I moved to a 40-unit courtyard building. I’m on the top floor toward the back. About 3-4 times a week I’ve been able to hear a drunk man yelling at his wife/girlfriend. Not too terribly abusive as far as drunk yelling goes, plenty of foul language, but more general yelling rather than actually insulting or threatening her. She does plenty of her own yelling back, and as far as I can tell there’s never anything physical. It’s just that her voice doesn’t carry like his does, and everyone with courtyard windows open can hear him loud and clear.
For the month I’ve been here, I’ve sometimes gone to the window to try to find out which apartment the yelling is coming from. The voice bounces around the courtyard so much I can’t get a bead on the location. Sometimes I swear I can smell beer when I’m right up to the window screen, so I figured they must be close on my side of the building.
Tonight, he seemed meaner than usual, and frankly by 11:30pm, I was just getting tired of hearing it. So I took a walk outside, starting with the back porches with a bag of trash. As I slowly made my way down the decking I determined the yelling was not coming from any of the units with windows that opened to the porches. That left my stack of 3 apartments. As I threw out the trash and made my way to the front, I came up the front stairs and heard the yelling loud and clear from the apartment right below mine! No wonder I could smell beer from my window!
So I knocked on the door. I didn’t expect the old dude who answered the door to be quite that old - probably mid 60’s or more. He took a defensive stance, while I tried to be all smiley and cheerful, “Hi! I’m SeaDragon, I moved in about a month ago right above you. I just wanted to let you know the yelling is getting a bit loud. And just so you know, everyone with windows open in the courtyard can hear you.” He thanked me, was congenial enough, never moved from the sort of defensive posture, and I went back upstairs.
We’ll see. They’ve been a bit quieter since, but I’m betting they’ll be back to full volume tomorrow or the next day. Funny they’re right below me and I only hear them through the windows. No, I’m not about to close mine, unless I turn the air on and that’s only if the forecast is for 90 or hotter.
We moved houses last summer, and our neighbours (we have a corner house so only one set) have been just fine. We found out a little while ago that they’re going to sell their house and move soon. {insert wailing and gnashing your teeth smiley} Damn! We have our fingers crossed for good new neighbours, but we are very apprehensive of what is going to move in.
Having dealt with loud obnoxious neighbors, I just would of started calling the cops for noise complaints right away. Now if you follow that approach they will assume it is you calling the cops thanks to your nice introduction, and will make your life uncomfortable in other ways. I know you were just trying to be neighborly about the whole thing, but sadly in most cases that approach does not work at all.
Unfortunately, speaking from personal experience from being on the whacked end of an abusive relationship, the one time the neighbors called the cops on the jackass, I ended up with an untreated concussion.
Do be careful that you don’t inadvertantly escalate something.
The manager at my complex has a rule that all complaints about neighbors must go through her, and she acts on the complaints. That way there’s no animostity between the tenants, and she can keep tabs on who the bad actors are. She doesn’t take any guff from noisy people, either…after two or three complaints she calmly suggests they might be happier living someplace else.
The problem is that if anyone calls the cops or the apartment manager, they’ll assume it was him.
I have some god awful neighbors here, I called the cops on them 5 times in one weekend once, and probably at least 5 times other then that weekend. It never ‘takes’ for more then a few hours. When my ex-wife was living here she wanted to go and talk to them, but I wouldn’t let her for exactly this reason. And with how little they cared about the neighbors, I’d really didn’t want to find out if they’d retaliate if they figured out it was us calling them.
My ex moved out and as horribly obnoxious as they are, I can put up with it. But I’m always hoping someone else calls the cops, non-anonymously (that was part of the problem, I always called in anonymously and when I do that, unless the cops actually catch them in the act of being obnoxious there’s not much they can do other then tell them there’s been some complaints).
I used to live in an apartment complex that was alright in winter, but every summer night we could play cussword bingo by listening to the down-and-across neighbors. I’m not sure what they found to fight about every night, but it was always something.
That sounds like a good policy. Based on that idea, I just called my building manager, and she doesn’t want to get involved. She did give me a contact name at the management company, though, so I called him and left a message. Apparently, according to the bldg mgr, there’s just supposed to be a nice older lady living there, so she may be breaking her lease having her gross, obnoxious, drunk boyfriend staying there. Maybe we’ll start with just a letter to her. I’m fine with that.
Wow, she doesn’t want to get involved? What’s she doing managing an apartment then? I’d mention that to the management company at some point. Just casually work into the conversation that you called her first and she told you to call them. Or, if they ask you to call her (or why you didn’t call her first) just say “I did call her, but she refused to do anything about it and gave me your number”
I’m not trying to be a jerk, but this person really shouldn’t be running an apartment. I mean, I can understand if she’s just there to answer questions and dispatch maintenance, but if she’s a building manager part of her job involves being the bad guy and getting in the middle of domestic spats that are bothering other people. It’s a lot harder for someone off site to take care of that kind of thing since they can’t deal with it face to face, and if need be, they can’t really come and hear it first hand.
Huh. I had the exact same thought process, but I just got a call back from the gentleman she referred me to, and he says he’s the one who takes care of this stuff. So, I guess it’s this particular Management Company’s protocol. He just told me to call him back if things haven’t changed in a few days, and that the man who answered the door is definitely not on the lease. I’m the first to complain formally, apparently, about this guy. So it’s a wait and see right now. The Mgmt Co man I spoke with was very nice, and shares a last name with a couple other people in the company directory, so sounds like a family biz.
You have a strange take on this; I don’t think it’s cowardly at all to let trained professionals handle a volatile, dangerous situation, which is what domestic altercations are - this guy doesn’t seem to be hitting, and didn’t hit Sea Dragon Tattoo, but he took a big chance. Here in Calgary where we don’t all have handguns in our houses, I still let the police handle these situations. The police themselves will tell you that.
ETA: Sounds good, Tattoo. Here’s hoping you get some quick, easy resolution to this.
I hate this attitude. Sure, it might be OK for the OP, but if I am a girl living alone, I might try once to get them to stop, but you bet your ass calling the cops is not “cowardly”. That’s what they’re there for!
I look at it this way- if my neighbor is abusing his own family, do you think he’s going to be nice and respectful to me? My landlord has a contractual obligation to ensure that I have quiet enjoyment of my home, so yeah, I’m going to call him, if we have the same landlord. If not, I’ll call the police.
So far, quiet since about 12:30am. It’s been quite nice. All I’ve heard today has been the El trains, birds, trees swishing in the breeze, and the gamer kids across the courtyard cheering each other at whatever game they’re gaming.
Oh, they’re a bunch of dorks, but it’s happy noise so it’s nothing I mind. After all, I can get to playing my music pretty loud, too.
There’s just normal every day living in shared housing noise, and then there’s drunken verbal abuse that’s another story. The gamers are kinda funny. All that ruckus over a video game!
I had some winner neighbors a few years back downstairs from me. Nice enough but one abused drugs and one alcohol. Most weekends they would get into it and go round and round. One memorable evening I heard “*uck you, YOU NEED HELP!”, “NO, *FUCK YOU, YOU NEED HELP!” followed by my yelling “STFU you BOTH need help!!” Now I’m in a house and 1000x happier for it.
I dunno if anyone remembers my pit thread from late last year about the age 9-ish girl across the hall and her friends running around our @200 unit apartment complex every night from 10pm to 12pm.
The last time I complained about them was when I called the Police at 11:20pm on Christmas Day. Endured simple and single acts of retaliation for about a month and a half.
Since then, I have heard several other people, including the woman who lives directly below them, come up and complain about the kids stomping around “like a herd of wild elephants” (in that woman’s words) late at night.
Two weeks ago, while I was walking around the back side of the building, two of the girls very stupidly followed me to badmouth and smart off to me, blaming me for getting them (recently) grounded. As I note, I haven’t complained about them in six months.
All I could think is “OK, stupid enough that the parents allow children of that age to run around on their own with no supervision at midnight. But now they’re following a 48 year old man into a place out of sight from just about everyone to bitch at him? Wow. Not much of a life expectancy for these kids. Someday someone is going to make them disappear, and the parents will be wondering how the fuck it happened.”
Yep, I remember that Pit thread. And I’m not terribly surprised that they haven’t got any common sense about their personal safety. I’m saddened, but not surprised.