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.