge water coming from the grandmother’s basin as she watered her plants, but that’s just cute.

Then the ASSHOLE moved in. One thin guy, and he created enough noise to keep me up ALL NIGHT. From what I could tell, he worked at night (in the apartment) and slept all day. I figure he was some sort of grad student doing his disseration…or maybe a web designer, who knows. Point is, he would play his TV and/or his stereo loudly and wheel around his bedroom in his desk chair or walk around his bedroom all night. Of course, his bedroom is directly above mine, and the noise was magnified by the silence otherwise heard.

In grown-up fashion, I wrote him a note (I tried knocking on his door, but he would look out at me and then pretend he wasn’t there). The note basically said, “Just a note to remind you that some of us sleep at night and have early mornings. We may need to get together to discuss possible rearrangements so that we don’t interfere in each others’ lives.”

He wrote me back a long note with quotes from his lease stating that he could be up as late as he liked and that he was not making any more noise than anyone else would during the day. He suggested I move.

One night, I called the apartment courtesy officer, she went up, and she came back down to tell me that he wasn’t making any more noise than was allowed and that he was going to file a complaint that I was harrassing him!!!

Stupid fucker. I’m so glad I was moving within two months.

Sorry, anger flashback.

23

:confused: This a reference I don’t get.

vunderbob, no party or common rooms. Closest in the building is the storage room or laundry room.

bdgr, maybe I’ll have to try the practice mute instead.

So basically, all this experience has taught me is, “People are assholes everywhere. even those that live in houses.”

But don’t let that stop you from posting more stories. Monday morning, I’m calling the leasing office to investigate and see what they tell me.

24

Damn shew, what an asshole.

I suggest BLASTING your stereo all day long, when you know he’s sleeping (if you have to go to work, turn it on and leave), and when all else fails, a few sandbags thrown against the walls (if you have next door neighbors, this may not be a good choice) usually gets results.

Your apartment must have a time limit on noise from radio’s. It’s usually around 10 or 11. If he’s playing it after that, you should have legitimate reason to complain.

What nerve, telling you to move. Sometimes I really hate people. :mad:

25

I’ve been in a ground floor apartment for the past six years; I’d always been in top floor apartments before, so it has taken some getting used to, hearing noise from above. The family that lives directly above me now has about 3-4 small (under age 5) children. These children are rarely, if ever, allowed outside, unfortunately–they seem to be kept indoors almost exclusively. Naturally, they have a great deal of energy (LOL now that’s a definite understatement!) and seem to want to take it out by jumping up and down on the floor, some times at very odd hours! You wouldn’t believe that small children could make such noise, but they do. In fact, one day they jumped so hard that the ceiling light fixture in my daughter’s room crashed to the floor and broke – into smithereens, I might add; if my daughter had been in the room, she probably would have been injured. :frowning:

The kids have caused water overflows in the bathroom several times, to the point where it was like a waterfall coming through my bathroom ceiling; an inch or more accumulated rapidly on my bathroom floor. I raced upstairs, banged on their door (which was answered by one of the kids, in diapers… that’s a whole other rants, though! A child that young shouldn’t be answering the door!). When the mother finally came to the door she said, “Well, I didn’t call the rental office because they’re closed now …” I was astounded and speechless at first, then I told her that there was an emergency number, this was an emergency. Unbelievable! I rarely complain, though but every once in a while, I do holler up there for them to please stop the jumping!

26

I always feel sorry for the lower-floor people. Especially the day the pipes burst in our complex and all that water was running down to them.

27

Annoying neighbors are everywhere, even in Trump Tower. I couldn’t find a cite for this but it seems Chuck Barris and his wife live next to some elderly bitch who bangs on their mutual wall and has even made threats on Chuckie Baby’s life. The Barrises say this has been going on for a couple of years. Trump’s people have initiated legal action to get the bitch evicted.

28

Why doesn’t Chuck just use his CIA Ninja skills?

29

Sorry. In the movie, there is a scene that takes place in an apartment building where neighbors can hear each other through the air vents. The rhythmic activities of someone practicing the cello, a couple having sex, and a guy painting his ceiling all…synchronize. You at least had the instrument practicing and the couple making sex, so that’s why I was reminded of the movie.

30

Run the vacuum every night from 7 to 10 for a week, Then play country and western Music from 7 to 10 for a week. Threaten Rap. They may just end up buying you a new violin if that is the alternative.

31

I DON’T CONDONE ANYTHING HERE

Neighbors

Hehe - just had to make that clear :smiley:

But there are some funny ideas.

32

Actually this is a link to the exact page

Neighbors

33

I hear you, av8rmike. When I and my roommate moved into our apartment we had a moving-in party after a few weeks. Lacking apartment-living experience, we put up notes in the stairs, in the elevator, on the front door, in the garage, basically everywhere we could think of, saying who we were, in what apartment we were living, that we were hosting a party, and if we were too loud kindly tell us.

No-one does. Until two in the fucking morning, when a neighbour turns up, red with berserker rage, and screams at us to shut the music off. Obviously we immediately do. The following Monday, he calls the landlord to complain.

What, it was too much of an effort to come to us at first sign of trouble, as the note politely asked you to do? Did you prefer lying sleepless and working up an anger for three hours? Did that really make you happy?

34

According to my own personal Shrew-rules, you did exactly what you were supposed to do. In the university town I normally live in, the protocol is to invite your neighbours to your party. The neighbours may or may not come (usually don’t), but at least you’ve notified them of the party and hopefully ingratiated yourself towards them.

The issue with those sorts of parties is that “grownups”, (people out of university) tend to throw much smaller get-togethers. For example, I’m not going to throw a party that’s not a dinner party. Any dinner party I would throw would have less than twenty people to keep it fairly intimate and to be able to feed them all without compromising quality of food. Once I moved off of big keggers, my tolerance for them lowered greatly. Of course, I was never really into them to begin with. I see keggers as primitive now. That does not mean I would grass up a neighbour who was having one, but I might say something to them the next day if their friends were parking in my space or if they’d left loads of cigarette butts on the lawn.

35

The only two times I’ve had problems with neighbor noise have been when I’ve lived in houses. The first, the house directly behind mine, whenever mom and dad were out of town, the kids would crank the stereo up to wall-shattering. At all hours of the night. I called the local sheriff to complain and was told that there was no noise ordinance. I asked, “Yes, but do THEY know that?” Guess what, they didn’t. The sheriff would come by, knock on the door…end of noise. :slight_smile: I finally went by and told them to can it or I’d tell their parents.

The second time was when two party animals moved next door to me in California, where my house was built to let air IN, not to keep noise OUT. They kept assuring me they’d try to keep it down after 2 am or so, but never managed to.

Actually, there’s a third time, quite recently, but it’s only happened once. The young couple across the street, sterling examples of family values and parenthood – she deals drugs, all day long, out of their nice middle-class house; everyone knows, including the cops, we don’t know WHY it’s allowed to continue – but I digress – decided to use up their leftover 4th of July fireworks. At 1 am. The night of July 6/7. When there was not a light on or a person up on the whole block. When I had to get up at 5 am the next morning to take Mr. Butrscotch to the airport. And they would SO thoughtfully wait five minutes between each blast, just to where we’d think that was the end of it and they’d FINALLY shut the fuck up, and then they’d do it again. With their young children with them.

So I finally went out and rather loudly suggested that since the ENTIRE neighborhood was asleep, maybe they could just SHUT THE FUCK UP. She accused ME of being rude. Ha! But it’s safe to say that I have yet to receive one complaint from any of my other neighbors about our little yelling match in the middle of the street at 2 am that night. :smiley:

Moral: Neighbors can be assholes EVERYWHERE.

36

Had a dorm neighbor senior year who was a total Asshat. He had a gf who was Japanese (he wasn’t) and living with him and not a student. He’d humiliate her with the rudest things: ex: Lazy Git was too lazy to walk to the bathroom to pee, so he kept an empty gallon milk jug in his room which he’s make Her empty and clean the next day.

When I called him on it, he told me to mind my own business and we were deathly enemies ever since. (she came up to me later and asked me to please not make trouble for her[!?] ).

After exams were over, Seniors were moved to different housing to prep for graduation…and they put Asshat’s room next to mine. Asshat had a problem with me ever playing my stereo and filed complaints everytime I turned it on. (…it was Senior Week people. No exams, no responsibilities, just a last Hurrah before 9-5 Forever) I wanted to blow off steam, but I also didn’t want his crap. So I waited for him to go to dinner one night, and when he was gone I packed a bag and on my way out shot crazy glue into his lock cylander. (“1001 uses…and now 1002”) I then spent the next few days at my GF’s dorm who was also a Senior.

37

THIS is exactly why I am so glad we have a house and not an apt anymore. In our last apt, we had a ground-floor apt that faced a parking lot and another building. When we moved in, the ‘model’ apt was in another building two buildings over from ours. Not far from the office (which was all of like 100 ft away) but not a real hike either. SOmetime after we moved in, they moved the model apt to a unit directly above ours. Not a problem. We weren’t home during the time they were showing it most of the time anyway, so it didn’t bother us. What DID bother us was the insane rules. We were ‘ticketed’ no less than three times in the space of about 2 mos after moving in for such violations as:

Inappropriate furniture on the porch–we had a small dining area and too many chairs for the table so we put the others o ut on the covered porch since we didn’t have storage space for them. This was a problem for mgmt who ticketed us once for this offense. Afterwards we put the chairs INSIDE on top of the table and kept the blinds closed.

Keeping the sunshades DOWN during the day during a time when I was at home–we had asked and gotten permission to put up these roll-up bamboo shade thingies on our porch.They were long enough that when rolled down,they came nearly to the ground, shading our porch from the sun, bugs, etc. I happened to be home one day and wanted to be outside but not in the sun so I rolled them down and went and laid on the porch on an air matress with a pitcher of margaritas and a good book. Not long after I hear someone near the door so I get up and go see what’s going on. They’ve shoved a ‘ticket’ for having the sunshades down (after we’d gotten approval for them) while the apt mgr was showing the model.

Having inappropriate items on the porch for a second time–I had a pool floating thing (it was shaped like a giant Best Buy sales tag…promo from CGs work) and it was wet from being used. I didn’t want to drag it inside and get the carpet wet so I deflated it and set it on the porch to dry. The apt mgr came by, saw it and freaked. It’s not like it was gonna be there PERMANENTLY for chrissakes.:smack:

Visible Christmas lights–this was around Christmastime.We put up our tree in a corner of the living room near the big window and door the the porch.We didn’t have any curtains,just some blinds we usually left about 1/2 way up for the cats to see out.The lights were on one night w hile we were at a friend’s apt three buildings over. The apt mgr walked by to go to the dumpster, saw the lights and ticketed us. It wasn’t a big, flashy display…just a big fake tree with WHITE lights only and some crappy home made decorations I"d put on it.Nothing too garish or overwhelmingly ugly, I think.

Apts are dens of hell for those who can’t afford a house of their own. I know. I have been there and sympathize.

IDBB

38

Anyway, back to me… :slight_smile:

I typed up & faxed a nice letter to the leasing office, politely addressing each of the complaints. I mentioned that my apartment was carpeted, assured them the “bedroom noises” weren’t me, and that I had a practice mute for the violin and never played in the morning or after 10 p.m. We’ll see where this goes from here, but I’m betting nowhere.

39

Go to your neighbor and ask to do a test.

Sit where you sit and start playing the violin and go louder until they can hear it. Have a signal you can work out.

If they can hear your violin, I’m amazed they lasted five months. I live in an apartment, I accept that community noise is part of the deal.

But when it becomes persistent, even if it isn’t necessarily all that loud, it becomes extremely annoying.

I used live in a building with a violinist in a symphony. She wouldn’t play at home often, but when she did I could hear it. And that was cool, it wasn’t loud, and it was a temporary intrusion.

Then something changed and she was suddenly practicing at home several times a week. In the early evening, usually (from 5-7) and again it wasn’t that loud.

But every day (it seemed), for a couple hours, whether I wanted to or not, I listened to the violin. PRACTICE VIOLIN. Doing the same thing over and over and sudden (mentally jarring) stops.

There wasn’t anything inherent in any particular session that made it intrusive. It was the repetition and constancy of it.

Similarly, if the neighbors have a loud party next door, I can cope with it and be the cool neighbor. But if they are having only a minorly loud party every weekend, it is going to drive me batshit in no time.

But I have no trouble going to the neighbors and trying to talk to them.

40

Sounds like those suburban Baltimoreans are a little sensitive.

Here in the city (Charles Village area) it can get pretty noisy at times, but unless it’s a big party going well into the night, most people accept it as just part of living here.

I live in a small one-bedroom on the ground floor of a row house that’s been divided into five apartments. I’ve been here for three years and i’ve never really had any long-term noise problems with any of my neighbours.

I did have a couple next to me who used to get into huge shouting matches at 2 in the morning, in which he would accuse her of being and whore and fucking her drug dealer in return for drugs. She in return would scream that she never did any such thing, and call him a fucking asshole, etc., etc.

One night this was going on while i was trying to work (i often work best late at night), and it was abviously getting a bit physical, because i heard her scream “Stop, you’re hurting me.” That was the last straw. I bashed on the door, told them that i could hear every goddamn word they said, told them to shut up, and said that if i heard any indications of physical assault again i would call the police.

Well, this couple was only about 19 years, and i think it was their first time living away from home. They were horrified that they had disturbed me, and were profusely apologetic, and i never heard another peep out of them. They broke up and moved out about six months later.

I think the only other time i’ve ever said anything was to the guy directly above me. It was a few weeks before my comprehensive exams and i was trying to study, and he had some loud hip-hop on. I asked him if he would mind turning it down a little, and made it very clear that it was only while i was studying for exams that the noise was a problem. He was cool with it.

Of course, the one group in this area that has used up all the neighbourly goodwill is the frat houses. There are only a few, and luckily none of them are very close to my place. But these idiots have pissed people off so frequently that it now takes very little for someone to call the cops on them. These morons also compound their own problems by having heaps of underage drinkers, and by doing things like throwing water balloons at passing pedestrians. That little stunt got a few of them arrested recently.