It really depends on the building. I’ve had quiet apartments, and I’ve had loud ones. My first house was a townhouse style condo, and I could hear my neighbours cough (the townhouses on “Office Space” made me laugh, because they were hardly an exaggeration from my own experience). Unfortunately it seems like the only way to truly find out is to live there. I had a nice apartment in a concrete block building that was dead quiet in the halls and the apartment - then the pipes started banging and screaming all night, every night.
If you can afford to rent a house, that would be my recommendation.
I’ve posted about my neighbors whose 9 year old girl is charging up and down the halls at all hours of the night. She used to be screaming loudly while doing this until I put the fear of me into her, but she still charges around and slams her front door about every 5-10 minutes constantly from about 10pm to midnight most nights.
Well this morning her mother was up doing laundry at 7am. In the laundry room posted as being closed between 10pm and 8am for noise reasons. And SLAM, SLAM, SLAM as she kept walking back and forth.
I know the guy who loves next to the laundry room. I’m going to rat her out to him if he says anything about it.
But hey, even being in a house doesn’t guarantee anything. My dildo neighbor would be out hammering on his garage or his junker cars until well after midnight, then be back out there again at 6am. The people on the other side of him had the yappy dog they would tie up outside while they left town until sometime the next day.
Once lived in apartments with no name. So they were called the “No Name Apartments”. All of the tenants were around 20 years old. We all knew each other.
Eddie got drunk and danced on the railing of the second floor balcony, then fell onto the hood of the landlord’s car, leaving a huge dent. He ran.
Eddie passed by my back window, then I heard glass break. I found Eddie in Gene’s apartment, stealing his stuff. Nice.
3)The boyfriend of the girl upstairs, one Christmas eve, woke everyone by banging on their doors. He had been locked out. Naked. In the snow. Oh, and he was stabbed. He passed out on someone’s car hood.
4)Tony came by one night to show off the motorcycle he had just stolen, followed five minutes later by the angry owner and his five friends hot on his trail. It did not end well for Tony. He got 25 years for 1st degree murder. Somewhere I have the front page clipping of him, manacled on the courthouse steps.
5)The new guy next door really liked “Let’s Get Physical” by Olivia Newton John. He had it on repeat, at full blast, for at least six hours. Yeah.
On New Year’s Night we had a full scale fireworks war with the apartment complex across the very busy street. It was awesome. We won. One girl’s hair caught fire from the Roman Candle attack.
Sharon, if you are reading this, please move your bed farther from the wall so the headboard doesn’t bang the wall. Thanks.
Darryl took his new “friend” to a bar while Gene broke in the guy’s apartment and stole everything. Darryl later put it in a safe place. After telling Gene how he had to ditch everything, he sold me the TV (I didn’t know it was hot) and kept all the money ($20) for himself. The next day, Gene saw my new TV and said “Got a new TV, huh?” Gene wasn’t too bright.
9)The last time I saw Gene, he was heading to the gas station with a black and white xerox copy of a $10 bill. He copied the front and the back, but had no tape. He licked the paper and stuck the two parts together. I always wondered how that went…
Stolen moped speed trials through the woods, complete with a ramp. The spokes gave out after a while. But it burned really well.
Wrist Rocket slingshot wars in the parking lot with plastic bubble gum machine prize containers filled with nasty water and tadpoles.
Why rent? My post was perhaps unclear. I finished undergrad 12 years ago, and beyond a short period after that have lived in a house since then. My wife and I are both full-time professionals also doing grad school and own our own home. Despite the downturn in the market, we’ve still got considerable equity (not to mention savings), and our future income expectations based on our experience and degrees will mean that moving into an apartment would not be a choice based on finances, but rather on preference. If we were to move into a house, we’d purchase one.
I understand living in a large city is funadmentally a more expensive proposition than living in a relatively rural area. Perhaps I should start a seperate thread on the subject.
The last apartment I lived in was a quad – four apartments to one building. Built in the 70’s, these buildings had very poor or very little insulation. So these two guys move in upstairs (I was on the ground floor) and pretty soon, one of 'em scored a girlfriend and she either moved in too, or was there a lot. Pets were allowed in this building. So after the girlfriend moves in, it sounds like she’s brought a herd of water buffalo with her.
I’d stand in the middle of my living room, staring up at the ceiling, trying to figure out what kind of dogs or kids they had, or what the hell was going on up there that could cause that much noise. It was driving me crazy! I didn’t really mind the noise, 'cause that’s apartment living and that’s why living on the ground floor sucks. Besides, neighbors come and go.
One day, I happened to be looking out my front window and I see the girlfriend coming downstairs… carrying two tiny little Chihuahuas! I could have sworn she had a couple of Bull Mastiffs up there, judging from the sounds, but nope… Just two bitty little dogs.
But yeah, if it disturbed me, I would have knocked on their door and politely asked them to keep it down after 10pm or something (like I care what they do when I’m at work).
We used to live in this building of about 60 units, on the first floor, directly above a nightclub. It’s a very busy street, lots of street noise, Muni buses all day and night, loud radios, etc. I ran into the property manager once in the hall. He lived 2 doors down from us. In passing, I mentioned something about the night club, and he said that my wife and I were the only residents not to complain. “About what?”, I asked. “The noise.” "What noise? We lived in the unit directly above the club, and had no noise complaint. We never heard ANYTHING, except for standard through-the-window noise. No thumping club music, nothing.
I’ve been dealing with Jerry Springer neighbors who seem to think Life is an ongoing opportunity to audition for COPS.
I’ve called in complaints on fireworks being fired off in the stairwell at 3 AM, dogs running around loose, dogs pooping/peeing everywhere, noise at all hours of the day and night.
They’ve been cited by the local PD for all of this stuff, yet property mgmt. has done nothing. I’ve come to the conclusion that our prop. mgmt. are there just to collect rent, and fix major problems that would otherwise get them shut down/fined/etc.
I’m so out of here next March. I’m considering my first home. It’ll be tight, but I can swing it. My problem is this: what if my neighbors in my newly-purchased home are just as bad? Now I’m really on the hook for serious $$$, not just a 6-month or 1-year lease.
The suburb I used to live in is a bedroom community with a very large number of apartment complexes, townhouses and condos. A couple of years ago they got so tired of all the police calls to the apartment buildings that they enacted a new three strikes law.
The third time they get called to an apartment with the same tenant on a disturbance (that results in a citation), the management company loses it’s license.
So pretty much now, the second time the cops are called on you, any complex in the city is going to boot your ass out on the street.
