My Neighbors Just Called The Cops on Me!

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

For the first time ever!
I’ve been having problems with my upstairs neighbors since the night (10 pm!) they moved in. That night around 12 I went up there and explained to them that I work during the day, I get up very early, and asked them to have some consideration for me and my family. Very polite, very sympathetic we all were to each other, it was a good conversation. From that moment forward, they have been non-stop stomping, running around the apartment, screaming at each other, jumping off the beds, what have you. There are two very overweight adults and a toddler on the lease, but two extra children live there on a daily basis. They go full speed until midnight at least, every night. They start back up again at 5:45 am, every day of the week. I swear, it’s like they don’t even sit down- literally ever second from 5:45 to midnight is constant boom! boom! boom!

About a month after they moved in, I asked them again to please keep it down as much as possible. I was polite, rational, and pleasant. I did not want to antagonize them, as I know from experience about “retaliatory disturbances”. When the guy of the couple told me that they didn’t have to be quiet because all the neighbors told him I was a bitch, I informed him that none of the neighbors even know so much about me as my name so maybe he shouldn’t value their opinion, and I ended the conversation.

So sometimes I turn my stereo up a little- really and truly just to drown out their noise, as hearing major crashing above you literally every second of the day is suprisingly nerve-wracking and sometimes I just can’t listen to it anymore. No, I don’t turn it up ear-splittingly loud. On a scale of 1 being silent and 10 being defeaning, maybe a 6. Just enough to drown them out before I go nuts.

Earlier this afternoon, I was jamming to Prince, had it up kind of loud, and left my apartment to go to the convenience store down the block. The woman of the couple upstairs came out and said, as I was walking to my car, “Are you going to leave your music on while you’re gone?” I looked down at the ground thoughtfully, and then looked at her and said, “Why, yes. Yes, I am.” She proceeded to call me nasty names and let me know that I would one day soon find my car in serious disrepair by surprise. I did not respond, just got in my car and left.

So a few minutes ago, a knock on my door! Jeepers, it’s the coppers! Everybody act normal!

Turns out she was extremely unhappy about my music being on when I wasn’t home. Nothing was said about the music being too loud when I am at home. I pointed out to the nice police officer that nothing in my lease prevents me from leaving my stereo on when I’m not home. He was very polite and nice, and ended up, after hearing my side of the story, giving me contact information to pursue breaking my lease under “Crime-Free Housing” rules. He was very understanding and did let me know several times that he couldn’t and wouldn’t “do anything” to me, and we had a nice conversation.

Nobody’s ever called the cops on me in my life, for anything! So for my first time, it was a gentle experience.

Ban neighbors!

2

Bad neighbors are a bain! We have several on our block. The crazy lady who lives next door (I really do think she’s emotionally compromised) has: planted grass seed in my vacant lot and then yelled at me for parking there, because “now the grass won’t grow!”; yelled at me for parking on the street because my van has a transmission fluid leak, and it’s leaking oil all over her “nice, clean street”; pulled up flowers from my garden because they were “too tall”; and last June when I was in the hospital, she industrial-stapled pieces of red carpeting on the walking path on my porch!

The neighbors across the street have five children, and are unfit to even have one, imho. The mother has no control over them at all (they range in age from 8-17) and stands on the porch screaming at them all day; when the father comes home, he screams at them, too, calls them “retards” and tells them he hates them. :eek:

Whatever recourse you have with your upstairs neighbor, pursue it!

3

All I have to say is, nicest OP title/username combo I’ve seen in a while.

4

My crazy neighbor lady in NY called the cops on my ex-husband and I and said we stole her snow shovel. Um, OK? We didn’t and she was just nuts, which is what we told the cops. My ex-father in law was the landlord, so luckily she was out soon enough.

On an unrelated note, she had a boyfriend who was a truck driver of some sort and was forever trying to raise him up on her CB radio (pre-cell phones) and she had a huge hub cap in the middle of her kitchen table with 20,000 cigarette butts in it. Nice!

5

Yeah, I really need to change my username- it does sometimes give the wrong impression!
The funny thing is, if she’d asked me to turn the music down instead of asking me if I was going to leave it on, I would have gone back in and turned it down. That’s what I told the cop but he didn’t believe me. :stuck_out_tongue:

6

Have you called the cops on her for vandalism? Jesus!

7

It’s not polite to leave music blaring but it’s not enough to call the police - that’s silly, but these neighbour things can get really out of hand.

8

I haven’t, because I really do think that, at the very least, she’s OCD (she opens her front door with a paper towel), and probably has a lot of other issues as well. I don’t want to escalate anything with her. Mostly, I try to avoid her. She’s a very negative person (strange that she’s always going on about how wonderful the Assembly Of God church is that she attends; she seems to take no comfort from her faith at all). She’s always out front, sweeping the walk, picking up dog droppings, obsessing over things, and talking about how she hasn’t had any sleep in 36 hours because by the time she’s done working, there’s too many other things that need to be taken care of. I think one of these days, she’s going to have a stroke or something.

9

About 4 years ago my girlfriend at the time, my son and myself moved into this finished basement of a house. I asked the landlord, “Who lives upstairs?” He replied, “Oh, it’s just a nice, single couple, they work early too.” I said, “Do they have any kids?” He replied, “Nope, just them, you want the place?”

So we paid $600 a month and handed him an even $1000 -$400- for security deposit.

Everything was fine for two nights. The third night, all of a sudden, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM AHHHHHHHHHHH BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM AHHHHHHHHHH !!

Screaming and running around and more screaming and running around. Come to find out, she has shared custody of two daughters -aged 8 and 10- and has them the majority of the time.

It sounded like a damn horse racetrack up there until about 1am every.single.night. This lady was also THEE BIGGEST BITCH I’ve ever seen in my life. The house only had one thermostat, too. So I would have to occasionally go up and ask her to make it cooler in the house. She would give me the nastiest looks and snide remarks.

I literally HATE living with other people. To top it off, I HATE EVEN MORE living BELOW people. It’s the worst. I feel so sorry for you. Leave as soon as you can.

It will just escalate now that the cops have been called. Trust me. Once that line is crossed, that’s it.

10

I used to live in an apartment in the city. One night, my room mate and I were getting ready to go out when we heard a child screaming in pain. From the bangs and booms, it sounded like she was being thrown against the walls. We called the cops.

Our front window was open, so we heard the interraction when the officer pulled up. He knocked on the door and when the mother answered it, he said impatiently, “Your neighbors called and said you’re beatin’ your kid. You beatin’ your kid?” The woman answered indignantly that she was not, so he hopped back into the car and left.

Afterwards, she began a campaign of harassment against us, including (but certainly not limted to) calling the cops in the middle of the night saying she heard sounds of a fight in our apartment. We’d all stumble down sleepily in our pajamas and tell the cop that no, we weren’t fighting, but luckily, they were as disinterested in a potential fight as they were in child abuse.

The upside was that the mother seemed to vent her spleen on us-- the rest of the time we lived there, I never again heard the child screaming.

11

Let’s skip OP titles and go straight to OP behavior.

You’ve crossed a line of behavior that is inconsiderate and yet still in your own interests to a behavior that is inconsiderate for no other reason than to be obnoxious to your neighbor.

It’s hard to get kids to shut up, even quiet music can travel, and threatening to damage your car is completely inappropriate.

But leaving your apartment and leaving your music on?

Jeebus H. Keerist. It’s no wonder that these stupid little neighbor conflicts can so quickly escalate.

What can we ever possibly hope to teach Israel and Hexbollah?

12

I know. I feel properly chastened. But, in my defense, I’ve been occasionally playing my music that loud for a couple of months, so I figured if it bothered them they’d talk to me, just like I’ve talked to them. And I’m fairly sure that if she’d asked me to turn it down instead of asking me if I was going to leave it on, my desire to show them that they are the unreasonable ones and not I would have forced me to smile brightly, say, “Sure!” and came back and turned it off. I’m weird like that. And I did turn it way down when I got home 5 minutes later- it was quiet way before the cops came.

I completely agree that it was a silly and stupid altercation and absolutely should not have happened. You do, though, get to a point where you’re just fed up and you want to fight back in any petty little way that you can. Sometimes I give in to that base emotion, and I do regret it.

13

Do you have any way to make a video demonstrating the noise level throughout the day? Tape more than one day, at various times. Then show the tape to your landlord/the police if they escalate and continue to try to paint you as the bad guy. What are the noise ordinances in your town? Do you think they are violating them? What are the rules regarding noise in your apartment complex? No noise after 10pm or before 8am or something like that? Start pulling out the various rules to back you up. Keep a diary and write down the date, time and details of threats, write down and date what she said to you today about your car as best you can, include her name calling. Good luck.

14

For some reason, IME this is a big problem in Tucson (people calling the cops on each other). Seems to me like if anyone should have been calling the cops, it’s you.

15

bump What did you find out about the various rules regarding noise? Do you have a stronger case now? Did you begin a log?

16

To solve problems with MP3s rather than RPGs?

17

They sound like asses, but frankly you probably didn’t help matters too much by complaining the very first day they moved in. I would have waited a few days before I started telling them to respect my family. That would have kind of bugged me, even though I would have been very polite about it and it would have seemed like a “nice conversation.”

18

Yeah, that was my first thought too. Moving in day often means making noises late into the night. My first impression of a neighbour that complained was that they were being unreasonable and likely to cause me trouble in the future…

19

Who moves in at 10 o’clock at night?? That was a sure predictor of future behavior. I had every right to go up there and request that they respect the rules, and I’d do it again. My first priority is to work and support my family. If some trash is making all kinds of noise and preventing me from sleeping late at night, that jeopardizes my ability to work, and that’s not okay with me. I’m certainly not afraid of what other people think of me for standing up for my own rights.
The management here sucks, I’ve been through it before with a previous neighbor that was schizophrenic and threatening. Even the cop I spoke to the other day said that he knew they only want the money and don’t care about people’s rights. Knowing that, and knowing from experience that any complaints to management go unheeded, I’m planning on moving very soon. If I have to break my lease to do it, it’ll be worth it, but I don’t think that I will.

20

Just to clarify- they started their move-in “day” at 10 pm. On a weeknight. I was entirely justified in going up there.