I would love to leave a note for my upstairs neighbour, but I'd end up leaving something nasty. She's very stompy and has annoying friends over, plays her bad music too loud, and wakes me up with her loud sex.

You know what usualy works better than notes? Talking. It's amazing how often people turn to a note instead of going to meet and talk to the actual person living upstairs or downstairs. Sure, it takes more courage, but it's also more effective, IMO. Facetime makes the situation more real. A note can be ignored and thrown in the bin in one minutes flat.

I've created a Facebook group for my 182-unit building and it's been very helpful. People get to know each other while browsing it, share experiences and participate in activities that other members organise. We even had a bowling tournament last winter!

that note looks like it belongs on passiveagressivenotes.com

I agree that face-to-face is a much better way to deal with this. Notes leave too much interpretation in the hands of the reader. Better yet, make friends with your neighbors before you have an issue come up - it makes a world of difference in how things get solved when problems come up.

My neighbors suck, and they don't speak any English, so that leaves out any discussion/notes. My building owner also does not speak English, and hearing her trying to yell at the crappy loud, smelly obnoxious neighbors with neither of them understanding a word can be kind of a hoot.

hehe, that note cracks me up... my upstairs neighbors are constantly dragging their kitchen table(?) and chairs(?) all over the place... I never understand why on earth the furniture can't just stay where it is.

My downstairs neighbour likes to slip notes under my door telling me to turn up the heat.
I responded once by leaving her a note saying "if you didn't want to be cold, why did you choose to live in a basement?"

she pretty much hates me now, but it's not my fault we live in an old house and she chose the cold damp basement.

(i'm not bitter... I swear)

The Good Neighbors Checklist was not at all what I hoped it would be. I was hoping for something along the lines of don't light illegal fireworks in the parking lot/turn your music down type stuff.

I do have a political sign in the window but it probably isn't the sign they had in mind. :-)

This one cracked me up though: Call out your neighbors for comments or behavior that perpetuates limiting stereotypes. Oh if only I could!

On the renter's checklist: Repair your bike on the sidewalk. That one seems like the opposite of a good neighbor!

yeah, i've got someone downstairs from me who doesn't like my noise. Notes, communication, direct contact...it's apartment living. We do our best- but the best way to combat noise and wants of quiet is ...get a house. Other people don't always live like you want them to.

but you know, general courtsy is good...not jumping around or playing music too loud or yelling...but people gotta live you know.

I'm moving because my upstairs neighbor (also the landlord, yay) is so noisy I'm losing my mind. He was nice quiet single guy when I moved in 6 years ago. Now he has a wife, a baby, a two year old and a German Shepard. You can hear them THROUGH MY APARTMENT when you're in the basement laundry room. We've had a couple of conversations about it, which usually conclude with him inviting me to get bent. I'm lease-free, so I'm OUT.

One time my downstairs neighbor, a constant complainer, asked me to not walk barefoot in my apartment. (I'm not a stomper.) I'm not kidding... Some people need to live in a house.

Thanks for the shout out Apartment Therapy! We agree with a lot of commenters that the best way to deal with neighbors is to talk to them. Better yet, get to know them a bit as soon as you move in (you don't have to be BFFs, but a casual hello now and then goes a long way); it's helped me personally deal with 6 am loud, drunken neighbors many a time. Finally, to the commenters who advise moving: No matter where you move, you're going to have neighbors of some kind. You can never escape other people, so it's best to just plan to deal.

Kit Hodge
CEO
Neighbors Project

My -downstairs- neighbors are the problem. I get to smell their stinky pot, hear them have screaming fights and slam their doors (its what they do when they are fighting), oh yeah and listening to them blare video games and crappy music. I live in a cute, clean building with lots of polite, friendly 20 and 30 somethings in a sleepy neighborhood (i.e. not Wrigleyville/Lincoln Park or near a college where this kind of behavior could be expected). I have called the police because of the pot and if I go down now, they will certainly know I am the one complaining about them. I don't know how their next door neighbor tolerates them...
p.s. there is no way this couple is under 30 years old. Don't you want to just tell them to get a life? Sad.

I think I may have you all beat. In my first apartment ever I had loud sex/mail-order-bride upstairs, guy with lung cancer next door who sadly I could hear cough until he vomited several times a day ( I have a very VERY weak stomach...it was not good), the 'pot neighbor' in the front downstairs and directly below me they had a 2 year old and an upright piano that they taught piano lessons on...in their master bedroom...and I worked 3rd shift so I couldn't really tell them to keep it down durring the day while I slept. I couldn't wait for that year-lease to be up!

My first apartment, my third day there, I went down to the outdoor plaza next door to relax after some cleaning/decorating, and a woman who turned out to be my neighbor THREE DOORS DOWN! said to me "You need to not make so much noise." I replied "Well then YOU come put together my furniture!"

She turned out to be a drug dealer who won the lottery and got kicked out for not paying her back rent. I was so happy.

No real other problems since then!

In my first apartment, my next door neighbor would hammer [I think? It sounded like it, at least...] until really early in the morning. If I asked him to stop or pounded back on the wall, he would yell profanities and threats. Eventually the cops came to my door asking if I had seen him, telling me there was a warrant out for his arrest and they had been watching his apartment. He came back that day and I called them; five of them came to haul him away...never found out what he did, but I was sure glad he was gone!

Also, my downstairs neighbors were robbed/kidnapped [I found their open, disheveled apartment and called the cops...] and the guy in the next building over was murdered.

A fun place to live! Ugh.

It's too embarrassing to talk to neighbors who wake you up in the dead of night with loud, explicit, screaming sex. Thankfully, turning up NPR really loud took care of that problem. Of course, it's the neighbor who drives a Hummer. Did anyone say inadequate?

That note has been on passiveaggressivenotes.com, I'm pretty sure. That site is so funny.

I think I'll pass on saying hello to my neighbors. The long-timers are creepy. I did perform a neighborly act by slipping the building owner's and tenant union's contact info under a neighbor's door. She's having maintenance issues with the apartment manager.

What's NPR? I n the old apartment where I lived I used to hear both neighbors on each side of me having sex. In my bedroom the one neighbor had his bed against the wall like I did. The other it just sounded nasty especially I knew what she looked like so I couldn't hear it cause it grossed me out. When I lived with my boyfriend I moved into his house. On holloween "06". I answered the door thinking it was a trick or treater and it was one of the neighbors daughters,14 years old, the same neighbors that have 5 kids that are extremely loud, always yelling at all times of night. there dog would always rummage through our garbage and we had to clean it up and shit in the front yard. She had the nerve and the parents had the nerve to send a child to tell me that my boyfriend and I if we can keep it down because our sex is loud. I was flabbergasted for one this is a kid having an adult convo with me 2. The parents sent her to our home and 3. they were the most inconsiterate neighbors on the block. I just told her that I wasn't having that sort of conversation with her and to go home and offered her candy. Complete idiots!

NPR=National Public Radio

I can't bear having noisy people above, which made me willing to rent on the fifth (top) floor. Peace is worth the climb.

These comments make me laugh!! My husband and I lived downstairs from girls who like to listen to Vanilla Ice on a daily basis and Not in the 80's, last year!!

We have nicknames for our neighbors, "Clomp Clomp" lives upstairs, the ones to our right have sex every sunday morning around 7am, they are called the "I'm comings".

I am sure we have disturbed people in some way, we sure try not to, but come on people that is life in the city.

I live in a lower flat of a house, and when I first moved there with my boyfriend, our upstairs neighbors were very friendly to us. Now I've done and gone something to upset or offend them, but they won't tell me what it is! They don't even leave nots. I'll say hi and they ignore me, they avoid me like the plague, or when one of them gets home at the same time I do she locks the door behind her as I'm walking to it!

I'd be willing to apologize for whatever offensive thing I did (and I thought about it for a LOG time but couldn't recall anything, mind you), but they won't tell me what it is! That makes it THEIR problem. I'd be happy with just a note in this case, but don't expect me to magically read minds. Sheesh, grow a pair or at least grow UP.