Neighbors that make you go AAAAAGHH!

[Zoë]

Okay.  So I live in off-campus student apartments, they're not owned by the university but they only lease to students.  I've been living here since August and it's great, I love it.  I have my own room, my own bathroom, close walk to campus, great amenities...and on top of that, it's relatively quiet....except for my upstairs neighbors on the 3rd floor.

Now I have no idea who lives up there, but I'm pretty sure they're all sumo wrestlers.  These people are the loudest walkers I've ever heard.  Aside from that, it constantly sounds like they are running around the place, which is hard as the apartments are small apartments and do not afford that much space to run in.  Aside from which, they are constantly dropping things which bang on the floor extremely loudly (usually late at night too), shout at the top of their lungs at 11:30 at night, and do their laundry either very late at night or very early in the morning. 

And it's really usually not a problem, because it's not all the time, just more than I'd like. 

BUT. 

Since about 3 this afternoon, someone up there has been blowing on a trumpet.  I do not mean someone is playing on a trumpet, I mean that someone is blowing on it.  Just making random notes, for minutes at a time, just blowing.  It's not the sound of a beginner trying to figure out notes and play a scale.  It's just....noise.  FOR HOURS.  What the %#(^ are they doing???  I mean, thank goodness it's a trumpet and not a tuba or a trombone or I'd wonder if they had serious gas issues....

Argh!  Neighbors.

So what about you?  Have you ever had any neighbors (or roommates for that matter) that made ya nuts? 

[Ferret]

I've been blessed with the nicest neighbors. It's about -20 here, and I usually get home about 2am or so. They were worried about the old loaner beater I'm driving. So they emailed me earlier this evening to let me know that I should call them if I had any trouble getting home and they'd come get me.

I've had neighbors that drove me nuts. So I thought it was worth mentioning how lucky I am now.
Ferret

[brier patch charlie]

Poor Zoe, I know what your going through, I've been there too.

[MacLaren]

I know your pain, Zoe

Let me frame this a bit...

I live in a very old part of town. Old houses next to a historical district. Mostly quaint houses with nice yards for gardening and such. Tons of Victorian style designs. I'm just outside of the district, though. My home is a nice house, and I built a rent house on the lot for extra income. My sister and her two boys live there now, and we love to get out and enjoy the yard whenever the weather is good.

Now, there are developers coming in all over and building like crazy. I'm surrounded by ugly, unusable crap. The houses are so close together that you could "borrow a cup of sugar" through a window. People are parking in the street because they can't get into their own garages! These houses don't have yards. They have rocks in between them because grass won't grow for lack of sunlight. The drainage boxes that were put in only breed mosquitoes and have rendered my yard nearly useless in the summer. On top of that, one woman has a pair of Beagles!!! She'll put them out whenever the boyfriend comes over for what boyfriends typically come over for, and all the dogs do is HOWL!!! I've gone over and politely asked for them to be put in, to no avail. She said, "that's just their nature, that's why I have them, they're beautiful." And I'm green with blue polka dots. I've called the police many times since, several times at 3AM. I've resorted to banging on the fence in my skivvies with a hammer and yelling four letter arias to shut them up. Some people do need sleep, ya know? On top of all that, she's had the balls to actually call the police on me for banging on the damned fence!! TWICE!!! 5-0 shows up in the middle of the night banging on my front door, and tells me to stop harassing the neighbor. Then, luckily, he heard the howling. 'Nuff said there, he noted not to bug me anymore. Still, I've got to deal with howling at stupid times of night. Hence this post's time stamp.

I suggest getting a banging device of your own. Something that won't damage the sheetrock, but will make enough noise to let them know they're disturbing your quiet.

JMO

[KeeperoftheBar]

MacLaren, you may want to do some research for a device my cousin had to train her neighbor's dogs.  It was noise activated and would set off an ulta high sonic blast that hurt a dog's ears.  It went off whenever they started barking and soon they were conditioned not to bark.  It may be kind of cruel but punching out the dog owner may not be an option.

Years ago I had a bottom floor apartment.  The one above me was identical to mine and the guy who lived there had his girlfriend over every weekend.  His bed and girlfriend were both very loud and their lovemaking was like clockwork, 5 AM every day she visited.  After putting up with it for too long I waited till they were well involved (5:05 or so) and called them (before caller ID).  The phone was in the other room and I could hear them mutter about the phone and actually stop their activity as he went to answer the phone.  By listening to his footsteps I would hang up just before he got to the phone.  He went back and they returned to their activity when I called again.  I did this three times before he thought to take the phone off the hook.  I guess he figured out the reason as from then on they went to her place and I could sleep undisturbed.

[Scotsman]

Nearest neighbor is two acres away ... thank God.

[Lady Nicolette]

I had a neighbor who got two beautiful black lab puppies that were littermates.  First she let them just run loose and then started tying them up to a tree in her yard.  They would of course get all tangled up, knock over their water bowl, etc.  I would go up there at least twice a day to help them out when she was gone.  They were sweet as could be, covered with ticks that I would pull out and completely untrained.  Then one Sunday, they both got out.  She drove up to me as I was walking my dog and informed me that she was going to church, so would I please keep an eye out for her dogs and put them in her garage if they came back!  Seemed to me that she should have gone looking for her dogs herself and let church wait.  A few months later, now that the dogs were now probably unadoptable since they weren't cute puppies anymore and out of control, she asked me if I would consider taking them.  I would have, if I could have afforded another dog, but just couldn't then (or yet, for that matter).  So I told her I would check around with my resources and try to find her a place to take them that wouldn't put them to sleep.  Sure enough, the next morning they were both gone, she probably took them to the regular shelter (that puts them down in 6 days if they're unadopted) without even waiting to see if there was any alternative.      I volunteered for several years at my local no-kill shelter, so know a bit about what makes adult dogs adoptable.  Littermates are often not adopted because no one wants to "split them up," also these girls were black and through no fault of their own, untrained.  I hope someone recognized that they had lovely temperaments without the training, but know that probably she was responsible for their murder, in essence.  She moved soon after, I was glad to see her go.

[Lady Nicolette]

And sorry about the beagles, MacLaren.  Obviously the owner's the problem, as is usual. 

[Taffy Saltwater]

The meth lab was the worst.  Heroin addicts.  Crack dealers.  After that the Three (Gay) Caballeros who would get tipsy & dance nude in the front room - with the blinds wide open - were a joy.  The good news is that in apartments the flaky ones tend to move or get evicted.

[Zoë]

Years ago I had a bottom floor apartment.  The one above me was identical to mine and the guy who lived there had his girlfriend over every weekend.  His bed and girlfriend were both very loud and their lovemaking was like clockwork, 5 AM every day she visited.  After putting up with it for too long I waited till they were well involved (5:05 or so) and called them (before caller ID).  The phone was in the other room and I could hear them mutter about the phone and actually stop their activity as he went to answer the phone.  By listening to his footsteps I would hang up just before he got to the phone.  He went back and they returned to their activity when I called again.  I did this three times before he thought to take the phone off the hook.  I guess he figured out the reason as from then on they went to her place and I could sleep undisturbed.

AHAHAHA I love it! 

I had a roommate my first semester last year who came back to our room at 4 in the morning and started getting it on with some guy....while I was asleep 10 feet away!  Well, I wasn't asleep for long as you can imagine....ooooh boy was I mad.  I am happy to say that she moved out 3 days later and I had the room to myself for the rest of the semester.  Huzzah!

[*Teach*]

The neighbor we have now...
Nicest guy really but he has a horrible habit
He plays 80's hair band at the loudest volume possible all weekend
I like 80's music... grew up in that decade. But really...
There is only so much Cars I can listen to before I snap

*but he never complains about the rum bottles by the curb so it's all good*

[SirRichardBear]

Worst I had was a roommate that was a total pig refused to do the dishes cloths all over the apartment not just his room.  finale straw was when I found the plates that had gone missing under the couch most of them with food still on them in all sorts of disgusting conditions.  Moved out the next week.

It almost sounds like your neighbor is into wieght lifting, running on a tread mill, or maybe jumping rope for exercise.  Do you know if they are into marial arts or boxing?  That is the kind of stuff I use to do when getting ready for a match oh so many years ago when I was fighting.  Of course I did it in my garage not in a third floor apartment.

[Anna Iram]

When I lived in NYC my upstirs neighbors made some odd noises. We had hardwood floors, but it was a good solid concrete building and rarely did you hear much coming from the other apartments. Except...

Every morning, practically without fail, just above my room I'd hear...click...click.....click...click...click...CRASH...scatter scatter scatter and then the sound of tiny bare feet running across the floor. Then it would all start over again...click..click..click... This would go on for about half an hour...

Now I never did go upstairs and ask what it was and could it please stop. Frankly I kind of got used to it. It had, to my mind, the sound of a small child with blocks perhaps, stacking them stacking them stacking them and then knocking them over and then running about gathering them back up to stack them again. Thing is they'd have had to have been some pretty big blocks to come through all that concrete slab flooring....Who knows...

[Zoë]

It almost sounds like your neighbor is into wieght lifting, running on a tread mill, or maybe jumping rope for exercise.  Do you know if they are into marial arts or boxing?  That is the kind of stuff I use to do when getting ready for a match oh so many years ago when I was fighting.  Of course I did it in my garage not in a third floor apartment.

I doubt they have the room up there for any of that kind of equipment...these places are fairly small.  I'm not even sure if equipment like that is allowed, since all the furniture is supplied by the apartment building...I think they'd be afraid of something getting broken.  Hm.  Could be jumping rope though! 

[MacLaren]

Hey Teach,

At least it isn't Twisted Sister! Actually, I've love that band for, well, forever. But the Cars isn't acceptable either.

[Lady Neysa]

Haven't had any bad neighbors lately, but did years ago in our first apartment.  It was a ground floor unit, no pets allowed.  The folks in the apartment directly above us had a dog despite the rules. Not sure what kind of dog but I think it was a boxer type dog.  It barked all hours of the day and night because they kept weird schedules. We never knew when they'd be home.  They never wanted to walk their dog presumably because they didn't want to get caught, so their idea of walking it was to put it out on their balcony and let it poop all over the place.  The excrement would end up all over our patio in front of our sliding glass door. Don't know if it fell through their balcony or if they dumped it into our yard on purpose, but it was infuriating.  Especially since management wouldn't enforce their own rules.

[Moldy Forest]

When I used to live in a condo our neighbor's drunk boyfriend passed out on the stairs, so of course my mom or stepdad or somebody in my family taped it. Haha it was great.

[Zoë]

Ahh the dog one....my best friend's upstairs neighbor has a little yappy dog that always goes nuts every time she leaves the house to go to work...which is conveniently at 3 in the morning.  And it chases her vacuum cleaner too.  Lord would that drive me nuts.

[Tammy]

I live in an old mill hill, so the houses are spitting distance...literally. My neighbor doesn't like me for some reason. He's called the cops on my dog, and my front porch.
The Dog...is an inside bull mastiff, that only barks if someone comes to the door. We aren't allowed a fence, so I have a chain that I put him on three to four times a day. Never before 9am, and never after 9pm. I also walk the dog...he'll only pee on the leash though. Well, neighbor dude told cops I was letting him run the neighborhood, and he was waking him up at 5am. Lies.
The front porch. I have a grill, small table, and two deck type chairs on the porch. We are given one trash can to place at the road, so that's beside the porch. If I have more trash then fits in the can I'll put in on the porch (so strays are less likely to mess in it). When neighbor called cops I had one bag of trash on the far side of the porch, the day before trash day. I get a warning about my porch having debris and filth on it. No fine, thank goodness.
We've never done anything to this neighbor. We are the type to stay to ourselves...usually less drama that way. We aren't the same race as our neighbor, and though I'd hate to think that was the problem...I think it is. We are the only whites int he neighborhood, and I've heard him tell others that he'd like the area to stay pure.

Oh well, our landlord loves us...and ignores the calls from neighbor. I don't know what he tells them, I just know they said they don't believe him. Lol.

Yeah, neighbors can suck.

[Tipsy Gypsy]

I once had a fourplex neighbor so nasty that her free-range cockroaches threatened to overrun the other 3 apartments. We had to "bomb" about every 6 months to chase 'em back home. The college students at the apartment complex across the street used to party every weekend and come over to whiz on my fence, which my normally mild-tempered dog didn't find the least bit amusing. I laid in wait for them one evening, and the next time someone wandered over and began watering my fence, I grabbed a spotlight and lit him up like a billboard. Point taken, apparently, the visits stopped.

The neighbors now are a real piece of work. On the one side, we have young parents, nice enough, but they should've had to pass a competency test to be homeowners. Squirrels have gnawed their way into their eaves and built a superhighway through their attic, and even comments about electical hazards from chewed-up wiring haven't been hint enough to motivate them to fix it. I told the neighbors on their other side, who've also warned them, that I hope I'm home when the fire starts so I can at least train a hose on my own roof. Meanwhile, their yard is devoid of anything green, largely because they haven't a clue that all living things require water. The day the wife commented how green our own yard is (as I'm watering it- duh!) and said, "We want y'all to tell us what kind of trees to plant in our yard!", it was an exercise in restraint not to reply, "Plastic ones".

Then on the other side, there's the balding mullet-head, and his wife whom we affectionately call "The Tick". For a while, everything in their baked mud wasteland of a back yard- the shed, the truck, the BBQ pit, the fire pit, everything but the dog- was on blocks. His patio rail was made of wooden pallets standing on end and wired together. Then at 0645 one f*****g morning, all that changed when he fired up a Bobcat and started shoving dirt around. Next thing we know, he's built an above ground swimmin' hole with a pump right next to the fence that's loud enough to be heard in my bedroom at night. Even better, he built a deck next to it that gives them at least a 4-5 ft. high view over the fence into my back yard. I'm hoping I can get the city to make them tear it down for building without a permit. Otherwise, Mama's shore gonna be in for a surprise when she and Bubba decide to sun themselves on the deck this spring and look over into the former privacy of my back yard to see my bare arse smiling back.

[Cormac]

Thankfully nothing that horrible for me....
First apartment was on the third floor with a new born and washer dryer down stairs in the basement.  The neighbor below would pound on his ceiling, our floor at random hours from early evening until o'dark in the morning.  Never saw him leave the place all the time we lived there.  One morning the 5-0 shows up at the stating there was a complaint about noise for the old guy down stairs.  It was long about 3AM with a new born asleep in the crib and it didn't take him long to figure out we weren't partying with a newborn asleep.  He was nice enough to go down and try to talk the guy, but couldn't get him to the door.  The pounding went on for a few more weeks until one day we were at the mall down from the apartment.  First a fire truck and then an ambulance go racing up the street and turn in at the apartment.  Hmmmmm.....what's the odds.  The next day his family was there cleaning things out.  Turns out he took off from a home and they had no idea where he was until then and apologized for his behavior.

[Toki Bloodaxe]

Wow! This post really struck a chord with me. I can start off talking about the people who used to live up in the apartment above me when I went to college back in Texas. They were a couple of girls who were really getting wild after being away from home for the first time. Those two girls screwed every guy that had a heartbeat and they had the squeakiest beds. The worst was when the two of them had an all-night kegger party and I think they were taking turns to see who could screw more guys than the other. Those beds pounded and squeaked for hours. I finally called the police on them. The cops came down later to talk to me and said that there was a line of guys up there sitting around waiting for who could be next. I wonder if either one of those girls ever ended up on the Maury show.
     Okay, then there was the Karate champ who roomed with me for awhile. He had to listen to the same Christopher Cross album over and over and over again so that he could fall asleep at night. He listened to it LOUD! and never cleaned his bathroom. He ate only Mac and Cheese and left the residue of his meals caked in the sink. You could not believe how hard it is to get that stuff off of cutlery and plates when it it dried. I complained and complained to him. So, finally, his mother showed up and cleaned the whole apartment so that it was spotless....my room and bathroom included! She talked to me a lot about how the Karate champ had so many girlfriends and was going to have a nice family. That seemed odd to me because I had seen him kissing his boyfriend in the front seat of a car once when I came home late from work. oh, and he was always late with the rent.
     Then, I made the mistake of rooming with a couple who had a cat. That cat had so many fleas that they infested the carpets and furniture in the house. Those fleas were everywhere! In my bed, pillows, rugs and clothes. The two of them didn't seem to mind, though. Of course, they did scratch themselves a lot. When I saw  convicts from a work release program were going through the neighborhood killing mosquitos, I gave one of them 20 dollars to bring his fumigation chemicals up to the apartment and blast the place. He just shrugged and said..."sure thing, man" and fogged the whole place out. There wasn't a flea left after that, but everything in the whole apartment smelled like it came from an oil refinery.  The couple soon left and took the cat with them. And, they ate all of my food, too.

[Capt Gabriela Fullpepper]

I had this room mate once that... Oh never mind that was my ex

But there was the neighbors where I lived at just before my divorce. It's about 2 blocks from my current home. They had this cat named Fluffy. Fluffy had free range of the neighborhood not to any ones liking. Now some of you know I'm not a fan of cat's I find them to be dirty filthy animals (Comeone they walk in there catbox then all over the house would you allow your cook to use the bathroom then not wash... same thing but oh well off subject)

We had built a nice big sand box in the back yard for our twin boys to play in. It had about 10" of sand and was about 8" square. Needless to say Fluffy decided that the twins sand box was his personal cat box and he left many presents in the sand box for the boys to find. He also liked to do this in the flower boxes which was gross. Lastly he liked to kill birds and small animals and leave them on the steps and chairs we had in the backyard. Yes I really hated that cat. not to mention his owners who were not the nicest people.

We had a Sheltiewho was a quite dog. he only barked at the neighbor and strangers he didn't like. The reason he hated the Fluffy's owners is the man always through things at him and not in a nice way as the Sheltie hated his cat and would chase it. Then once we let the boys go play with their grandson. The man had a football and yelled at my eldest yest smaller of my twins to turn around. When he turned around he told him to duck and throw the football at his grown and hit him in his privates. That 9 year old boy from then on hated that man as much as the dogs. Should have called the cops on him as he never apologised for it. His wife was about 12 bisquits short of a bakers dozen and that's no joke.

When they had company they would park in front of the house and block our driveway. He would also mow the lawn when we tried to have company in the backyard having BB Q's. Yup not the best neighbor in the world.