Please, please, turn that fucking radio off!

The BBQ Pit
1

I live in a duplex: a house that’s been converted into two side-by-side apartments. The other half is currently vacant, the previous owner having moved out on New Year’s Eve (end of the month and all). The owner is apparently having trouble renting it out, as no one is in there, and he (the owner) has been in there every day for a week with other assorted folks, cleaning and doing whatever one does to an apartment to make it more appealing to prospective renters. So far so good.

When the’re in there, they listen to music. “Classic rock”-type music: Zeppelin, Skynyrd, Boston, Foreigner, the usual stuff from your local classic-rock station. So for the past week I’ve been waking up to this kind of music, since I can clearly hear their radio through the separating wall. No problem; I’m a pretty sound sleeper, and it doesn’t wake me up until I’m ready to wake up, around noon (I work nights).

The BIG FUCKING PROBLEM starts tonight: They’ve gone home and left the radio blaring. I mean LOUD. I can hear every note, every guitar strum, every everything. All the wild, shirtless lyrics of Mark Varner, &c. It’s driving me fucking crazy. It wasn’t playing earlier, about 8 p.m., when I was home for my “lunch break,” but it is playing now.

I don’t know if they came back and did some more work after 8 p.m. (unfuckinglikely) or have it hooked up to a timer (even more unlikely) or what, but it is PLAYING, and it is LOUD, and it FUCKING SUCKS, and there is NO ONE OVER THERE. It is playing in an empty apartment (with hardwood floors to get that satisfying, amplifying, booming echo), and I can hear it clearly. The Doobie Brothers just finished “Old Black Water,” and now “Wheel in the Sky” by Journey (my all-time second-least-favorite band) is playing. Oh, and now it’s time for “I Love Rock and Roll” by Joan Jett and the fucking Blackhearts.

I went over and knocked on the door, LOUD, for about fifteen minutes just in case the landlord was letting someone sleep over there and that person was playing the music. No go. So I looked around in all the obvious hiding spots to see if there was a key hidden somewhere and I could go in and smash the radio into a million fucking pieces (or at least unplug it). Also no dice (though I did see a honkin’ big raccoon out there, which was interesting). So I did all I could really do: I stuck a note on the door saying, “Please do not leave the radio playing all night. I can hear it clearly on my side of the house. jackelope” I can’t really use language stronger than that, since it is my landlord and all… FUCK. So much for sleeping tonight.

Oh god, now it’s Def Leppard, “Pour Some Sugar on Me”…

2

I am very sorry; I meant to put this in the Pit. If a Mod would be so kind, a move would be much appreciated, and please allow me to apologize in advance for using such language in this environment.

3

Is your duplex seperately metered?
Find out where the service enters the building.
Kill the power to the radio at the main circut breaker.

4

I would call the cops. They could either cite the guy for disturbing the peace (or something) or if you could convince them the guy was in there doing remodeling they might bust the door down to make sure the guy hasn’t been overcome with wood stain/paint stripper fumes or something. (Then you can turn the radio off and leave a nasty note!)

I sympathise. For the longest time it seemed my husband and I would be stuck in hotel rooms next to vacant rooms in which the previous occupant would set the clock radio before leaving. Calling down to the front desk would elicit the reply “Oh there’s nobody in that room.” Yes, we KNOW that. Once they grasped the idea that no one had to be in the room for the radio alarm to go off, they would send up a security person to knock on the door, then leave when there was no answer. HOW IS SOMEONE SUPPOSED TO ANSWER THE DOOR WHEN THERE"S NO ONE THERE?!?! After several more calls it would finally dawn on them that they’d have to get someone with a key to open the door and go in and physically turn off the radio. This usually took a minimum of a half hour total, and all three times the song that we were rudely awakened by was Smashmouth’s “Walking on the Sun.” I HATE THAT SONG!

5

I was in a hotel once where there were two alarms, one in the clock which I set to 7 am and a second one in the TV which some chugfuck set to 4am at full volume. When the TV alarm went off I nearly jumped out of my skin.

Many is the time I’ve had the loud TV next door at some ungodly hour. Calling the front desk doesn’t do a bit of good unless you are willing to wait like 45 minutes. I usually just call the room myself and ask them to turn it down. Of course, my solution won’t work at all if no one’s there.

Haj

6

Can’t you just call the landlord, himself, and tell him to get his ass out of bed and down to the apartment to shut the godforsaken radio off?

7

I sympathize with you on this,jackelope. In the last apt we lived in prior to moving into our house, we lived next door to a bumfuck who was seriously messed up. The paranoid shit would go out and party all night, leaving her sixteen year old daughter at home and said sixteen year old was very fond of rap music. Especially if it was loud and contained disgusting lyrics portraying all rappers as gangstas who beat their women, shot their enemies up with guns and did drugs of one form or another. I had to listen to that crap night after night as I tried to sleep. The apt mgr didn’t give two ratshits whether or not I was getting any sleep when I complained of the noise. The breaking point came on the Fri before Easter of 2001. My uncle had just died and we were attempting to get plane tickets to East TN to attend the funeral on Easter Sunday. Idjet sixteen year old is playing her music so loud I can hear it clear on the other side of my apartment,away from the bedroom WITH the bedroom door closed. I got so annoyed I got up and went next door and pounded on the door. Sixteen year old idjet comes out with this ‘deer in the headlights’ look on her face. I explain the situation and ask her to politely turn it down. She says “Oh well Mom says I can do whatever I want.” and goes back inside. She turns it off but half an hour later she turns it back on again, same volume. I get up and go pound on the door again. This time the moron doesn’t come out, she just turns it off. To make sure she LEAVES it off, I call the off-duty cop who’s assigned to do ‘security’ in the apt complex and make her go scare the kid into keeping it either turned way down where I can’t hear it or off completely.
Never had another problem with her a nd her crapass Rap music after that.

IDBB

8

I’d call The Man on the apt next door. Either your landlord is a jerk, or he’s over there dead/passed out etc. It’s probably the quickest, and if he’s just being a jerk, it’ll get back to him, and I can’t see how he can give you a hard time about it.

“what? you were afraid I was incapacitated or dead, and you took logical action to save my life? You fucknut!!!”

It doesn’t seem too unreasonable to call The Man.

9

I ended up going to bed with my fleece hat on (ear flaps down) and the noise wasn’t too bad. Called the landlord today, and he apologized profusely, blamed one of the drunks he hires to do maintenance, and came over and turned it off. Problem solved, anger dissipated. Mostly.

Actually I may start sleeping in that hat all the time; my pad is drafty and that was nice.

10

ooh, classic rock. I love good rock and blues but if I never hear Foreigner, or Skynard, or Boston, or Zep again it will be soon enough for me. Ditto Bad Co., BTO, … I could go on and on.

It always seems to be competently played, but so…pedestrian somehow.

11

You need to play some country music at top volume for your neighbors. Not the stuff that’s being passed off as country these days–real classic “gut-bucket” country. If it doesn’t make them stop with their music, at least you will know they are suffering as much as you, because I don’t know too many classic rock lovers that can stand country music!

12

[Milton]I was told that I could listen to the radio at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven…I don’t see why I should have to turn down the radio because I enjoy listening at a reasonable volume from nine to eleven. [/Milton]

13

When we were getting our house repainted, they’d play country music. And sing. Loudly and off-key. The first thought in my head when I walked in that door was, "somebody please shoot me!

14

The kid next door used to have a party whenever his parents weren’t home, which was too often. He apparently owned only one single rap song, because he would play it constantly, over and over and over and over for about four hours straight each time. I knew that song by heart. Once, I even offered to take him to the store and buy him another CD, but he didn’t take me up on it.

The day we moved was the happiest of my life.

15

I don’t think it would have really mattered if he had been playing more than just the one rap song. They all sound the same to me anyway.