How would you handle this (neighbor problem)?

My roomie and I have been living in our pretty little apartment since July. Aside from some generally crappy neighbors (no really, it’s perfectly reasonable for you to allow your eight year old son to stalk around the parking lot, shooting a bb gun rifle at the cats— oh, and it’s also ok to stand on your patio TOTALLY NAKED and smoking), thinks have been lovely.

But starting two weeks ago, the strangest thing has been happening: neighbors complain to us that we are being too loud. Let me explain the context and then the two times this has happened.

Our apartment complex is filled with lots of little rectangular buildings. Each rectangular building has two stories and each story looks something like this (thank me later for my badass diagram). Anyway, we’re apartment one at the end and we have our own private staircase (those green lines), apartments two and three share a staircase in the middle, and apartment four has its own staircase on the other side.

The first time, it was 8 PM on a Saturday evening. My roomie was in her room quietly watching South Park DVDs (so quietly that I couldn’t hear it standing directly outside her door) and I was sitting on the couch talking on the phone to my friend. KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK And there was a man standing there. Our exchange went something like this:

Him: Yeah hi, I live on the otherside of the building and someone is playing music so loud that it is shaking my walls. I’m trying to find out who is doing that, is it you?
Me: (looking back at completely silent apartment) No, it’s not. Everything is totally quiet here (gesturing back towards the apartment).
Him: Are you SURE? (glare)
Me: Uh, yeah. My roomie is in her room quietly watching TV and I am sitting here on the phone talking to my friend. If the music is so loud that it is shaking the otherside of the building, I most certainly wouldn’t be able to talk on the phone if this is where it was originating. Plus, it’s totally silent here. See?
Him: (obviously not believing me) Well, I GUESS. But just make sure you don’t do this in the future.
Me: :confused:
(Roomie walks out)
Me: Uh, Lauren are you playing music so loud it’s shaking the other side of the building?
Lauren: :confused: No. . .
Me: Ok, there you go, sir. It isn’t us. I’m sorry you’re being disturbed, but I need to go now.

Seriously, wtf? Our apartment was totally silent and had been for the last 3 hours. Prior to that, she and I were out running errands for 3 hours. We’re on the END of the building and only have one shared wall and the people below us. Aye.

Cut to today. I had been out running errands (thanks for not telling me we were out of dish soap, dear roomie!) for a bit and I got back home. I brought my laptop into the kitchen and was playing some music out of my built in laptop speakers. The sound was up about halfway, but I couldn’t even hear my laptop’s music in the hallway. DINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDINGDING.

I open the door and there is the BB gun kid. This is the same kid that had been climbing up our private stairs, being really loud, and hanging off the stairs- when we asked him to not do that, he rolled his eyes and said we were stupid. Nice kid. Anyway, he’s got two branches he’s broken off of some tree and is whacking the side of our patio. I ask how I can help him.

Kid: Uh, I live downstairs and my mommy said you’re being way too loud and you need to be quiet because she’s trying to sleep and it’s rude of you to be so loud because she’s trying to sleep and you need to be quiet right now.

Me: (again looking back at the silent apartment, save the laptop quietly going and the dishwasher) I’m sorry, but I’m not being that loud. Tell your mommy I’m sorry she’s being disturbed, but it is also a Sunday afternoon at 2 PM and I will be cleaning my apartment soon. That means I will be vaccuuming and stuff. But yeah, tell her I’m sorry, but it isn’t me.

Kid: WHATEVER :rolleyes: .

So this is an eight year old kid, mind you. But then I thought about it: the only people below us are two mentally handicapped women and I know he doesn’t live there. So now I’m even more confused.
I’m just scared that we’re going to get in trouble for something we clearly aren’t doing. Roomie and I have considered everything: are we accidently stomping? Nope. Are our appliances too loud? Nope. We even just left my laptop on and walked down the stairs to see if we could hear anything from the apartment- nothing.

What should we do?

Oh, our lease says no loud noise after 10 PM, but that’s it. That is also the city rule.

Ooh this attitude pisses me off SO MUCH. Someone gets a preconception that you’ve done something, and no evidence to the contrary will convince them otherwise; their ‘concession’ to being pleasant is to ‘forgive’ you, yet still accuse you.

Dissimilar, but strangely related story: my girlfriend and I looked after this guy’s apartment and dogs for two weeks once. When he got back, he went into the kitchen to get a drink, and came out saying “well, I see you broke one wine glass while we’re away, but that’s OK”.

We hadn’t broken anything, and told him so, politely. His reaction was “Hey, don’t worry it could happen to anyone. It’s no big deal.”

“But honestly, we didn’t break anything at all,” we said, honestly.

“Look, I said it’s no big deal,” he said, “Accidents can happen. Don’t worry about it, I won’t charge you.”

“WE DIDN’T BREAK ANYTHING YOU STUPID MAIL-ORDER BRIDE MOTHERFUCKER.” I didn’t say to him, but instead smiled resignedly.

It’s 14 years later, and I’m still pissed about it. I empathise with your situation.

I once had a similar problem, only I was the one accidentally knocking on the wrong door. My old school apartment had three floors total only each particular section had only two floors at a time as it was sort of build into a hill. Confused yet? Aparently so were we.

What I would suggest is to go to the complainers’ apartments and ask them to point out where the sounds are coming from. Then offer to help them trace the source. This way they are happy to find the actual source of the noise and you are happy to no longer be their perceived source of the noise.

If this doesn’t work, then I suggest being preemptive and talking to management yourself. Don’t phrase this conversation like you’re trying to get them in trouble before they get you in trouble. Rather, state your case just like you did here. You know that you couldn’t be the source and would like help in identifying who it actually is before this goes any further.

Good luck!
Keep us updated.

Well, that’s half the battle- I have no idea where these people live. I know that kid doesn’t live directly downstairs or next to us (the apartment to our side- apartment #2 is empty). As far as that guy, I can only assume he was in #4, as he said he was on the other side of the building. Still, I have no idea if that is a sure thing.

I suggested this to the roomie, but she’s afraid it will make the management watch us with extra scrutiny or something.

We can’t help but wonder if this is all because we are the only younger, childless folks in this building. We’re college students, after all. My roomie brought up that point and then said, “But you know what? We might be young college students, but we can afford to live in the same apartments as they do. They need to STFU.”

I don’t know. It just sucks. I don’t want to get in trouble for something we aren’t doing, but I also don’t want to bring undue scrutiny to us. The girls up in the front office are sort of bitches (“Hi, I was just wondering why the jacuzzi in the back is half full? Do you guys plan on fixing it?” Biotch: “Uh, can’t you just use the OTHER one?” “Oh. … kay”), so I don’t know.

You don’t need to know where they live. Your building manager does.

I don’t even know their names. The first guy that came was, like, 30 or 40, maybe 50. Taller, black with gray hair. That’s all I got. There are 400 apartments in this complex, there’s no way anyone will know who I am talking about.

Argh, that really does suck, Diosa. It’s such a shame that many people believe that because you are young college students you MUST be the ones making noise; the last apartment we lived in we had young college folks above us and the rest were 30-40 somethings - the college kids were the quietest and best behaved of the whole bunch.

That’s such a huge complex, too. My suggestions are rather evil and conniving, so I’ll keep them to myself - with so many people there, just chalk it up to a couple of unusual incidents and try to forget about them. The kid is a weirdo - sounds like a real gem. Just remind yourself that he’s just a punk kid. An annoying, creepy punk kid. Bleh.

If it happens again, start taking names. Keep a journal of who speaks to you, what they said to you, and even write down your own concerns. Date them. Then if you do take things to an apartment manager, you’ll have some documentation, at least.

Good luck - I hope things improve and these were just really annoying but isolated incidents.

My sympathies: When I lived in a New York City apartment many years ago, the guy on the floor below me showed up one afternoon and complained bitterly that my television was too loud and had kept him up all night the night before.

“Um, sir. I don’t OWN a television. Come on in and look. See?” [it was a studio apartment]

“Well, what about all that pacing around you were doing?”

“I wasn’t here last night–I had an evening shift. I got home at midnight and went to bed.”

“But you were walking around at 11 PM and watching an old movie!”

“No really–I was ten blocks south at my job–and I really REALLY don’t have a television set. I’m not sure who you were hearing–but it couldn’t have been me.”

He went awy. Still convinced that I had somehow concealed a television set.