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Do you have noisy neighbors? Help!
Posted by Pasquella • 10/26/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: annoying neighbors, apartment buildings, new york, noisy neighbors
Hi guys,
Just wanted to get your opinion on something. I live in an apartment building in New York and I live on the very top floor. I thought, oh this is great because I won't have to hear people stomping above me. Anyway, as the weeks, months go on, the neighbors below me are super loud- I can hear every step and it sounds as though they are HOPPING through their apartment. To make matters worse, they illegally installed hard wooden floors (which is a no no for apartments) and now they have a loud yappy dog that barks from morning till night. My partner and I figured that this gave us some "party noise time", since we love to have get togethers, however, these people wake up at 4am and literally SLAM the doors a million times. I don't get it. For the longest time, there would always be a HUGE slam, that would wake the both of us up at 4:30am. Finally, I called the cops and said I thought someone was being hurt. I had hoped that it would end the noise, and it did...but not for long.
I tried being nice to them, even inviting them to my party one evening. I even had sent little dog treats as "the nice neighbor" and put a note inside telling them if they needed anything to call.
I have done (in my opinion) everything I could possibly think of to simmer these people down.
Any tips? I'm seriously losing sleep over this and it sounds like they are doing this on purpose. Oh, and keep in mind that my little "get togethers" or parties are like once every 6 months and they're not very loud at all - they're dinner parties really.
Any tips would be great! Figured I'd ask all of you since lots of people are telling me to buy a pet rat and stick it into their mail slot. :\ Bad advice!
User Comments
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Tip...beside calling the super or landlord and telling them it's a problem, I'd say charge it to the game of living in NY. There are sound ordinences in NY that people have to abide by and it might be in your lease. Give your lease a once over, and talk to the landlord. But a first step may be just going downstairs, knocking on the door and asking politely for more consideration.-
This is precisely why I no longer live in the city. My nearest neighbor is an acre away which is far enough for privacy and close enough if I need to borrow something.
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wow - can't believe you'd be so nice to such rude people in the first place - really? doggie treats? to reward them for having a yippy dog that barks all the time? honey....
unfortunately, you're sorta screwed. If your building has a noise ordinance in the agreement, you can start complaining to your landlord who can document the disturbances - and rack up enough of them to evict them. Short of that.....
sign them up for a bunch of magazine subscriptions and let them get stuck with the bills - or at least hassle of cancelling them. really! go to Borders or Barnes and Noble, go to every random magazine, take out the free subscription card things, fill 'em out with their names and addy's and payback's a bitch! -
Hey, I'm in NYC, also on the top floor and recently started having trouble with the new tenants below me who are constantly stomping about on wood floors. I'm about to contact the management office about it, because there's a rule in the lease about 85% of the floors must be covered with carpeting. Your lease might also have such a provision. Yapping dogs are the worst! You could probably file a civil suit against those downstairs neighbors if your landlord refuses to help out. Withholding rent might get their attention, too. There's a law in the lease about our rights to the "quiet enjoyment" of our living spaces, so you do have options! There's always the "giving them a taste of their own medicine" option, but I would try other things first before stooping to their level! -
Be even louder than they are -
I will suggest carrot and stick policy.-
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I didn't get that.
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That's because I mistakenly replied to myself. What I wanted to say is that as a noisy neighbor, be grateful that you don't live next door to me.
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What makes u noisy ? May I ask ?
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Arguments.
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It's sad again. Just steer clear of them.
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Yes. I am the noisy bitch of a neighbor where I live.
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That's real noisy
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The thing is, there is a noise ordinance within the lease, but our landlord seems to wishy-washy to do anything about it, plus the home owner's association which owns the entire building are umm, buttholes to put it mildly. I have emailed them a gazillion and one times and got nothing. I even complained when they had their dog crapping all over their deck, making OUR deck smell like dog poo. It was disgusting, and the thing that gets me is----these apartments are of "better quality"---not for riffraff types. They're just inconsiderate jerks that don't respect other people. I don't know what else to do because I have complained so many times before the "nice routines"---that was my LAST resort, but now, instead of tit for tat, I'd rather do something do REALLY stop it. Do dog whistles work??? But even so, it's their constant stomping on their hard wood floors and the slamming of doors all the time. Why the hell does someone need to slam doors within a small apartment? I don't get it. I'm at my wits end.
Withhold rent, huh? Hrmm... I actually like my landlord, but the lack of sleep has me at desperate measures.
Thanks for all of your suggestions... I'm soaking it in... -
The one thing you don't mention having done is addressed the problem directly with them and asked them to try to keep it down. Have you tried that? -
There's noise and then there's NOISE. I agree with the advice of visiting with them personally first. That's only proper. If it is music, or the yapping dog, go to their apartment and ask them to leave their music at the exact point on the dial where they usually leave it, and then come visit your apartment so that they can hear what you are hearing. (This helps them to understand you are not making it up or over-reacting. Some people just have no idea of their impact on others unless you show them.) With the music, have them adjust the level until you tap 3x on the floor, then they can mark the volume level that will not create complaints.
If that doesn't work, and they are aggressively trying to aggravate you, then phone landlord next, stating that you will notify him once before involving police. Good landlords do not like police involvement. If that doesn't work, I'd move out. Probably to North Dakota, where I won't have any neighbors...for miles. -
They have no music, just loud stomping. How can you tell someone to stop walking the way they do if they have a naturally heavy step? But the slamming of the doors is another thing. I'm wayyyyyyy too shy to go down there and ask them. I'd have an anxiety attack if I did!
Thanks for all the suggestions!-
You're in NYC? Send a singing telegram! Or hire a mime to get your point across (then blog about it as I'm anxious to hear how THAT would work out!), or start a dog walking service and lose their dog! Hey, there HAS to be other alternatives. There's always ear plugs, I guess, though, I'm still thinking you'd enjoy North Dakota....
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Wait! I've got it. For the heavy steps, you could go buy one of those foam mattresses and cut out footprints in them. Attach some string and voi-lah! Tell them to strap the new stomb-buffers onto each foot. Then market these stomp-buffers on the internet for those having similar problems, which in NYC could yield you a nice stash of cash! Or, you could tie helium balloons onto their pant legs...My bet? They'd get so tired of your hair-brained efforts that they'd tiptoe across the floor just so they wouldn't have to endure another of your cock-a-mamie ideas!
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If your neighbours are really rude and unrepentant about it, I find that music, even played at a reasonable volume, will often do the trick. Of course you have to pick the right music. In my experience, this will depend on your neighbours but I have had great success with a combination of bagpipes, Schoenberg, and operatic sopranos.
The preferable method is to try to work it out peaceably with your neighbours and your landlord. The police should be the last resort.
I should say that once I had to move. I had a job that required being awake at 5:30 a.m. although I often didn't get home until 11 p.m. My neighbours played their TV so loud I had no choice but to watch what they were watching. I couldn't even NOT watch TV because it was so loud I could hear every harmonic key change in the background music of the programs. They were perfectly nice people, but they must have been completely unconscious of volume.
Once on New Year's Eve when they were still making loud noise after 2 a.m. I did go and ask them to turn it down so I could sleep and go to work the next day. Unfortunately after 15 minutes they turned it back up again. -
If you done anything but the landlord can't stop them. On my opinion find a better apartment to live. You might get in trouble there soon especially cops visited them. MY neighbour too making noise sometime it makes me hard and clumsy but its depend what kind of noise i heard. -
these threads make me feel bad since we are the noisy neighbors (well only at night though) but I don't think the 3 single men who leave below us mind much, lol!
I'd say complain to the landlord. -
Also a New Yorker living on the top floor, I have had 3 noisy neighbors. The first directly below me used to turn on her radio full blast when she woke in the morning, way before my waking time. I phoned her and nicely asked her to cool it. She did.
The 2nd in the terrace across from mine used to have a dog that barked all day. As I recall, I walked over there and since I didn't know the name and couldn't get in the front door, I slipped a note under the door and simply asked whoever lived in that apartment if there wasn't something they could do about that barking dog. Don't know how, but it worked and the barking stopped.
The 3rd was across the hall, a little boy screaming, "Let me go!" and pounding on his front door as though trying to escape from someone. Not looking forward to discovering what was happening over there, I knocked on their door and asked (what could you possibly say?) if there was something I could help them with. Turned out the kid was sick, extremely high strung and wanted to go out even though he had a fever.
If you can't personally confront your neighbors, do it by phone and tell them exactly what the noise problems are. (By law I think three quarters of the floor have to be carpeted). If they don't fix the problems, put it in writing and send it to the landlord, adding that you hate to resort to calling the police, but if he can't take care of it, you'll have to call them.
I've had people call me about the noise in my apartment and have always immediately rectified the situation. So a direct approach seems to work best here. -
- Get a pen and paper and over the course of a week plot when things are quiet and when things are noisy down there. Cross reference this with when their vehicles are parked in their spots and when they are not (ie: when they are home and quiet). Chances are this will give you a rough plot for their sleep schedule.
- Get yourself an old fashioned rotary phone and then hook up a microphone to it. That microphone leads to a rather large sub woofer or speaker system.
- Point all the speakers downwards or whatever wall is closest to the nosy neighbors.
- You and your significant other go away on a romantic night out where you stay in a hotel. Make sure it covers their potential sleep schedule.
- Buy a bottle of wine (or two) and call your house regularly
I have actually done this when I lived in an apartment and the butt heads below felt like watching TV at 9000 dB early in the morning after I had just worked 12 hours putting out fires.
Took about 3 days and the problem was solved. -
What the...? It seems I am the only New Yorker here NOT living in a penthouse! -
You just need to throw shit at them. or at least makes a leakage piping into their space and just let gravity do the rest. -
I live in the suburbs so it goes with the territory. I can tolerate some noise, but when it affects my kids sleeping or such, no. I asked my neighbor to keep her dog inside at night or something and when she still let the yapping little sh!t bark all night yet again, I took him five miles up the road and have slept peacefully ever since.
Perhaps rat poison the next batch of doggy treats? -
Sadly, I think it's just one of those things. We finally moved out of our apartment because of endless complaints about OUR noise, even though the complex advertised its family-friendly atmosphere. Kids and paper-thin construction do not mix well. -
Russianmodels, I LOVE that idea!!!!!!! This morning they woke up at 4am and REALLY slammed doors, as if it were deliberately done. It also sounded as though they were ramming something into the wall that made our own apartment shake. This woke us up scared! We go to sleep at midnight because we wake up at 7am, but they get up at 4am so it's sort of not fair. But that idea sounds wonderful! Thank you!
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Any time Let me know how it works out for you if you guys decide to try it. Worked like a charm for me
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When I was in the Air Force and lived in a dormitory type of building (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away)drunk people would sometimes be playing very loud music at 100000db at 1AM. We would take it upon ourselves to flip off the circuit breaker of their room. It seemed to work pretty well because the occupants were too drunk to figure out what happened to the power. -
Ok let me be the weirdo again. When I had neighbors like that, I downloaded audioporn (nothing visual, just the sound) and I downloaded farm sounds, I spliced the files creating a rather ... odd mental picture. I then got the generic roomba (room cleaning robot) and tied a small hammer to it so it drug across the floor. When I'd go out for the night, I'd set roomba to clean, and put the cd in the alarm clock set to go off 45 minutes or so after I left. They were flooded with so much weirdness that they started being really, really quiet. Really quiet -
Forget being "nice." This is nyc and that will get you nowhere! Here is my solution:
Wait until 2 or 3 am (whenever you know they are asleep) and put some speakers facing up towards the ceiling in the part you assume is their bedroom. Turn the bass up to the highest, then blast some heavy bass music for 30 seconds, then turn it off. Wait 5 minutes and repeat. This sends a loud vibrating jolt that will feel totally crazy and really annoying to your upstairs neighbors. After a few nights of this they will start being quieter. I promise. -
Record the sounds with a field recorder and post them to freesound.org. -
I used to live in an apartment whose the people on the higher building were very noisy. They have two kids who run and jump here and there. We talked to them many times but the woman answered what do they need to do. There was a time that the woman got angry just because we always ring the bell and tell them not to make noise. It didn't work. So my parents in law told us to stay and accept the noise or leave if we can't. The apartment was new and after living for less than 3 months, we chose to move. We couldn't endure their noise anymore.
On our apartment hunting we looked for the top or highest floor. When we found one, we moved but the apartment on our front door also bang the door. It was too loud. We left a note but it didn't work. On Christmas we bought a christmas cake and told them about the noise and it worked. They don't make noise now. -
I don't have noisy neighbors, but I do find them annoying when they turn down any invite to socialize, but come to me/us first when they have a favor to ask (feed the dogs, replenish their vodka supply).
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Yeah many neighbors don't want to get "too close" as far as socializing. I've done that before, sent an invite to come to one of my get togethers, since I was right above them and they would have heard us anyway, but I also did it to be nice and maybe....just maybe, they would simmer down a bit. I get the feeling though that they do this on purpose. This weekend I am going to take all suggestions! Wish me luck! hehe!
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good luck babe! remember, when nothing works, do the magazine subscriptions - and i'm not talking 20, i'm talking sending 100 of those little cards and making them sort it all out!
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I am wondering what kind of work they do if they are up at 4 am?
Maybe start slamming doors when you are going to bed at midnight?? or drop a few heavy items on the floor (their ceiling)? They are probably asleep at that time...
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