I live in the flat above the two most selfish arrogant obnoxious noise-polluters in my town. Missed my early morning meeting today, and feel cranky and tired owing to being kept awake most of the night by their incessant music.
This has got to stop. I have tried pleading and reasoning, but they’re invariably drunk and if they ever turn their damned music/voices down at all, it only lasts an hour or so. It’s got to be war. Sadly, physical violence - as great as it sounds to me right now - is a no-no as the guy is a gorilla and I’m not.
So - do any Dopers have experience on dealing with this menace? I’m mainly looking for advice on anonymously exacting a terrible revenge. I’d also like to hear stories of how you got your own back, and some peaceful sleep.
You might try dropping a tip to the local police about some illicit activity that may or may not be going on. I assume that it’s a male/female couple? A report of domestic violence, specifically a female screaming in pain for him to stop, usually gets a fast response. Call anonymously, and NOT from your own phone. Just be extra sure that nothing untoward is in your home or vehicle, in case the police decide to check you out, too…
In college, I lived in the dorm room above these very same people! Since you live above them, you have the advantage. (This assumes that they’re not the violent type. If they are, disregard). Go out and get the following CDs: The Archie’s Greatest Hits, The Bay City Roller’s Greatest Hits, Saturday Night Fever, and Gotterdamerung by Wagner.
You program your CD player on random play and turn on the “repeat” button. You now have an infinite amount of music that’s annoying to hear. Crank your bass and treble on your stereo system as far as it’ll go. Lay the speakers flat on the floor. Crank your stereo. The distorted sound pounding through your floor will peel the plaque from their teeth.
Just keep blasting. Since the speakers are face-down on the floor, you won’t be distubing the non-swine-ish neighbors, and your swine-ish neighbors can’t retaliate without annoying everyone in ALL the surrounding apartments.
It took me about 6 hours of doing that to get my downstairs neighbors to give up.
we have downstairs psychos and upstairs psychos. The ones downstairs are worse, as they generally argue in whatever room is directly below our bedroom. Their idea of a good time to air their difficulties is generally about 1AM, especially midweek. They have three basic arguments and no solutions.
We have this great idea that we were going to implement until we heard they are moving. Sit up at night and listen to their argument, taking notes. The next evening recreate their argument as precisely as possible as loud as the lungs can manage. Repeat with each argument they have, augmented with plenty of foot-stamping on the floor.
Wow! I like Fenris’ idea. I wish I would have had a stereo when I had noisy neighbors who DID have a stereo living downstairs. I’d like to add though the Bobby McFarren CD with Don’t Worry Be Happy. While that song is ok to hear once in awhile, over and over it gets very annoying especially if you AREN’T HAPPY.
I just left neighbor hell three weeks ago (moved into a new apartment). They would fight every Friday night using the foulest language possible. They’d let their dog shit all over the common deck. In other words, they sucked ass chunks.
I tried pounding on the wall we shared and screaming “Shut UP! Shut UP!” There’d usually be a pause, and then a, “Fuck you!” So the direct approach didn’t work for me. I mentioned it to my landlord a few times, and it would abate for a while but they’d get back into the Friday night fights habit after a couple of weeks. Shortly before leaving, I stopped by during the day (before prime fightin’ time) and said, “I don’t know if you realized this, but my son and I can hear every single word you and your boyfriend say above normal speaking level. I’m not sure if you want the whole building knowing all about your personal lives, so I thought I should make you aware. Oh, and everyone else in the building thinks you should leave him, and you might want to move your bed away from the wall. Have a nice day!”
Some communities have anti-noise laws. After a certain hour (say, 11:00 p.m), you cannot have stereos blasting, engines revving, and so on, without risking a visit from the police. Check and see if your community does; if so, you’d be well within your rights to call the police nightly about this. Your neighbours would soon get the idea, especially if they kept getting tickets for it.
Other than that, I fully support Fenris’ idea, except I also feel you should figure out exactly what music would be best for you to use. You might need to experiment.
For example, when I had noisy neighbours in an apartment I lived in some years ago, I found that twanging country music (lots of steel guitar, fiddle, and nasal voices) worked very well at getting my rap and hip-hop loving neighbours to turn their loud music down. On the other hand, Beethoven’s Ninth cranked to the max worked on the ones who played death metal at top volume.
I used Disney songs, Irish music and Gershwin’s Rhadsody in Blue, but would play it loudly at 8-10am(prime sleeping hours for the night owls) the following morning of an especailly late session from the neighbors. I doubt anyone can sleep though that.
We even tried it on a different set of neighbors. It seems they must have had their speaker turned to our wall. Turbo Dog got ahold of a tape of bagpipe music, and we’d crank it with our speakers flush against their wall, 9am Saturday morning, after they had played their music until 2 am the previous night. Seemed after that, they always turned their music down at 11 pm. I guess lower the noise level was the lesser of the two evils for them
Ah, a common topic that came up again. Well, I haven’t changed my mind, 1. check the city noise ordnance (is this USA?) 2. record them during the day & play it back at night, say 2am for their pleasure. If you get a vcr that replays you can have them up all night when you’re asleep.
…and by a screamer, I mean a woman who absolutely can not keep her yap shut during sex to save her life. My neighbor (I live in an old duplex house split into 4 apartments) has a new girlfriend who is quite vocal during sex. Every night. At about 1am or later.
I haven’t done/said anything about it yet…I see these people coming in and out of the house all of the time, and although it’s awkward for me to talk to them, knowing what I know, if I say anything, it would then be awkward for all of us.
However…I recently bought a new Dolby/DTS surround sound home theatre system. I’m thinking of getting a nice 70’s raunchy porn DVD…you know the kind, with that twangy guitar? I figure I can set it up before I go to bed, and when I hear the moaning and wailing start, I just hit play and give them a taste of their own medicine but with a soundtrack.
If it’s arguments, you could snail-mail them transcripts of the arguments. That might weird them out enough.
Otherwise, just call the cops. They are usually required to keep the caller’s name anonymous, though they may ask for your name anyway (still stays anonymous though…). I found it to be helpful, if I left my apartment, went to a buddy’s house and called from there- it reduced suspicion, and as an added bonus, kept me calmer.
Otherwise, hide a dead fish in their A/C unit in the summer, or just mail them poo.
Sound effect CDs can be effective- who is willing to complain about a jet engine, revving harley, or freight train in the apt above theirs?
Well, I can’t say that it really worked for me, my neigbors didn’t quiet down that much, but it did provide me with some satisfaction the I’d gotten the message across.
Basement apartment, neighbors opposite my bedroom. They would always get into loud arguments late at night, followed by louder makeup sex. So speakers to the wall, volume loud enough I couldn’t hear them over the music.
When fighting: Joan Jet, I hate myself for lovin you
When making up: George Michael, I want your sex.
You know that double CD set you sometimes see advertised late at night on cable channels? The one consisting entirely of children’s songs sung by actual snot-nosed children? Order this CD. Place your speakers face-down on the floor. Put “The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round” on repeat and crank the volume up to 11. Go away for the weekend.
Wow this is great! I had no idea there were so many fellow victims! And many of you seem to have had it worse than me…
Fenris’ idea is great one, except I’ll swap Gotterdammerung for Britney Spears or similar. I like Gotterdammerung!
Also I don’t actually have any music equipment (any more) except my trusty PC. Perhaps I could fit those small but surprisingly powerful speakers face-down under the floorboards, just resting on their ceiling plaster?..
Handy : apols if this is a common topic… I did search the boards for noisy neighbours, and no results came back.
Gundy - that was masterful! My hat is off to you.
Jadis - that sounds like a fantastic idea! Wouldn’t have the bottle for such a thing myself, but if I did I think I’d choose Porky’s (remember that awful film?). It’s not hardcore or even pornographic, but there’s this girl in it who’s nicknamed Lassie and, well, it would be kind of extra-appropriate audio-wise…
Don’t! The idea is that the mix jumps from powerful bass (Gotterdammerung) to irritatingly loud treble (Archies), back to powerful bass and irritating treble (Sat. Night Fever) etc. If you like the music, so much the better. What matters is “Will they like the music?”
Oh, dear, oh, dear . . . I can’t do much more than sympathize (and also suggest you call the cops on them. Repeatedly). There is also the danger that they will really turn out to be psychos and steal your mail or murder your pets in retaliation.
That is my fear with the Kallikacks who are renting the back apartment in the house where I live . . . Horrendous white-trash hillbillies, with both a rottweiler AND a pit bull, so you KNOW they’re up to no good. The apartment next to mine is now vacant, and I am in fear of who will move in, as the walls are paper-thin (my last neighbor was a sweet, quiet old lady). If more Kallikacks move in next door, I think I will just move to a cabin in the woods and start sending letter-bombs . . .
people, people, no need to wreak your horrible revenge on these submoron types; they dont get it, anyway.
two words: super hearos.
available at any walgreens: squish em up, stick em in, nighty night.
no more lying awake in a cold, sweaty rage, ever again!
they saved my life… i would have gone to prison for killing my upstairs neighbors, who clomped around in those ridiculous huge-heeled shoes, and shouted and screamed and laughed and fought and danced, at 2:30, every morning, when the bars closed.
First, my sympathies, I lived above these bozos in college, too. My favorite revenge was dropping out of my 6’ loft at 8am Sunday morning, their bedroom was directly below mine.
As for as Fenris’ suggestion, it may annoy you as much as them and is VERY bad for your speakers. Turning up the base and treble AND blasting them is a good way to kill your woofers, 'specially if you have an average stereo. Also, placing the speakers face down/against a wall is very bad. Try this, turn on something bass-heavy, and turn on the volume. Put your hand in front of the speaker. Feel the air moving? If you restrict airflow in front of your speakers, you’re going to damge the cone and/or magnets. If you must do this, go get a cheap pair of pawn shop speakers.
Sorry to say, but most things you can do to them are likely to spark retaliation, which doesn’t do you any good. How about signing them up for every catalog known to man?
If you have hardwood or tile floors, the best way to annoy the hell out of the people below you, is to drop bouncing things. In college the people above me had this nasty habbit of dropping what sounded like marbles the floor.
I’m sure anyone who has had to deal with that stupid
clak…clak…clak…clak…clak.clakclakakakakak.sound knows exactly how quickly this sound will drive you insane. So I came up with the idea of buying one of those ball clocks(the ones that have steel ball bearings that roll down onto weighted arms) and instead of letting them settle on the arm, cut the track so it falls about 6 feet on hard floor. The point of the clock is that they would have to listen to it every minute.
When I was living in an apartment in Evanston, I had some of these bozos living down the hall from me. A bunch of frat boys who loved nothing better than to crank their music as loud as it could go.
Luckily, they tended to confine it to weekend nights, but still, trying to get to sleep with loud rap music playing at 3 AM on a Saturday is not much different than at 3 AM on a Tuesday.
One night it was particularly loud, to the point that my door was actually vibrating from the sound waves. I finally went down the hall and banged on the door to see if I could ask them to stop. Nobody answered the door. The girl across from them came out of her apartment and said she’d tried knocking twice and there was no answer. So together we both tried POUNDING on the door. No answer. She yelled, “Turn it down or I’m calling the cops!” No answer. So she shrugged and said she was going to call the cops.
When the cops showed up, THEY banged on the door (pretty damn loud too… these were some big-ass scary looking Chicago police officers). No answer. They banged on the door one more time… and the door actually broke open, revealing a crapload of surprised looking frat boys sitting around and… wait for it… smoking pot. Bye bye, frat boys!
We didn’t have any more noise problems with them for the rest of the year.
