Poll: Apartments and Noise

[BloatedGuppy]

Where do you guys fall on the issue of apartments, and the noisy motherfuckers who inhabit them? To what degree do you think people are obligated to keep it down? Are you of the opinion that life is fast paced and exciting, and loud noises are inevitable, and that people who complain are fussy old cranks trying to get in the way of your rich experiences? Or do you think that being a noisy neighbor should be punishable by death?

I tell ya, I've never been particularly forgiving of loud neighbors, but as I've gotten older, I've just gotten less and less tolerant. I honestly, truly believe that if you live in such a fashion that other people can readily hear what you're up to, you have a social and moral obligation to shut the fuck up as much as possible. Bassy music vibrating my floor or thumping away in my wall? Shut the fuck up. Loud arguments or television carrying through the walls? Shut the fuck up. Loud party going to 3AM, drunk conversations on balcony, keeping half the building awake? If I had a flaming bag of dog shit handy, it would be on its way to your balcony as we speak.

I had a downstairs neighbor for about a year...she was an aspiring concert pianist. This means piano practice for SEVEN TO TEN HOURS A DAY. Breakfast? You're eating to piano music. Dinner? Piano music. Sex? Time for some piano music. Watching a movie? I hope it goes nicely with piano music. She had the piano up against a wall, so we could hear it in every single room. And she'd play the same piece for weeks, months on end. The same 2-3 minute piece. Over, and over, and over, and over. Often repeating 10-15 second chunks for hours at a time. After asking her politely on several occasions to please stop and meeting profound resistance (But I HAVE to practice!) I just decided to wage war. Fortunately, she lived beneath me. Piano practice? Time for some stomping! I hope you like stomping! I'm going to leap back and forth to get a glass of water! Feeling sleepy? Stomping time! Middle of the night? Hey, I think I'd like to do some stomping. Naturally, diplomatic relations soured, and she eventually moved out. I feel sorry for whatever poor fucker has to live next to her now.

So yeah, really, that's how it goes. Play your music too much or for too long, have too many parties, force me to listen to "BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMPBUMPBUMP BUMP BUMP" for hours on end, and I'm going to ask nice once or twice, and then it's banging on walls and stomping on floors. That is universal apartment parlance for please shut the fuck up. I don't care if you think it's rude. It's drawing your attention to how INCREDIBLY ANNOYING repetitive, intrusive sound is.

Thoughts? Am I TOO MEAN on this issue? Anyone agree with me? Or think I'm the worst neighbor ever?

 

[Terminate421]

I have a friend who is currently past College and then had the unfortunate problem of getting the Apartment from nightmares.

The person below plays micheal jackson OVER AND OVER AGAIN
The person to the right listens to the loudest pornos
The person to the left has 4 noisy children
The person above runs on the treadmill and does fitness shit alot
The person across the way has alot of screaming, but he does not know why

The only reason he doesn't move? Pricing, that apartment was cheap, $400 a month.

 

[For.I.Am.Mad]

Dogs, loud fucking dogs are the worse. Especially the little yappers. They. Don't. Stop.

I hate dogs.

 

[DoPo]

What is the third option supposed to be? It currently just says "I".

OT: I've lived in apartments my whole life. It has good and bad parts. Noise being one of the bad, of course. But out of these options, both "I think everyone has the right to be NOISY." and "I think people are obligated to be QUIET." seem to be wrong. Where I lived, there were rules, so don't be too noisy between 22:00 and 07:30 (or about then) and between 12:00 and 14:00. It was mostly on good faith and you wouldn't get scolded if you had to fix your washing machine at 12:30 or something, just you know, "consider others and don't be a jerk" mostly.

So I suppose, there is the right to be noisy but that right isn't 24 hour one.

So yeah, really, that's how it goes. Play your music too much or for too long, have too many parties, force me to listen to "BUMP BUMP BUMP BUMPBUMPBUMP BUMP BUMP" for hours on end, and I'm going to ask nice once or twice, and then it's banging on walls and stomping on floors. That is universal apartment parlance for please shut the fuck up. I don't care if you think it's rude. It's drawing your attention to how INCREDIBLY ANNOYING repetitive, intrusive sound is.

Thoughts? Am I TOO MEAN on this issue? Anyone agree with me? Or think I'm the worst neighbor ever?

If the others are intentionally being dicks...well I don't know. I've seen the police getting involved - just call them and complain about the noise. I think you can do that. Well, usually it's a policeman or two going there knocking on the door and basically saying "Can you guys keep it down?" and leaving but if there are repeat reports they might do something. Other than that, being a dick back doesn't seem to work. Just because people don't realise they are wrong, they would just get pissed off at you.

A solution is to pretend it's not intentional - say it's a faulty machine or maybe something like that. So if they confront you you can say "Well, it's not my fault but I do get to listen to you lot all the time, so I thought you'd be OK until I fixed it."

Also, really try to set up "quiet" times of the day. And try to uphold them yourself while convincing the others (one way or another).

Last (but not least) it really depends where you live as well. I've lived in apartment buildings full of people working 9 to 5 and the rest were retired. Noise during the day (Monday to Friday) wasn't a huge issue but during the night it was a serious matter. Then again, if you're living with university students, you aren't likely to have a silent night time. Well not without a lot of effort on both parties.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

What is the third option supposed to be? It currently just says "I".

The Escapist ate the poll, as it is often wont to do.

The third choice was the neutral option.

I'm not sure about the "noisy times" and "quiet times" either. What if someone works nights, and sleeps days? What if someone has a migraine? Or their baby is sleeping? Or they're a student trying to study for a big exam? Because it's the "noisy time", does that mean I can blast my club music and then act like an aggrieved dick if they thump on the wall?

Generally, your post is very reasonable, and as such should be applauded. I guess my stance on noisy neighbors is that I am no longer interested in being reasonable with them. I want them to go eat a bag of dicks.

 

[DoPo]

I'm not sure about the "noisy times" and "quiet times" either. What if someone works nights, and sleeps days? What if someone has a migraine? Or their baby is sleeping? Or they're a student trying to study for a big exam? Because it's the "noisy time", does that mean I can blast my club music and then act like an aggrieved dick if they thump on the wall?

Hence the "consider others and don't be a jerk" part. If we knew there was a baby around us, we would try to keep noise to a reasonable minimum. We've moved parties elsewhere before, because we hadn't realised there was a mother with a baby next door. A migraine is unfortunate but you have to agree that you cannot expect everybody to take all of everybody else's problems under consideration. It may sound a bit harsh but that's what I think. Student revision is unfortunate as well and there are libraries and even parks that can work just as good for that. Well, but really, if the noise isn't necessary, people should stop or at least keep it down a bit but within reason if it interferes with others' work and lives.

Music too loud? Well you don't have to listen to it so loud. And there are those things called headphones - listen to it as loud as you want with those. Piano practice? Good for you but you should acknowledge that if I were to practice my power tools, you wouldn't like it either. Parties? You do sleep afterwards, right? Do you fancy being woken up as you're having a hangover? Well neither do I even without one. And so on and so forth.

And as I said, it depends on the people you live with. I've been with a friend who lives right next to the power station. And that's because all the people who work at the power station, including his father, live there. The thing is, all the employees get different shifts each week and the shifts are morning, evening or night ones. At any one point, chances are that somebody would be sleeping there. In light of that they have agreed on generally "noisy times" to be at some point during the weekends. So any repairs to cars, apartments and similar are reserved to those times. It sucks for everybody, because one person should go without sleep while dead tired, while another will probably have to wait a day or two to do fix his things. But it's also fair to everybody. Also the rules aren't completely inflexible - if a pipe bursts in your bathroom on Monday nobody expects you to wait until Saturday to fix it. Similarly, with less extreme situations, too.

 

[DirtyJunkieScum]

Yeah, noisy neighbours can be annoying, but then you should also be able to make some noise, can't tiptoe round like a mouse all the time. Try keeping things to times when people will be awake, don't put speakers etc on the floor or against walls, try positioning noisy things so the sound is projected into your home not out of it, close doors and windows. If you know you are going to be making noise then get double glazing or try some cheap sound insulation, eggboxes and stuff.

I found the best way was to fight fire with fire when people are just being obnoxious and unwilling to compromise. I had a neighbour that would sometimes come in late from the pup, like 2am and start talking very loud with mates with some music on. Luckily I had a Kilowatt of amp and speakers hooked up to my decks and a lot of gabba and speedcore. 30 seconds of that was enough to get them to shut the hell up.

 

[Chemical Alia]

I can't stand loud people, it's such a discourteous thing to do to blare music to a degree that it disrupts other people. My current apartment has a balcony over a large courtyard with a pool, and it's like a gigantic echo cavern that amplifies everything you hear. So when there's a bunch of college kids drinking and yelling down there and pissing in the bushes after hours at 3am, I call the cops every time.

The only thing that rivals loud neighbors in my opinion is people not cleaning up after their dogs. I see poo and pee in the halls/stairway every single day, and outside is more or less a minefield despite free dog poo bags on every trash can.

 

[TehCookie]

I have no problem with loud neighbors as long as they don't wake me up. If they're being loud, that means I can be loud back, and when they quiet down I do as well to be polite. However if they think everyone is up at 7am and it's okay to be noise then, I assume that people are like me and go to bed at 4 in the morning so I can be noisy then too.

 

[Scarim Coral]

I agreed (be quiet if you living in a place with many others). The way I see it if the people living around you (well should) think/ react similar to you, they should keep quiet since they know what it's like to be annoy with loud noises (empathy).

E.g. one time I was at a friend flat having a small party we were hanging by the balcony. His neighbour abover his room look over up and ask us to keep it down (she was in her nightgown). We quickly apologise to her and quickly went back inside and shut the door since it was us being outside making a rukus that had bother her. However this is not always the case.

During the second year of University I lived in a house like building with 11 others. I got along with three of them while the others were somewhat neutrual except for the remaining three. They're pretty much the out going partying type. Needless to say I have lost count when they had outside my room and shouting and chatting.

Sure I can tolerate small sounds like two of my flatmates played WoW so they had their doors open (their room were next to each other) to communicate which was fine by me but not those three.

One night they got back from a party but they were still active and this was 3.am. There was no way I can back to sleep due to the sounds they were making (also I am a light sleeper). It was only an hour or two later that they went upstair so it was back to peace and quiet.

The next day I decided to write on the puclice notice board to keep it quiet (and two others agree with me) and they make a big deal about it. While it's true that I was a dick seeing how I should of told them to keep it down but I dislike conflict but they are so inconsiderate. I mean what the hell? It was 3.am in the morning what did you all expect us to be doing during that time? Still awake and having a party? FFS! Some of us had lesson the next day!

 

[MammothBlade]

I realise that there are times when people need to unwind and play music loudly for a while. We have a piano and if we had to be quiet all the time, we would never use it. As long as people are reasonable, considerate, and don't make noise for more than one or two daylight hours, I'm fine with it. Though I don't like the situation of living too close to neighbours anyway, I'd much prefer to live in a proper detached house with nice, thick walls and comfortable clearance of other houses (not the pathetic excuse for a detached house commonly seen in mass-production housing developments).

 

[Vausch]

The last apartment I lived in had respectful neighbours that were only loud on hours that could be seen as acceptable, and even then they weren't too bad. It was more like you could just make out what song was playing on the radio at any given time at worst. Heck to be courteous I make sure to use my headphones whenever possible.

 

[ElPatron]

Live in an apartment. Things are pretty peaceful.

I can't hear anything over my speakers blasting Nine Inch Nails. Just kidding, nobody is noisy around here.

 

[JasonKaotic]

I could never live in a flat. I'd feel to self-conscious about how much noise I make and worried about people listening on my conversations, aand I'd be pissed off with other people making noise.
Yeah, I'll get a house.

 

[Dagnius]

I've never lived in an apartment. However, If I ever DO live in an apartment I would very much enjoy quiet neighbors. While it's a bit off-subject; Every time a car drives down the street I live on with it's 'music' bumping and thumping away I just wish It would spontaneously combust.

 

[Something Amyss]

My apartment's pretty solid, so I don't get much in the way of noise from my neighbours. One of my neighbours and I are both musicians, and on a weekend, I can hear the bass bleed through from his apartment. But it doesn't bother me, and it doesn't go on into the night.

I don't think it's anyone's obligation to be quiet, but they should be mindful of their neighbours.

Ten years, three apartments, I've never felt the need to go knocking on someone's doors or call the cops.

 

[Jodah]

When I was in college I had a guy that lived above me at the house I rented with some friends. Every morning at 3am he would start playing Smoke on the Water badly (how that is even possible I don't know.) I told the landlord 3 times to no avail. Finally I had enough when he had friends over at 1 am talking loudly right above my room when I had a final in the morning. I called the cops, they told him to stfu, and he didn't do it again.

Basically I can tolerate noise during the day. I like it quiet and I am quiet myself but if it's during the day I can deal with people being different than myself. If, however, it is 3am you need to STFU. Most people are trying to sleep then. Especially on a weekday.

 

[dvd_72]

Once in a while I can tolerate a party lasting until late and such, but every day/night? That's where I draw the line.

I had a neighbour once whose music vibrated the walls. That got irritating pretty quick. He'd play it every day and refused to stop. I even bought the idiot some simple headphones, but no luck. Apparently bugging everyone who lives around you is preferable to listening to your music through some damn headphones!