Stupid Bitch

[blas]

My downstairs neighbor is....a little "different" (I'm not even sure how). I don't know what the deal is, but she's pregnant, already has a kid (don't even ask how awesome it is to be a day sleeper and live above a person with a kid who is no longer working anymore because of being so far along....oooh and a baby coming as well) and her mother is almost ALWAYS over at her place. I mean, she'll come on Thursdays or Fridays and stay until nearly the next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Her mother is a NIGHTMARE and is loud as hell. She's a door slammer, and yells from room to room (not as in fighting, just yelling). These are crappy, old apartments with paper thin walls.

You know when she's here because her loud shitty van pulls up, and there's this super loud, obnoxious door slam when she goes inside. And it seems whenever she's there, she's moving furniture or making a lot of noise cleaning. Yeah, and I clean at 3 am Monday mornings and my neighbors claim they've never heard a peep other than if I drop something.

And according to my one neighbor, even though she doesn't live here, she does laundry here, in the basement below the units. Which, it is coin laundry, but still, this isn't your home.

Tonight my neighbor (the one that lives next door to her) finally asked me (I'd been waiting for this) if I've noticed all the noise when that lady's mother is home. I said it's a nightmare, especially when she stays into the work week and I'm trying to sleep during the day and you hear her yelling, moving stuff around, and slamming doors.

Neighbor told me that the mother even stomps down the basement stairs at whatever time she pleases and slams the big door to the laundry area. Supposedly, the last time she did that, a picture fell off of my neighbor's entertainment center and she was pissed.

She spoke to the Caretaker about her slamming the doors, and he must have spoke to the lady, and she went berserk, got all mad, and called the property management company and complained about people complaining about her slamming doors. SHE DOESN'T EVEN LIVE HERE!

I don't know the story behind her, she may be on the lease as the person paying the rent, but she doesn't live here. So, to me, I don't think she has a right to be whining that other tenants don't appreciate the noise. Especially, if she doesn't live here, she's a squatter with how often she's here!

And I swear, the woman never sleeps. NEVER. I'm a night person by nature of my hours at work, so on the weekends, I can still be up till 2 or 3 before calling it a night, and there's still doors slamming and her making noises that late at night. And there's even a small child involved. How the hell does that kid sleep? And when the noise does stop, only a few hours later, she's loud again. I swear, one night around 3 am, the slamming and banging stopped, and at 6 am, her slamming the front door woke me up.

I'm thinking I'm going to make a call here and complain about it. I will just skip right over the Caretaker. I suppose she may have leverage if she's paying her daughter's rent, but that still means she has to follow rules of quiet!

[pitmonkey]

If the lease has a noise clause in it than make all kinds of complaints to the prop management. That is what it is for.

[retailsweetie]

Ugh, noisy neighbors. I live in the dorms at a state university, and I can sympathize. It's just kinda sad when people have no regard for their neighbors' rights to sleep.

[CrystalynRose]

I've actually been working as a caretaker in my apartment building for a little over 7 years now. Any tenant or guest in the building, whether they're on the lease as a cosigner/lessee or not, has to follow the rules. Check your lease or talk to your property management/caretakers about what time "quiet time" kicks in since you've said that it goes very late into the night. And even around that, noise levels have to be kept at an appropriate level otherwise they can STILL get a noise violation. I don't know how it works for yours, but in our building there is always a caretaker on call. If its something the caretakers can't handle, it gets elevated to management and management issues the violation and documents it in the record of the tenant. After a certain number (which differs depending on lease/management company), many times the tenant can be fined and/or evicted due to constant and repeated offenses. So keep lodging complaints. Hopefully the neighbor you spoke with will do the same. Eventually, even if you have a craptastic management company, 99% of the time they'll do something just so the complaints stop flowing in.

[Moosenogger]

I bet the young child is completely used to the grandmother's behavior by now. If you are used to a situation, you can sleep through it. That's why I've heard that you don't want to tiptoe around infants, because they'll get to the point where any noise wakes them.

It's families like that that create deep sleepers.

[Food Lady]

You oughtta move in here. It's quiet all the time now. I'm never moving.

[blas]

Our lease flat out says that tenants and guests have to be courteous to others regarding noise. So, whether she's the rent-payer or just a guest, she's subject to the same rules.

I'm pretty close to the Caretaker, I've lived in the same building as him the entire time I've been here, so I think I might try to catch him if he's out for a smoke or to get the mail and have a chat with him. The next best thing, I think, would be the next time I pay my rent to say something to someone in the office.

Thing is, just a month or so ago, I already complained about the neighborhood pest, Sheriff, screaming at a young girl for "driving too fast" around here when she wasn't, so I don't want to come across as a serial complainer, but this has been going on since earlier this season with that crazy woman coming over every weekend and staying for days and making a ton of noise.

Amazingly, it's been quiet since about 10. I don't know what day all that drama went down, but maybe she actually got a hint. I know after I spoke with the neighbor, which was before I posted, there was still a bunch of racket going on downstairs.

It just drives me batty because she's been loud while I've tried to sleep during the day for work, and I do escape that noise when I go to work, but when I'm home for the weekend, it's hard to relax or sleep or just do what I do here because once she's here, she's here and everyone knows it. And I just can't wrap my head around a normal, daytime person, staying up as late as I do, still making that much damn noise. I can stay up all hours of the night out of habit and no one can tell that I'm up and cooking or cleaning, but that woman just acts like it's still 2 in the afternoon.

[Sapphire Silk]

Hope it all works out.

Crap like this is why I'm so glad not to be living in apartments anymore.

[Pagan]

My upstairs neighbors and the SO/son/whatever-the-hell-he-is of the lady that lives next door don't seem to understand that the doors of our apartments close perfectly well without slamming them!

The one next door drives me particularly bats. My apartment and her's are mirror images of each other. So you've got my outdside living room wall (where the front door is), perpendicular to it is my outside kitchen wall, her outside kitchen wall, perpendicular to her outside living room wall (where her front door is). That jackass that comes over has several times slammed that door hard enough to rattle pictures on my wall.

And then the assholes upstairs. I don't know what the hell the do up there. Bowling and aerobics with elephants I think. After finally getting a leak in my ceiling fixed (that's a rant in and of itself), I know that there's my ceiling, @ 18" dead space, their floor. I think I'm going start bitching to the office about the noise. I'm getting damned tired of it. I did go up there once at around 11pm and asked the asshole guy, nicely, if he could please quit hammering as we were in quiet hours. Talk about a nasty person! He apparently thinks "quiet hours" only apply if you're asleep. And he also kind of tried to lunge at me. Told him, fine, I tried to be nice, guess I'll call the security patrol (they handle noise complaints after hours), and I did. He also didn't know that I had a sgian achlais behind my back.

Luckily, whenever I complain about something to the office, they tend to take my word over others. Mainly because I've been here for 14 years and I don't complain that much.

[blas]

I noticed after some still loud door slamming in the early hours this morning (6 to 8ish am), when I got up to go to the gym and get my day going around noon, she was gone.

She was still gone while I showered and got ready and went to my parents' and to do a little OT at work until a bit earlier tonight.

She was still gone when I got home at 1:30. Either she's gone or she parked her van on the street or down the road and isn't slamming doors, but you always know when she's here.

Well, who knows, maybe she overheard us talking about her and felt like she overstayed her welcome. Good. I feel bad if her pregnant daughter depends on her, but if you're going to be here, you're going to be quiet and not slam doors. None of us do it, and it wouldn't be tolerated if we did.

I'm trying to not feel bad if she did decide to call it an early weekend and not come back. But for all I know, I could pull up tomorrow night when I come home from my parents' and the van of doom will be there again. Who knows.

I'm just trying to not get too paranoid that my neighbor and I might end up with slashed tires or random complaints about us.

[Seshat]

Some noise happens because of inherent clumsiness: I rattle and clatter crockery whenever I'm in the kitchen because I simply can't stack anything other than plastic without at least some clinking. Similarly, I don't seem to be able to find the sweet spot where a door closes properly but quietly.

That said, there's a difference between 'forceful closing' and slamming. I'm sure even the most coordinated of you has had awkward-to-close doors.

[Sableonblonde]

I feel for you, I spent 6 months this past year living in an apartment complex where it turned out the walls were paper thin. There was a family that lived below us with a teenage son, and often when his parents were out he would blast his rap music. It sounded like it was coming from inside our own apartment. I started getting so fed up that I would jump up and down on the floor, slam things on the floor, or blast my TV.

But the real fun started when a mentally ill lady moved in across the hall. Now, I don't want to make fun of her for being mentally ill, and I did feel bad for her, but she was always having hallucinations and screaming at imaginary people all day long. It was a freaky thing to live next to. She also stunk up the hallway with her cigarette smoke.

We got the heck out of there, even managed to break our lease early. We got a house instead and the peace and quiet is LOVELY. I don't understand why they don't make the walls thicker in apartment buildings. But, also, sometimes I think people don't realize how loud they are to their neighbors. I remember the first time I went downstairs to get the mail, I was shocked to realize that I could hear my TV blaring all the way down on the first floor. It didn't seem that loud in the apartment :-(

[PepperElf]

Thing is, just a month or so ago, I already complained about the neighborhood pest, Sheriff, screaming at a young girl for "driving too fast" around here when she wasn't, so I don't want to come across as a serial complainer, but this has been going on since earlier this season with that crazy woman coming over every weekend and staying for days and making a ton of noise.

Considering that other residents have also complained I don't think this would be an issue.

Plus... if she went up to them to bitch about "how dare they complain about me!" it sounds like they will know you're not just pulling a gripe out of your ass.

[MoonCat]

My sympathies. It sounds exactly like my ex-neighbors, the Weasels. We did the happy dance all over the house when we realized they were moving.

These people never closed a door without slamming it. They stomped up & down the stairs. We always knew when one of them was in the bathroom because they slammed the toilet lid, too. The kids would throw tantrums & pound their feet on the walls. And then there was the screaming. OMG the screaming. If the f-word suddenly vanished from human memory, they could not have had a conversation or an argument.

I am SO GLAD they're gone. God knows what's going to move in next, though.

[Misanthropical]

blas have you tried calling the police on the mother? Our city has no certain time that noise has to be kept down, so if it's 1 in the afternoon a noise complaint can be made. I had a police officer tell me straight out that is how it is in our city.

We rarely hear our neighbors since there are firewalls between the townhouses. However we live on a a cul de-sac so anyone having a conversation outside will sound like they are standing in our bedroom talking or if a car is playing it's music loud it will sound like it's in my bedroom. The sound carries in our cul de-sac and most people don't realize it.

Mr. Mis and I have both gone out at different times and politely told people that noise carries here and could they keep it down? most will apologize and do all they can to keep it down. We have come across a few assholes, but I let the police handle that.

We did have one neighbor straight across from us in the cul de-sac who refused to keep the noise down at any hour and we got tired of going out there to try to get them to hold it down, so we just started calling the police on them. It didn't faze them in the least. We did do a dance of joy when they left. Maintenance told me they had just moved to another court to trash that townhouse. It seems they had dog shit all over the place, ripped carpet, broken mirrors and some sort of feces smeared on the walls and were still given another townhouse.

I did work the night shift and I was always beyond pissed because they were always waking me up and I'm a deep sleeper. I even wore ear plugs and would hear them. I was so happy when they moved you would have thought I won the lottery.