My upstairs neighbors seem to like clog dancing at 2am. What would you do?
Not exactly the same situation but have had neighbours that has the habit of throwing a loud party once in a while without telling anyone.
Next time the were setting up I went over with a bottle of popular tipple and asked them kindly please to let us know ahead next time, so we could plan around it. After that they were very becoming and even polite about it.
What I mean to say it’s that even if anger is building up at your end, you should try your best and be nice, they might not (weirdly) be aware of the fall out of their behaviour.
I once had a party when I was younger and didn’t let the neighbours know beforehand. The next day the guy from next door came over and I was expecting him to give me a telling off about the noise. Instead he asked me if me and my friends had moved his girlfriend’s car to the other side of the road. I’d never even spoken to him before, so of course I didn’t have a key to the car. He said it was a small car and a group of us could have bounced it across the road. I told him that I had no knowledge of that happening and maybe his girlfriend just forgot where she’d parked it but he went away looking unconvinced. Never spoke to him again before we moved out and I think he still believed we’d moved it.
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.
Record the screaming play it back during a family gathering (one without kids present) bonus points if the pastor / priest is there.
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.
In other words, my answer to OP’s question is “lobby for improvements to building codes so that all multifamily housing is required to be decently soundproofed.”
(I live in a single-family house myself, but I’m not so naive as to think that the zoning laws that led to such an oversupply of houses/undersupply of dense multifamily housing are either equitable or sustainable.)
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?
Yup, and that’s been just about the only thing available. I’m sure that some high end places will be decently soundproofed; but, about that “Unless you can continue to be rich” bit, projecting much? Honestly, nothing about a city is attractive to me. I do recognize that we need a lot more mid and high density housing in the cities. And those cities need proper, modern transportation networks and to kick cars out of the city centers. I just have zero desire to live in one. I have a nice little home, out in the sticks, and have every intention of dying out here. I work remotely, so I don’t even have to drive in for that. At best, I come play tourist from time to time and that’s all the city I want in my life. Y’all can keep them and quit trying to force everyone to live the life you want.
As for demographic issues, birth rates in the US are below replacement level. It’s only via immigration that our population is growing. And that’s probably a good thing, as a shrinking population has a lot of negative economic consequences. But, we have plenty of room for both people and agriculture. We just waste a lot of it on feed crops and ethanol production.
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.
yeah, i’ve done that too.
That last one sure sounds crazy!
And if it doesn’t work, moving is, in the long term, the most energy saving solution
I disagree with your easy answer. No one should have to wear noise canceling headphones just so they’re not being kept awake by their neighbors. I agree with talking and sound dampening.
I complained to the landlord and was unheard, I complained to them and they said “ok” and continued. Several complaints later I threatened to call the cops, it was a proper house party, middle of the week, they were clearly crackheads with no jobs, there was tons of people, alcohol and drugs.
This was their very first night.
Since then we interacted many times, all of them extremely unpleasant. It eventually evolved into a war where I would bang on the ceiling at random times of the night, and I hooked my guitar amp up and blasted music directly into the ceiling all day and all night until they came down and started bitching that all of this was giving them panic attacks. That felt satisfying!
Eventually I managed to get the landlord to agree to evict the fuckers, due later this month, hopefully the leech follows through. We secured a temporary truce but they’ve been getting more and more brazen with their noise levels, I’ve placed the amp back up to the ceiling so it’s ready for the right moment to start blasting.
Some other ideas I had is spam deauthing their WiFi.
Some other ideas I had is spam deauthing their WiFi.
lol, they’d be so frustrated and confused. Do it.
- 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!”
It is time for war! Get a floor-shaker!
[…], such gadgets are built around vibrating motors originally designed to run industrial sieves. They come with multiple modes: vibration only, pounding only, or a combination of the two. A fourth option activates both, along with other random sounds including static, persistent knocks, and even piercing shrieks.
The floor-shaker serves one purpose: when installed on the user’s ceiling, the deafening noise it makes is projected into the house above
I have considered exactly this before but held off suspecting that it would bother neighbors below. Looks like it ruins the lives of everyone in the building. Glad I didn’t set one up.
Ah, it’s just collateral damage that everyone will hate you …
I like your style man.
When we had the problem, I talked to him and we ended up on very friendly terms. He gave his best to be quite. Wasn’t perfect, but acceptable.
Some people are just dumb. They may not realize how much noise they are making. If they do, does your city have a noise ordinance?
The order is typically contact them/leave a polite note, contact landlord, contact authorities (while it is happening).
Someone I knew was living in an old building with old-timey fuse boxes placed outside the apartments. When she got tired of her idiot neighbours partying on a weekday night for the millionth time despite being asked to dial it down she finally had enough and went to the fuse box and took away all the fuses to the neighbour’s apartment.
She never had trouble with noise again.
I like your friend.
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.
just stayed as quiet as possible until the knocker went away.
Sounds like an automated knocker would be the solution to OPs problem.
Have you tried talking to them?
I knocked twice. I left a note. They are stomping around above me atm. I might go full Jack Nicholson and break the door down with an ax.
People who walk on their heel don’t realize how bassy and thumpy it sounds compared to walking on the flat part of their foot
Entire generations are growing up without playing capture the flag at night
Are they Mormon missionaries? I swear they put a bowling lane in their apartments. This is from two different sources. One of which I got to witness myself on several occasions.
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.
They’re crows. They are a murder. They do not listen to requests.
