Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghanima
I’m thinking a letter to them and the landlord …
I work in a property management office, and tenants who take the time to sit down and compose sane letter of complaint about another tenant are generally listened to.
(SANE letter of complaint, mind you. We have had missives from fruitcakes, too.)
The other side of it is Documentation. The letter posted is pretty sane and rational. It shows their concern for their neighbors, their attempts to deal with the problem and their flexibility and approachability in dealing with it. Not only that, but it gives the neighbors written notice that a baby will be forthcoming.
I counsel a simple, calm discussion with them. You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar. Maybe the building has zero soundproofing between floors (not your fault) and the landlord needs to be made aware so (s)he can spring for a thick rug etc. If they knew you’re very quiet, but it’s the building, then they’ll join you in petitioning the landlord for some help. Don’t beat around the bush. “We notice you hear everything we do.” Have one accompany one of you upstairs and make some average noises so you can experience the other’s point of view.
Could be you have some crotchety old farts downstairs. Or could be you don’t realize things are amplified somehow in their apt. Either way, show yourselves to be reasonable people.
And maybe you’ll have to ratchet it up if they don’t respond to the olive branch. But, why not try the direct approach first?
No, I wouldn’t send the letter as written. Rather then diffuse the situation, I think it gives them ammo. You tell them in no uncertain terms that you wrestle with your dog, that you have your friend’s kids over, that you will have a sceaming baby etc… Instead of trying the letter coming off as “we’re doing our best to be quiet” it sounds like “we’re loud, deal with it.”
I’m not saying the letter should sound like an apology, but this sounds like a nice way of saying screw you.
You might be better off just going down there one day, knocking on the door and saying “WHAT!!!, WHAT DO YOU WANT? STOP BANGING ON THE CEILING” Let him say whatever he wants, I’m sure it will be unreasonable amd then say “Next time you have a problem call the police/landlord, but stop baning on the ceiling, I’m not doing anything wrong” Say it very matter of fact like. Make no excuses just make sure then tone of your voice is stern and says we’ll let the police decide. If he even starts to open his mouth, cut him off by saying “Next time you bang on the ceiling I’M CALLING THE POLICE”
Either way, you need to get a hold of your landlord pronto, tell them that either it needs to stop today, or you need to move because you’re not going to try and raise a new born with this guy baning on the floor every time you try to walk from the bed to the bathroom.
I think your best bet is to find out when the landlord can come over for an hour or so, and let him hear it for himself. Maybe you can have him over for dinner. Oh, and if at all possible, make sure the neighbors don’t hear him coming over. When we were having neighbor problems it was pretty clear they were doing it on purpose, and I’m quite sure they were actually watching for the landlord to show up. But I’m also pretty sure my situation was a bit different then yours.
I think in my initial response I suggested a note to the landlord requesting assistance with this situation, perhaps copied to the neighbors.
My impression is G proposes sending this letter to the neighbors, which I still consider ill-advised.
Perhaps part of my opinon is colored by my lawyer-training which makes me very careful of what I wish to memorialize in print. If you knock on the door and ask them to quit pounding, there is no print record, and you could spin it in a letter to the landlord however you wish, as suggesting you made a reasonable attempt to resolve the matter but were rebuffed.
Ghanima, pretend to move out and let me and the husband stay there for 2 weeks. He is a rock musician, I play Dance Dance revolution with my shoes on (cobalt flux dance pads). We own 4 parrots and 2 cats, one of which Snarls and Yowls whenever she is awake. I get up at 5 am and navigate by bumping into furniture until I have absorbed enough caffeine to open my eyes. This wakes up the birds who immediately throw a loud party. The parrots also have a REAL celebration at 6 in the evening. The husband often stays up until 3 rehearsing. After about 28 hours of us above them, they will bang the floor until it collapses, killing them. We will then move out and you will resume life in your apartment with new vaulted ceilings.
We are the OTHER kind of people who should never, ever live in apartments. Unlike your idiot downstairs neighbors, we can admit that about ourselves.
Oh, I agree. Send a thoughtful, sensible letter to the landlord. Not the neighbours.
The letter starts out and finishes fine but there is way too much personal information in the middle. They don’t need to know your everyday activities, especially the times you are out of the house.
I would only include these parts of your letter. Keep it short and to the point and don’t mention the baby or your activities. I also wouldn’t tell them it’s OK to complain by knocking at you door anytime they want or give them permission to bang after 10.
You might luck out and the women loves babies and once the little noisemaker arrives she will be more understanding.
Sounds like our downstairs neighbours. The other day, James and I were watching Deep Space Nine at seven thirty p.m. on a Saturday, and they started banging.
Some of you familiar with my posting history will remember these folks – they’re the same people who hold very loud, very vulgar domestic disputes, sometimes at midnight, in which they talk so loud I can hear every word they’re saying.
I had the same exact problem, but my thumper was more regular, at least four or five times a week. I did what Harmonious Discord did.
She ended up moving out. Some nuns moved in. I always helped them with replacing fuses and moving heavy things. They loved me. After I got to know them well, I asked them if we were too loud ever. They were really pretty amazed that anyone could have thought that. They even laughed about it. Don’t let it change you. But let the landlord know, so he can appropriately blow off any complaints they make. And go ahead and say loud enough for them to har you next time they thump that they need to get a life.
I’m not a fan of the letter. Too passive. Here’s what I would do:
Figure out some pretense to get their phone number. Then whenever they bang on your floor, call them immediately. You see, ceiling-banging is like road rage: it’s easy to get really mad at the other guy because he’s just a nameless faceless entity. Not another human. So if you humanize yourself, they will be less angry. And if they begin to realize that every time they bang on the ceiling, they’ll have to have an uncomfortable conversation with you, they’ll quit.
“Hi, this is your upstairs neighbor. Were you just banging on our floor?”
“Um yeah. That was me.”
“Why?”
“Well you were getting pretty loud just now.”
“We accidently let our computer play a sound effect. It lasted four seconds.”
“Oh.”
“Anything else?”
“Um. No.”
“Have a nice afternoon!”
Maybe I’m misunderstanding what is meant by “wrestling,” but the mental image I have of this happening involves a fair bit of heavy thumping on the floor. Where I’m from, apartment living means resigning yourself to unavoidable noise, but it also comes with an expectation that you make reasonable efforts to avoid making avoidable noise. This is codified in our tenancy law, but it’s also just common consideration.
Sure.
Regards,
Shodan
This isn’t bad. Rather than expecting them to come up and talk to you everytime they feel the need to bang, change your own behavior, but the after the noise behavior. Not tiptoeing around trying to keep from creating noise, but asking when you’ve created “too much” noise for them “hey, what’s up?” My guess is that they will quickly back down when faced with having to explain why four seconds of computer noise or two small children in the middle of the afternoon is so disturbing.
How would I have handled it? Well…
bang-bang-bang
I run downstairs, knock on neighbor’s door.
“Hello? You were banging on my floor, is there something wrong? An emergency? Do you need help? I can call someone if your phone isn’t working? Are you all right? Are you sure you’re OK?”
Rinse and repeat until they get sick of answering the door and explaining there’s nothing wrong every time they bang on the ceiling.
Of course, your mileage may vary.
After a while they’ll stop answering the door. Then you can call the police. “Police, my neighbors are dead…I know they’re home, I heard alot of banging, but no one is answering the door, I think they’re dead”*
*Don’t do that.
Whereas I have the expectation that, barring being so loud that I cannot hear myself think and/or answer my own phone, you can pretty much do as you please in your apartment during normal daylight hours; in other words, after about 9am and until about 11pm. People need to be able to live their lives in their own homes, not walk on eggshells for fear of asshole neighbors.
When I first moved into my current complex, I got caught up in noise disputes between the people on either side of me and the people directly below me. Most of it about shit that happened in the middle of the afternoon. NO, I don’t care if the woman below me is singing really loud at 1:30 in the afternoon. She sings in a church choir, she has to practice sometime. I refused to act as a “witness” when my neighbor called the cops on that one.
On the other hand, when her and her husband bang on the ceiling because I run the kitchen tap for 5 seconds at 11pm, then they can go fuck themselves, and my apartment management agreed. In fact, the management got so tired of it all that they basically ran one of my neighbors out of the complex and straight out told the people below me to shut up or move.
The beauty of it is that I ended up moving to an end unit in the same complex with only one occupied neighbor on the far end and the model behind me. When I’ve been working second or third shift, I can be up at 4am watching movies and living a normal life without (so far in two years) a single complaint.
I think we are probably very nearly in accord with regard to what is a reasonable amount of daytime noise for apartment living.
The best upstairs neighbour I ever had was a concert pianist. Of course we heard him practicing - but he was a considerate neighbour. There is a pretty big expanse between “walking on eggshells for fear of asshole neighbours” and being so careless as to be an asshole neighbour, though.
I work for a property management company and so I have the dubious benefit of being over-familiar with a lot of noise disputes. You can usually tell pretty quickly if it’s a case of an actual nuisance or if the complaining party has an unreasonable expectation of the amount of noise that they can expect to hear from their neighbours.
This is strata/condo, so in these cases the accused is either going to pay a bylaw violation fine or the complainer is going to be offered a cup of STFU. I have seen owners fined for bouncing a ball. (After several warnings.) Yes, this is their very own home, yes, it’s the middle of the afternoon, but it’s a fecking no-brainer - you don’t repeatedly strike the surface of a wall that you share with another home-owner, unless you have a pressing need to do it. Someone that bounces a basketball in an apartment at any time is a dick that shows casual disregard for their neighbours.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have people complaining about the sound of their upstairs neighbour making their bed at 7:30am - in their sock feet, on a carpeted floor.
Where on the spectrum does dog-wrestling lie? I dunno - I haven’t lived under it. For me, it invokes images of my deadhead friend Chris wrestling with his big goofy Pitbull. Chris’s dog-wrestling would be well into “cannot hear myself think” territory, and if it was ongoing behaviour as an upstairs neighbour, I would expect hefty fines or eventual eviction, based on community standards in these parts.
This made me laugh a good deal. I like how one of your cats Snarls and Yowls in capital terms. The vaulted ceilings are also highly amusing.
Please continue posting funny things.
I don’t know that is such a bad idea. Maybe calling the police with a possible domestic violence situation …
I still think complaining to the landlord about the tenants unreasonable behavior and noise is the best idea, but this one has a certain evil charm.
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I once lived under new extremely noisy tenants; a family with two 'tweens. After the incident that we truly thought was an earth quake, we spoke to them. They apologized, and were quieter. We learned to live with the piano lessons and rough housing. No one should have to put up with neighbors like the OP’s.
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