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Ever hate your neighbours?
I'm living in an apartment, and my downstairs neighbours have been a pain in the butt since the beginning. They are retired, and play their TV insanely lond, all day long, and even crank it up so they can hear it when they're outside on their balcony!
The funny thing is, whenever they hear a peep out of us, they come upstairs to complain. They've come up when I was vacuuming (at 4 in the afternoon), when we've been asleep, when we were quietly watching TV while our son was napping, you name it. The last time they came up I told them we're just doing normal things and that we could hear them too, but didn't come down to tell them all the time.
Since then, they don't come up here, but instead bang on the ceiling super loud. I'm not an inconsiderate person, and our son goes to bed at 8, so it's not like we're having parties or playing the TV or music super loud. At noise I'm making is from typical living stuff, during normal daytime hours. I make sure my son doesn't play on any tile floors, just carpeted areas, so the sound won't travel as much.
The last time they banged on the ceiling, I went down to talk to them like an adult. They didn't answer, even though I could hear them in there. In the meantime, I can hear their stupid TV blaring, even when I'm outside!
I'm at my wits end having them banging on their ceiling, and they don't want to talk about it like grown-ups. Anyone have any suggestions? Have you ever dealt with crappy neighbours?
Re: Ever hate your neighbours?
The other option is to notify your landlord or rental office and just explain the situation. Perhaps they can send a noise notice?
Or, maybe there is another unit you could swap into.
Have you politely discussed the volume thing with them?
If they won't crank down, the next time, call the cops and let the cops handle the noise complaint. They may listen to a law enforcement agent vs their own neighbors.
Thanks for the suggestions! I'm slightly worried that complaining about them will make them file counter-complaints against us. But I did talk to my landlord to let him know what was going on, and he said if we're just making everyday noises, not to worry about them complaining against us.
Btw, nest Cayla, I laughed my butt off at the image of a whole building sitting by their doors listening to the neighbours fight!
I completely empathize. My downstairs neighbor is a white trash crack whore who screams at the top of her lungs at her six year old son. She calls him a moron and uses the F word every two seconds. It was worse when his father lived there. The house would literally shake to the point of things falling off our wall. She hasn't been as bad, since her son came down with a very severe blood infection from the fact that she kept her dog indoors all day long every single day and the place way full of feces and urine.
And then there's the homeless people that she allows to live with her.... I could go on and on but it doesn't help you. Let the landlord or management know there are problems. Then begin complaining every single time. Do not fight with them, it will only make it worse.
Our neighbors above us move are quiet during the day, but from 10pm to 12:30am they move furniture (or at least that's what it sounds like). They stare in our window all the time (ground floor) AND have an 18 month old and use cloth diapers.....which they wash in the communal washers and dryers. Thankfully we are moving out in a month!!
The neighbor that lived there before them was a nice old lady who would drop things and have the TV loud at night. We can handle that (even their baby crying).....not this.
Have I ever NOT hated my neighbors? I live in a house, and there is a rental home next door to me, and all kinds of whack-jobs have lived there - from the chollo that threatened to kick my butt because I asked him to move is car out of MY driveway, to the man that drilled holes in the fence so he could watch me do my gardening, to the couple that had huge parties every single night so I would wake up to drunk people passed out in our front lawn, to the woman who had a boyfriend that would come and park his truck on our sidewalk and blast his music at 3am while they made out, to the woman that would lock her kids outside all day and let them scream and cry "mamaaaa, please let us in!" for hours at a time (and yes, I did call child services).
Fortunately, you live in an apartment where you actually have some sort of recourse for the harassment your and your family have been enduring - and yes, it is harassment. I would document each time they confronted you about your "excessive noise", including what you were actually doing to cause the noise vs. the reaction you got from your neighbor. Also document each time they have been excessively loud as well. Make sure to include dates and times, and ALWAYS keep a copy of your complaints for yourself as well.
Let me tell you about the jerky old man that lives downstairs from our apartment. He is in his sixties, and he's a real piece of work. He moved in last year and immediately began chain-smoking cheap cigars, all day, every day and every night until 1 or 2 am sometimes. He is some kind of weird shut-in and NEVER leaves. The problem is that the smoke comes directly through the floors and into our apartment. After the first week of solid smoke in our home, my then BF, now F went downstairs to politely tell him that all the smoke comes right through the floor into our apartment, and to ask him if he could maybe smoke outside. The guy literally told him "That's what I do. I'm old and I smoke cigars."
What an a-hole!! We complained to our leasing company in our building, but they said he is legally allowed to smoke in his own home. (Even though on our tour of the building before we decided to sign a lease, I asked the building rep if smoking was allowed and she said no --LIES).I told them that he's also doing it in MY home and that that can't possibly be legal, but apparently they can't stop him. They told him he needs to get a "smoke eating device" if he is going to smoke, but I don't think he ever has because it's been a year and all of my clothes and furniture WREAK of cigar smoke, no matter how much Febreze I use or dryer sheets I stash in my drawers. I am so happy now that we are closing on our house this week and moving out. Unfortunately, it will be someone else's issue. I hope that a lawyer or a police officer or a firefighter moves in after us and makes him stop acting like a selfish jerk off. ALSO, he blares his t.v. and only uses his landline phone on speakerphone, volume 11. We heard him have a fight with a woman friend on the phone through the floors once where he told this "friend" she was a "real f*ing piece of sh**" and that he "hopes she dies" because she forgot to pick him up and take him somewhere.
Yeah. It's been great living there. I am wondering if I should leave a note under his door on our way out. Suggestions??