Fucking Neighbors.

So, I have been living in my "new" apartment for a month now... not very long, and I still had some things to get together.

This weekend my dad moved out of the house I was living in before, and found a bunch of my stuff, and gave me his old kitchen table and such. So this weekend I was moving stuff in, once again. I stopped at 8 o'clock which I thought was reasonable and respectful enough to the neighbors.

Whatever, I got a call yesterday from my apartment manager telling me to come down to his apartment to talk about some things, and I responded "What do we need to talk about?"

"Just a few complaints, nothing bad"

Nothing bad.... funny, because complaints aren't usually good things to hear.

So, I go there and he says the neighbors were bitching about noise this weekend, and that they were wondering if I always have a lot of people over because they hear a lot of "walking"

Yes, I do use my legs, I don't sit on the couch all night.

I told him that it's usually just me and my boyfriend, with the occassional visit from a friend, or my mom or dad. Nothing big, I never have parties, I don't drink, I'm just overall not a wild person ...not THERE.

And it's funny because I'm overly cautious about making noise... I take light footsteps up the stairs [I live on the second floor], I try to be very quiet, constantly, I don't even like to listen to music in my apartment out of respect for the neighbors.

Guy says, "Well I know this guy down here gets up at like 4 AM for work"

That's nice to know, I didn't know we had a curfew for lights out here.

I can see not making a racket at nighttime and shit, but fuck if I'm not going to walk around my own place after 7 at night, sheesh.

Anyway, overall I'm just wanting to bitch a lot, because anal people like that drive me up the wall. I'm thinking if this happens again, when the lease is up, I'm finding a different place. I don't need butthole neighbors telling me what to do. I'm not an obnoxious teenager that has drinking parties all the time, or listens to music loud... the most I do at home is clean and watch a little tv.

I work 8 hours, most of the time MORE than 8 hours a day, and we spend a lot of time at my fiancee's parents' house at night... so I dont even know how I have time to "piss off" the neighbors.

I just kind of want to scream right now.

Rant, done.

 

geez...i say fuck em... seriusly..anal neighbours who complain about walking at 8 pm need a wake up call (literaly) have a lil dance party all night and stomp it up

1 of my upstairs neighbours often sounds like he rearanges the furniture all night..a constant racket.. but in the 10 years ive lived here ive never complained once..
on the other hand, i like to crank up my music loud till the bass rattles the wondows..and alrhough i am sensatibve about not playin it loud after like 1 am (my 1 neighbour goes to bed at 7pm every night) still noones ever complained..
respect goes both ways.. ya give alittle respect by tryin to keep down the noise a bit..but ya also give respect by not complaining about every lil footstep..and if theyre gonna complain bout everything you do (without comming to you directly) i say fuck em..make some noise..its your home too..not just theyres..

 

I don't blame you for being upset. I would be too. I don't think I would have ever been able to live in an apartment! We lived in a townhouse for a brief period of time before we had the kids, but we were lucky because we were on the end, so we only had neighbors on the one side. We forunately got along with them well and they never complained. They also had three young children, so they couldn't very well complain because we heard their kids quite often, but it didn't bother us. Just part of living next to somebody.

I mean, I can see if you're being overly loud, but geez. My mother lived in an aprtment complex with a neighbor that was constantly complaining about any little noise she made. The guy was just looking to start trouble. When I came over with my kids one day, and I rarely ever came over her place, he had a fit and started pounding on his ceiling. My kids weren't even being loud, he was just being a jerk.

 

Exactly; I hear shit all the time, I hear clunking around, I hear the dishwashers running at funky hours of the night, early morning, etc. But I never say anything because I figure, that's part of living in an apartment, you're going to have to deal with other noises.

What's funny about it too, is our apartment is on main street anyway; more noise from the traffic outside than I could possibly ever make.

 

oh and btw, I would much rather them complain to me, or bang on my door/ceiling than to go to the manager, who I am trying to establish a trust with. I don't need my reputation with the head of the building ruined because of jerks; THAT bothers me.

 

Oh, I feel for you. I hate to be a pessimist but from my experiences, chances are if they already are bitching and complaining about nothing, it's bounds to get worse, but hopefully for your sake it wont Good luck!!!

 

Chances are the building manager knows this person is just being a twitchy and will take it with a grain of salt which is probably why he said it was 'nothing bad'.

I live in a building full of freaks but the site manager knows who's who and what's a big deal and what's not. Dollars to donuts this guy complained about the last person too. Just bone up on your local noise bylaws and know your rights. Document these incidences when they happen ( like talking to the manager or if they do knock on your door next time, etc ) incase this guy is a real freak and starts upping the complaints to the level of harassment.

 

talk to the neighbour..tell them to next time just knock on your door

 

soaringeagle, i dont even know which neighbor it is...the manager didnt specify, and I think maybe the reason the guy OR girl complained to the manager was so I wouldnt know who it was from or something.

If it happens again though, I am going to talk with the manager myself.
I don't need this kind of crap. I pay my bills, and I do as much as I can to be respectful of the neighbors

 

i had stuff like that happen, someone annonomousely complain about my smoking beedies when theyre here, well, i have like 5 or 6 that it could have been, but never said 1 word to me...so am i suposed to just not smoke in my own home anytime anyones here? if they said to me that it bothered them, i would eother not smoke when they were here, or step outside or ask them to step outside when i smoked (i might smoke 1 or 2 beedies while someones here)

if that keeps happening just put a lil note on the door leading outside saying something like if anyone in the building has a problem with any other about noise or any other issue, please try talking to that person 1st and try ressolving the situation yourself before complaining to the management. most issues can be resolved with a simple knock on the door.
ofcourse if its a continual issue the management should be contacted

dont adress it to anyone in particular or state who its from.

 

The complaining neighbor has to get up at insane o'clock and needs to sleep. NO, I'm not blaming you. Just pointing out that both you and he are reacting to an aparment building with poor sound insulation.

Try this, invite all of your neighbors over for an open house/meet the new neighbor party. (A gentle, beer not vodka type party.)

 

If the complaints recur, I would suggest to the landlord that since the neighbor has "unusual work hours" and is "highly sensitive", that he might want to try earplugs. And, I'd reiterate that I was making no unusual noises and the problem wasn't me, that the neighbor needed to take personal responsibility for his own "unusual needs". The most important thing is that you remove yourself from the position of being on the defensive, that's almost always a losing situation with landlords. You might even mention (if the conversation is going well) that your neighbor's peculiar demands are infringing on your completely normal life, and you want the complaints to stop. Turn it around, quickly.

Odds are the neighbor is complaining about others, too, and like the boy who cried wolf, the manager will soon start ignoring him/her.

 

As a disclaimer, I'm a bitch. I fully admit that.

Personally, I would first educate myself on local noise ordinances and tenant rights laws.

Second, I would play my radio loud until the cut-off time. Legally, they cannot touch you.

That is bullshit that anyone would begin to suggest that you should rearrange your life for one person who didn't even have the common decency to talk to you about it before complaining to management.

 

Complaining neighbor needs to learn to cope. Life sucks, get a helmet. Or, in this case, some ear plugs. The other solution, of course, would be to move to a detached house, a duplex, a townhouse, or even just a top-story apartment. Don't move into a first floor apartment if people walking above you at a reasonable time of evening is going to disturb your sleep. And, of course, the flip side of that (as a grad student who is often up till 2 or 3 am and had the experience of having to adjust to apartment life) is that you also should expect to have to learn to cope if the neighbor's alarm clock going off at 4 or 5 or 6 am is going to wake you up, or them getting ready for work is going to disturb your sleep, etc.

Apartment buildings are inherently noisy, unless of course you can afford the ridiculously expensive ones that actually have decent insulation.

It wasn't a loud drunken party, and it wasn't going on until 4am.

I'm all for being a kind and courteous neighbor... Until that neighbor is an asshole to me. And it sounds like this one is excessively demanding.

 

Notes to all of you:

Soaringeagle, thanks for your advice; I did figure it's the neighbor below me, because he started fucking banging on his ceiling at me last night when I got up and made some toast. For fucks sake I wasn't stomping around and slamming cabinet and fridge doors... if the asshole can't deal with hearing footsteps and literally wakes up from them, either A) The footsteps are much louder because the building sucks, or B)he doesn't sleep very well, and that's not my fucking problem.

I understand being respectful enough to not have parties or loud music or the TV blaring late, I understand trying to do your heavy cleaning earlier in the day/night, but fuck if I'm not going to even move around according to his schedule. I'm not 5, and I don't need my neighbor giving me a fucking bedtime... if I want to walk around my place at WHATEVER time, I should be able to...it's not my fault if the building is crap.

Drumminmama, great advice, and rugs are something I have on my list; not just for sound, but in case of spills so that I don't have to end up paying out of my security deposit if anything stains.

Dawn sky, I love you. I love your attitude.


More to say:

I wrote the manager a letter expressing my concern; I told him that I did not want for this to affect his impression of me, and that I have been more than respectful and deserve due credit for it. I explained to him that I understand living within reason enough to respect the neighbors, but that I will not completely rearrange my life and comfort of living for a neighbor who is sensitive.

He responded immediately with a phone call and let me know that all was well, and that he likes me living up there lmao, and that if it becomes habitual he will take care of it, rather than blaming it on me all the time, etc.

My manager IS really nice and I'm glad for that.

I could have waited to talk to my manager like everyone said... "Just wait and see if it happens again, then take action"

but that's not how i work, I handle things when they occur; not to mention, I was over-stressing about it all day yesterday and I dont need that shit in my life, so I'd rather end it here and handle it once and for all.

But, as I mentioned above to soaringeagle the guy was pounding last night all pissed off. I went to be at 6 PM with intentions of taking a short nap, and ended up sleeping until midnight, in which, I woke up hungry, made some toast, smoked a ciggie, and went back to bed; when I went back to bed, my boyfriend and I were talking, not loudly, just normal talking, and re-adjusting in bed to get comfortable and go back to sleep and the guy starts pounding on his ceiling.

I don't know how much he can hear down there, but if he can even hear my fuckign voice its not my problem, it's the building. If I want to talk to my boyfriend at midnight I will. I wasn't yelling, or laughing like a hyena. I wasn't stomping around. WTF would this guy do if I worked third shift and was getting ready for work late?

He'd have to fucking deal with it. He needs to understand that not everyone in that building has the same fucked up work schedule that he does, and nobody should have to "accomodate" him. Be respectful, of course, but I'm not going to completely go out of my way and rearrange my schedule and life so that he doesn't even hear "footsteps" past a certain time; give me a fucking break.

I have a feeling that the apartment I am in was vacant for a long time, possibly as long as he has been living there; but, he needs to get fucking used to it, because that's going to happen at apartments.

I hear crap all the time, and I don't particularly enjoy living an apartment, it's all I can afford, so I deal with the crap that comes along with living an apartment, and don't cause a scene about it. I'm not going to impede on anyones lifestyle just because I cant afford a house of my own or a nicer living situation; and they are all in the same boat I am, obviously, so they shouldn't be jerks about it.

The last place I lived at with my friend, the guy next door blasted his stereo/home theatre system until midnight, and there were 18 year olds living below us that worked at Wal Mart and had different schedules and had parties on week nights; I dealt with it. I learned to adapt to the noise and slept fucking through it eventually. And they gave us the same respect, if we wanted to clean house at 11, none of them complained because they knew we never said anything about their noise.

It should be that way, period, living in a complex.

 

Maybe buy him some earmuffs or earplugs? :tongue:

I'm sorry hon, he sounds like he's just freaking out for no reason

 

well whatever, I don't really give a hoot anymore.

I plan on staying where I am, so he either has to adapt, or find somewhere else ^_^

 

Honestly that's pethetic. I feel sorry for you here. Makes you wonder whether they have anything better to do with their time!