apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Hmm.. I may have to consider one of those notes.

We live on the first floor, below an un-carpeted apartment occupied by two heavy-stepping girls who leave their howling, barking dogs in their apartment while they go to work at night. Sometimes when they get home at 1 or 2 in the morning, they decide it's a perfect time to fight with each other - yelling, pushing, the whole shebang. If they're feeling pacifistic, we still hear the glass shades on our chandelier rattling as they pace (stomp?) through their apartment!

No matter how much research you do on your new home, there are some things that you won't discover until you're subjected to them first-hand.

Sorry for the long comment...

My brother works with property management and has to deal with this all the time. Cheap construction and expensive price tags. On one occasion it was two tenants complaining about their neighbor in the middle...He had his boss call the loud sex lady and she said something along the lines of "I pay a lot for this condo and I love sex and i'm gonna do it good and do it loud." People be crazzzyyy hehehe…

Someone else I know purchased a condo without realizing she could have a conversation with her neighbors through the walls without raising her voice. She ended up taking her fight to improve the walls (sound block?!) all the way to the Mayor of Boston and the issue was solved

This is why I never regret owning a home.

Even with stand alone houses you can have a problem. We have nice-sized properties but there's a neighbor who screams at her young son for hours while they're in their backyard. The rest of us have to stay inside to avoid the yelling. I haven't figured out how to draft a letter since they're obviously oblivious to the fact that she's making everyone uncomfortable. She just barks and barks at her son the entire time they're outside. I can't wait for him to grow up and leave!

yipes. the note is funny, and i recognize the irony of my making this statement over the internet... but passive aggressive notes are a really bad way to get your point across. it generally just angers and humiliates people, and that fuels spite to continue or amp up the undesirable behavior. i agree with the sciencegeek advice... the best approach is to just talk to them. people like being treated like intelligent, reasonable human beings.

One of my former neighbors, in the second to last apartment building I lived in, had an absurdly loud girlfriend. I mean, you could hear her all the way to the elevator.

I left a note, kindly letting them know the walls were thinner than they probably realized. Nothing.

Finally, after one particularly loud "performance," I grabbed two pots, stood in the hallway, and shouted "Bravo! Encore!" at the top of my lungs while I banged the pots together.

I didn't hear a thing after that.

There's a student house across from us. They have very occasional parties, on weekends. Sometimes they're loud: it's the weekend, we ignore it. Or enjoy it. We were students, once.

In my first apartment in Allston, the student ghetto of Boston, my neighbors across the alley insisted on taking their arguments out of their apartment and onto their balcony - 15 feet from my bed. Once or twice a week they would walk out onto the balcony, shut the doors behind them, and have a high-volume bickerfest. Weird thing was, they were the only two people living in the apartment, and I could never figure out why they insisted on going outside to do it. After a couple weeks of asking them to take it inside, I bought a large water gun and started hosing them down. Worked like a charm.

My response to loud sex / fighting people is to sweetly ask them questions in the elevator/lobby/stairway that are extremely personal about their activity - ie: "Sounds like you and the BF/GF had a great time again last nite - How many times did he/she make you..." or "Arguing about money again? He's right, you know - You shouldn't have bought those Jimmy Choos before paying the rent..."

When they get offended that I so much about their life - I gently remind them that if they want their lives private, they could learn to lower their voices so that we neighbors won't hear every last detail.

Of course, calling the police and telling them that it sounds like someone next door just got thrown through a wall works too...

jaaaaa! I have to consider that note too, but for the neighbors on the other side of the street

I've learned a lot since college.

a) always take the second floor in an apartment complex when hardwood floors are involved. I spent many nights with a hammer and noise makers trying to get the point across to my loud stepping fatty of a neighbor.

b) if people are keeping you up banging sex maniacs all night....no need to feer. get a foghorn and hold it up to the wall.

There's no way I'm going to grow the balls to confront the couple engaging in what sounds like bdsm either above me or across the courtyard from me. I'm afraid of even leaving a note, since I don't want them to start beating on me...I figure, as long as the sex lasts the usual 5 minutes, I don't care what they do while they're doing it.

I think my favorite come back for loud sex and poor sound proofing is the "Revenge CD and Earplugs". It has some great tracks on it that you just put in your CD player and blast back at your annoying neighbors. Some of noises are: house party, orgasm, train, inhuman screams, new born baby, traffic jam, and my personal favorite, violin practice.

I recently built (or had built for me) a condo. I was assured by the builder that the foam insulation they were spraying in was impervious to sound waves. That I could crank my stereo and that my neighbors wouldn't hear it.

Yeah. Right.

Fortunately, I've worked out a comfort zone with my neighbors and my home theater. I know how loud is too loud and we're friendly so they won't hesitate letting me know that I'm getting carried away.

UNfortunately the upstairs neighbors, on top of foam and concrete no less, make so much damn noise with their feet, I'm starting to think they're killer robots. That, and the toilet pipes run behind the master bedroom's walls. It sounds like a hurricane when the ill-boweled upstairs tenant flushes the toilet a dozen times a night.

I'm not letting it stand. I'm going to have a foam insulation guy come out and turn the condo into a g#d damn canoli. And the builder is going to pay for it.

Oh yes, there will be justice.

My first year in my condo was blissfully silent, as the unit above me was empty. Now I am dealing with a couple with two small children. The couple has had shouting matches at odd hours of the night or morning. The children are constantly running around and banging things. I've been woken up in the middle of the night by a washing machine that was out of balance (this happens frequently at different hours) and when it's not out of balance the rinse cycle sounds like a helicopter hovering over the condo. I've also been woken up by the sound of the toilet lid slamming down in the middle of the night. I was going to buy the place but now I'm not so sure.

Great idea!

Though not really doable, XKCD's solution is my favorite:

http://xkcd.com/316/

We had this discussion in a balcony gardening forum I belong to. Although we all agree that tactful and personal is the way to go, my friends had some interesting tips for when tactful doesn't work.

1. Cheer loudly at the end. Better yet, cue up a live album to play deafing applause with the speakers pointed toward the offending wall/ceiling/floor.*

*Living upstairs does not guaruntee peace... we once lived in a duplex above a resident who was so overweight the windows shook when he walked.

Neither does having your own house... we once had neighbors like Tiffany's... we think they killed our dog so we moved... but I digress.

2. Play an opera.

3. Shout encouragements.

4. Compete. (Warning: this may backfire.)

5. Hit the floor with a broom.

6. Imitate (or find a tape of) cats mating.

I have to say, though, I'd give the prize to Matt for creativity.

we are dealing with a grumpy downstairs neighbor. unfortunately her noise complaints have little to do with actual noise and more to do with the new people moving into the older building. she has complained to the co op board about our noise levels when we were away on a week long vacation! awkward as it may be, i support the face to face interaction. you are much more likely to get a positive response.

I don't think that is passive-aggressive. Clearly, you people haven't lived in the South... where passive-aggressiveness is an art form. Passive aggressive would be something like, "Y'all's sex sounds like it is a lot of work!"

Aloof--

The insulation within the wall cavities may be sound deadening, but as long as your wallboard touches framework which in turn touches the neighbors wallboard - there will be sound transmission.

Why not just turn down the stereo to a reasonable level and live with the fact that you have neighbors?

One of our neighbors in an adjacent building called our landlord to complain about me and my roommate. They claimed to hear us up all hours of the night with loud conversation about sex and partying.
We had to explain that those were not topics of conversation that are normally held in our prudish living situation – both of us work a ton and go to bed relatively early. It turns out another neighbor was up late most nights watching Sex and the City with the volume cranked up.

Bepsf, I'm not so concerned with the sound transmission from me. My neighbors don't care (nor do I usually even create noteworthy noise) and I'm not disrespectful, it's the transmission of the Toilet Hurricane and the high heels rampantly stomped upon my ceiling.

There's supposedly a good air space up there (and little in the way of framing sound-transmission), I just need more foam!

whytephoenix:

"4. Compete."

Genius! Ha!

My upstairs neighbour is considerate enough to close her windows before having long swearing discussions at the surveillance cameras she believes are in her suite. So that's cool.

Am I the only one who's not getting any and actually likes to live vicariously through my landlord's sexcapades?

I guess everyone knows but me.. but what about putting a note up is passive aggressive? What could you do otherwise?

Gregory, would you mind asking your friend to go a step further and make up t-shirts for all of the people in the building. I would buy one too it is that brilliant of a note.

I almost choked on my lomein when I read about Matt's supersoaker situation. HILARIOUS

Now, I don't advocate the use of drugs, especially those acquired by less than legal means, but when I lived in a student apartment complex, a few xanax and some tea usually did the trick.
And then I moved.

I dunno, I kindof think that sex is just a part of life, and if you live in an apartment building you just have to deal with all the kinds of noises people around you make. When I hear it, it makes me smile. Then again, if it interrupted a dinner with my parents or something . . . that would be awkward. But I still don't think it's worth complaining to anyone about.

I like the idea of being comfortable with your neighbors enough to simply just talk to them before acting in an aggressive, or passive aggressive manner. I recently moved to a small historical complex with only 8 units. I love the fact that I know all of my neighbors, including the people working in the two shops below me. This makes it so that we all feel comfortable in telling each other to hush up when need be, and it's simply just nice to have a relationship with our neighbors.

love the t shirt idea!..hysterical..all of you!...my downstairs , rude, inconsiderate..etc..has her little kid run, run, run back and forth all the time..at night..ya...so crazily, in a fit..I got up from AT...and RAN back and forth loudly myself!! I couldn't breathe for two days..but it may have been worth it..

abowers-

I am in the exact situation, new tenants in an old remodeled building, first time our downstairs neighbor has ever heard people walking on hardwood floors.

She's an older lady, who's a hoarder by the way, she has called the cops on us when we were gone for two days, she's complained that we sound like "technology", and that we're constantly moving furniture (which hasn't happened since we moved in) and now she bangs on her radiator every time someone in the building flushes their toilet.

I think it's totally worth complaining about. What does it do to your quality of life to be woken up in the dead of night to screaming so loud you'd think the people were in the room with you?

Egg crates are wicked good at softening noise! It's also an interesting texture on the wall, and a good way to reuse them.

I wish I was getting a note like that.

ana - best of luck!

I've gotten used to some of the noise coming from the upstairs apartment, but I don't like being woken up by loud sex. I think I would be embarrassed to ask the landlord to tell them to keep it down :P

I'm all for the note. That's great. Really, there's an element of "I really don't need to hear this" that is separate from being mad that the neighbors are noisy.

And I'd be right there joining in with Modtramp and Bepsf and all the other "send encouragement through the walls" suggestions.

I also made up a set of business card sized notes to put on cars around the block of my apartment that were parked rudely. I put them on the cars that didn't make good use of the very very limited amount of street parking on that block.
My family was alllll about passive notes from Mom or Dad instructing my sister and me to do or not do stuff.

I had one of those neighbors. I always wanted to yell "SHE'S FAKING IT!"

this post had perfect timing. my boyfriend and i just moved into a new place in june. our neighbors upstairs are up every morning at 5:00 am depite the fact that they don't need to leave for work until 8:30 or 9:00. they sound like they are constanly angry because they are always stomping. the worst part is that they have a very large dog that on some mornings i swear is a horse. as soon as they let him out of his crate he bounds around everywhere and it shakes our entire apartment.

i have been very tempted to leave a note reminding them that the majority of their neighbors aren't early birds.

I HATE my upstairs neighbors! They pound on the floors from 4 am till 11 pm..I swear these people never sleep. The guy will pull his junk Honda up to the front door of the building and lay on the horn instead of using the doorbell or calling. They stand on the grass and lean on my patio gate, casually staring into my apartment as they converse with someone above. Every time their kid starts to scream, they go on the deck so everyone gets to hear him. They use the space under the stairs as their personal storage locker. They have dropped everything from their kids toys to a 6-inch steak knife and a razor blade from their deck onto my patio, making me afraid to ever sit out there lest I be impaled by a falling object. They give their kid toys on the deck and he bangs them on the wood. They have no respect. I have thought of the fog horn idea! I also stand on my couch and bang on the ceiling, once, as hard as I can. I am going to get some tennis balls and bounce then off the ceiling. I also blast Britney Spears under their bedroom at 2am. If he parks his bike under the stairs again, I'm going to take it and move it into the laundry room so he thinks it has been taken.

Just had seriously loud neighbors move in yesterday. I am totally bummed. I'm giving them a little while to finish putting their furniture together than then I'm going over to tell them in nicer words to turn the damn television down.

HA HA HA
that loud sex note is awesome. I had an unfortunate situation in Brooklyn where, I was on the second floor, and I had these horndogs in the basement who would have sex CONSTANTLY and loudly and with their windows open. And without AC, sleeping without the windows open was not an option. I considered leaving a letter for them, but felt weird about it. I felt especially bad for the girl who also had a studio in the basement. We'd often commiserate :(

My boyfriend lived in a house with two roomates. All of the bedrooms were on the second floor.

One night I woke up in his room because it felt like someone was underneath us, shaking the bed. It felt like we were having an earthquake (in new england, I don't think so).

That was the night we realized that when one person was having sex in the house, the whole damn thing shook.

gotta love crappy rental construction

Public humiliation is the "aggressive," the "passive" is avoiding talking to them face to face.

If you cannot do the face to face slip a letter in their mail box, a polite one to start. If that fails then the other options people suggested are great. :)

My kids scream and bang toys and run around. Parents used to give kids opium because they thought children were supposed to act like mini adults. We can't give them electric shock collars like disobedient dogs. Wow, that came out more harsh sounding than I intended...

*wonders when hearing people in the throes of passion became agonizing*

We had an upstairs neighbor who always seemed to get into fights with, we assumed, a boyfriend in the middle of the night.

One night, around 1 am, it was much worse than the usual yelling and door slamming. It sounded as if things were getting broken and then there was a huge crash, like someone (or something huge) had been thrown. Then just one voice yelling. We immediately called the police.

Well, turns out, she was there alone and always was. Apparently what we mistook for her boyfriend was a family member on a speaker phone. She had moved from the other side of the world and called home often because she was homesick. Evidently, she did this in the middle of the night because she "didn't want to wake them up."

Awesome.

I think talking to the offending party in a reasonable tone of voice is most effective. Our upstairs neighbors used to vacuum every night around 11, then stomp around doing god knows what for a few more hours. After a few days of this, I knocked on their door, introduced myself, told them politely that my wife had to get up for work at 530, and to please be quieter. The man was clearly embarrassed.

Not a peep since then...

I also did this a few years back with a downstairs neighbor who was a medical resident. he'd get home at 3 a.m. and play techno to unwind. Just took one friendly visit.

I've lived here 13 years & I'm on my 2nd "neighbor from hell". I live very quietly and ask only to be left alone. Tried the friendly "Bet you don't realize the walls are so thin.." note. He responded, "I'm hard of hearing. I'll do what I want, when I want, as loud as I want. Go to Hell!" O-Ka-aay. I tried the 2 am shout through the wall, "Turn it down!" He'd respond by slamming my wall so hard pictures fell off. I've written complaints to the mgr, I've asked the mgr to talk to him about his behavior, mgr tells me he's promised he won't be so loud -- LIAR.

I'm as tempted as anyone here, but won't go the retaliatory route (doesn't match my X-ian ethos); not that I don't dream of what I'd do...

My question: You've exhausted the notes/complaints route, this neighbor CLEARLY wants to be antagonistic; what comes next? Go to the management company and tell them their manager isn't pulling his weight? Tell the mgr you're going to the police? Go to the police?

ldevere, that sounds terrible! I think I would go back to the management company and demand that they resolve the situation. Going to the police sometimes only makes it worse, especially if you have a neighbor intent on being antagonistic.

How is that "passive-agressive"? It seems pretty direct to me. How is it passive?

In response to my own comment (above), I guess if you knew who was making the noise and did not put it on their door but in a common it would be passive agressive.

Oh Boy.. over the years we hear it all. I am back in an apartment. For Seniors!!! the lady up stairs is deaf. Lives alone, after being woke up every morning 7 days a week with loud crashing sounds for over 3 months I could not stand it anymore . I had already talked to management , (ha) so i went up stairs at 430 am when i was woke up . It was my first time meeting her. Her was a sweet little old lady no bigger than a 10 year old. I asked her what she was doing up here that sound like she was moving couchs around. I could see nothing that she could even lift. I left. 2months later i just could not stand it anymore I went back down to management and they wrote a letter to her. Then it got quiet... oh boy happy day. I asked management what happend. The noise was her recliner.The maintance man put foam in the chair and now it is great aggggggggggg I would rather here sex lol
Maj

baby big foot lives above me. he's two so i can't blame him, but i can blame his dumb-shut yo' mouth-mother for buying a top floor condo in a two floor 8-unit building! why? this is an old bldg and originally "bachelor" apts, so every unit is 1-br. when i bought this condo 6 months ago all the units were still empty and i never thought i'd have to deal with noise from a child. this is not really a kid-friendly and space-friendly bldg. but it figures that i would be the one to live under the only person in all 3 of the 8 units bldg with a toddler.

flyzipper: I imagine that being a light sleeper and hearing people in the throes of passion at 3 am when you have an 8 am final exam the next day would be nothing short of agonizing. :)

Look at how stressed out people become from unwanted sound. It is amazing that they will live with the stress and sleepless nights for years. Do something about it! As I see from all the comments no none else is going to help you. The simpelist most effective way is adding another layer of drywall and a damping compound on your walls and/or ceilings. Check out this great soundproofing company. http://www.tmsoundproofing.com

People have sex. This is a fact of life.

our last condo had neighbours from hell. they'd start loud partying around midnight, just as i was falling asleep, and keep going until 6 or 7 am. yelling didn't help. as i told them to shut up around 6 one time, i was tersely informed that "it's morning! what's your problem?" my reply was not fit to print.

once i heard one of the men talking at length in russian, interrupt himself to vomit off the balcony, and then continue talking like nothing happened. classy.

every time i get nostalgic for that place (we sold it soon after) i just remember the russians and i feel glad to be out of there.

Gah, yeah.

I spent a year hearing my neighbors fight, and the girl cry her eyes out. Then she went on vacation overseas and it was quiet for a couple weeks, until he started sleeping with someone else in his girlfriend's absence. It was pretty awesome to hear, especially since I work from home and it was endless screwing. Gross sex noises, moral disgust, general outrage.

Last week, I seriously just bought an air horn. When I hear anything over there, fighting, sex, anything, I just blast it and let them know I am about to Kool-aid-man-it through the wall and kill anything I find.