My upstairs neighbors seem to like clog dancing at 2am. What would you do?
- Ask nicely
- Aks firmly
- Call the police
- Warm air rises 🔥
“Excuse me, could you please be a little quieter with your walking?”
“Oh! Sure thing I didn’t …”
“Please stop making so much noise”
“Sure I …”
“Hello. Yes I have a noise complaint to make … yes it’s my neighbor. 123 N Field Crest Lane. Please come quickly!”
“I said I’d …”
“Have at ye!”
Easy answer: noise cancelling headphones
Impractical answer: move
Middle ground: sound dampening cushions on the ceiling like a sound booth
Crazy answer: talk to your neighbors.
I took the impractical option, but in fairness, only after all other options failed.
Guess you can’t change arseholes but you can sure as shit change houses.
This sort of issue is why I will never live in a shared space again. I had the neighbor who’s girlfriend screamed like a porn star at all hours of the morning. I mean, great for them, but could ya not do it with the windows open at 3am? We also had issues with their sound system rattling the walls. They were pretty polite about that one, but it just kept creeping back up. I suspect it was a bass unit near a wall and it can be hard to understand how much it affects nearby people. Eventually, we moved. Now live in a detached single family home and fuck ever sharing a wall/roof/floor again.
I will never live in a shared space again.
- they’re making more people. Maybe there’s too many already
- we need more space for carbon capture and agriculture
- they’re not making more space
TL;DR? Unless you can continue to be rich, you may find yourself needing to re-enter the dense housing market; either for more reliable services as the suburbs get their just rewards (hi Detroit) or for more features as the gym and stores and hospitals and physiotherapists are a 5 min walk away.
Did you live in a cheap wood-frame (aka Fire’s Favourite Food) apartment where all the noises echo in the walls and then in our heads? I have a story about sharing a wood wall with an 11-occupant townhouse unit whose stairs were on the other side. Never wood housing: for the noise and because I don’t need to lose everything again when the neighbor leaves his soup boiling.
But consider a proper-built concrete unit. I’m aware I have neighbours, as one of them will drop something and I can hear the impact, but the other 86399 seconds in the day afford no clues that this space is shared. The car I rarely use is secured downstairs, my triple-pane windows are above-ground-level, it’s (mostly) fireproof, has gobs of natural light and is a/c cooled when windows aren’t enough, it has a kickass rooftop patio and barbecue and pool room on 34 and meeting room and coffee shop on the ground and even space for moving vans under the building near the freight elevator. Food shopping and dentist and opto and gp and X-ray and urgent care and subway and takeaways are 5 min away when we want them, and at nights when we sit on our little private patio space it’s still blissfully quiet despite the bustling walkways below.
There is a happy medium between land-hoarding bungalows and neighbours from hell.
Sounds like somewhere I used to live. It was such a shame about the neighbors because otherwise it was a great little apartment, very well located for me.
The neighbor directly above would occasionally commit domestic violence and I would hear some screaming and shouting and banging, and at other times would have loud sex in the wee hours, and at other times have insanely loud parties that lasted all night. Meanwhile, the neighbor below me had a chihuahua who would bark the entire time she was gone. This dog could literally bark for 10 or 12 hours a day without a break.
A very noisy fan next to my bed helped some. These days, a white noise device is probably a better option. Talking to them did nothing. Cops either didn’t give a shit or the girlfriend refused to cooperate with charges or whatever because they also did nothing. Situation never improved until I moved.
I used to knock on their door and ask nicely and apologetically and they stopped for a while but then resumed :/ It’s not entirely their fault cause the walls were pretty thin but they could have gone somewhere else to hang out with their friends at 3am.
Update: Thanks for the advice. Particularly, they may not realize they are loud. That was something I hadn’t considered. I knocked on the door, and no one answered. I know someone is up there, because they walk like a dinosaur. Based on their steps during the day, I imagine they are quite heavy set, know how loud they walk, and could be embarrassed to open the door. I will try again later, and hopefully a positive update will follow.
But, if this turns into a game of noise, I have a solution: make them louder. I have access to an ultra sonics lab. They’ll be loud enough I won’t need to call in a noise compaint. The rest of the complex will come with torches and pitchforks. Though I believe this can be solved diplomatically.
Keep in mind that they may have a social anxiety which prevents them from answering the door. When I was younger, I pretty much never answered doors and just stayed as quiet as possible until the knocker went away.
