We decided to take advantage of the first time home buyer’s tax credit (now extended beyond November 30 and may include and increase of $6500 on top of $8000!!!) and get ourselves a single family detached home. Hope it will be the ultimate answer to a painfully annoying situation.

btw. the neighbor has a 19 year old daughter whom she recently threatened. she also has a child under 2 in her apartment. they didnt arrest her the first time. they did however the second time.

please help me.

Jeri - you have a good point too. This b–ch upstairs from me has listed her condo for sale, but the next one that moves in could be equally as bad or worse. She has had it on the market since August, at least I think she does, there is still a realtor’s combo lock on the front door and I occasionally see people going through the unit. Until my mom dies or I am forced to put her in a nursing home I am stuck in this crappy situation. Hate to look at it in that vain, but it is the reality of it and it sucks. As soon as my mom is gone, I will be out of there like lightning, don’t care if I have to sleep on a mattress on the floor in my buddy’s HOUSE, at least it will quiet there.

This is my article based on the craziest neighbors you’ll never want to meet:

authspot.com/Journals/My-Noisy-Neighbours.677883

I have lived in the building for 22 years and it was never this bad until “SHE” (me) moved in.

I am not doing the banging!! I am not contributing to any of this!! Yet I have to listen to this every night??

Can I break a lease over this- I know I didn’t sign up for 52 weeks of misery.

I am so upset by all of this, it took a tremendous amount of effort to get me here, and just after 3 weeks, I can’t stand it.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Sign me,

Getting ready to jump

I cannot go and speak to the neighbours because they’re not the type who would listen.

So there is only one thing I can do: PRAY. I lie there in bed with my body vibrating with every blast of the bass and I do the only thing I can to stay sane. I pray to God for my neighbours and that he will work a miracle in their lives, and show them his love for them and somehow inspire them to change. This is the only way I can stay sane when they do this. Unfortunately in a world of freewill, people will do what people will do, however nasty. But God can help us to stay sane.

I have some less noisy neighbors, they are family car hoarders and loud, boom boom music people. They complained a little to much for a new kitchen and the owner is selling, my prayers are being heard. I know the economy is tough but when you move in a family of 4, mom, dad grown son and his daughter and that becomes slowly over 12 PEOPLE, something is really wrong.

These places weren’t layed out for it, we don’t have a playground so the parents put any baby that can walk outside alone. I mean a 2 yo out , with no shoes is found by me a block away, and the response is SO? Can all be racial or ethnic, they say it is but is it really? I’d love to do a poll on ethnically raising kids, and/or noise levels.

I was the polite neighbor., could you keep the noise down. The noise kids dragging trash cans at 1230am in the court, tuning car radio at 0200am,etc…response…”we don’t speak English, sorry or next time the son in a wife beater with the family pit bull at the door “WaHHHH?. Nice Call the HOA, what now bitch? Great. Call the cops, geez an ex-cop who they think called?

Befriend them, food, clothing, candy…the brats are now begging for a manzana all the time. At one point 15 people lived there, they rent and the owner is AFRAID of them, “you go to court against them”.

All but 5 moved out, I installed 6,000dllr window system and now have some peace, that and a central AC for the summer. So after 10 long years it is somewhat better, but I am not rich and I shouldn’t be an old ruca for just wanting some peace, at least at night!

To Life: You know what I would really like to do, attach some sort of GPS to the b**ch upstairs from me. Her condo was on the market, but I am not so sure now, somebody has been up there 24/7 and the owner’s car has not been there at times when I hear the thumping and crashing lately, so leads me to believe she has moved another one in. Not to be racial, but sometimes people who emigrate to the US seem to bring the whole entire, extended family and friends in to live in these small apartments/smaller condos, at least that is what I have experienced with this woman’s family and friends, and while most of us natives usually visit for short stays with relatives when we travel, these people ‘visiting’ above me seem to stay for many weeks or months. Just having 2 people in mine is tight enough, you can’t hardly be in the kitchen at the same time, too small, and we are both relatively skinny people. I know at one point a few years ago she had 5 people living up above me, and then she let people of her race that didn’t have a job or place to go stay with her.

With the GPS situation…I had faced the same type of problem in the past. The apartments were identical. The person was a spiteful neighbor and if I use the restroom, he would be in the restroom slamming things. I think he could probably hear the fan in my bathroom and that would be a signal for him to start slamming things above me. Sometimes I wish the shoe was on the other foot and the person above me could experience what I would experience from my neighbor.

Once you sign that 1 year lease, you can’t back out of the lease without serious penalties depending on where you live. Usually, you would have to pay off the rest of months remaining on the lease, or either forfeit your deposit at the least. Sometimes terminating your lease can lead to court issues. Also, you really can’t “test-drive” an apartment unless you’re going to live there for a few days before you move in, and that’s not going to happen. The Landlord will usually show you the in and outs of the apartment for about 30 minutes at the most and that’s not enough time to know whether your upstairs or downstairs neighbor is home at that time to know whether they’re a stomper, noisemaker, etc. And the moment you move in only to find out that your upstairs neighbor comes home at 11 at night and stomps around until 3 in the morning. In my last apartment…I could hear my neighbor upstairs urinate, watch tv, shower, close cabinets/doors, etc. Now I live in an apartment where I live on the top floor. However, the person living below me has sex and you could hear the bed slamming against the walls. I tap on the walls to let him know that the noise is excessive and too loud, and he has a fit and begins slamming and banging things downstairs.

If you’re adamant on not buying a house and living in an apartment and get peace/quiet at the same time, then I recommend a few things that MAY help.

1). Go for walks outside. Exercise can help calm you down when there’s too much noise.
2). Put on headphones and listen to some soothing and relaxing music.
3). Train your mind mentally to block off some of the noises. If you focus too much on the noise, especially a particular noise (stomping, loud music) then it will become more of a nuisance to you.
4). Move to a different apartment within the building.

But in the real world…apartment living is always going to be a challenge, and you’re never going to find a sound proof apartment unless you live on the top floor and the person above you does nothing all day but read, or is rarely home. If it’s any consolation…we’re all in the same boat.

However, being as it is an ownership deal, not a rental, there isn’t a landlord (not that they are much help from the other posts I have read above) to lodge a complaint with and the Homeowners association doesn’t want to get involved even though I have talked to a couple of them a few times because A) she is an immigrant and they don’t want to enter what they feel might end up becoming a racial profiling situation, which is BS, everybody should have to abide by the same rules, or B) since they don’t have the same issues with their neighbors they don’t want to take their precious time to try and deal with what they feel is a petty problem in their estimation. All of the HOA members live in very quiet buildings, but ours seems to be breeding ground for noise and constant people coming and going, Murphy’s Law I guess.

All I know is she seems to never require any sleep as she ‘pounding’ around until after 2AM a lot of times and then I can hear heavy walking and banging around before 9AM a lot of times. And it’s like she’s got GPS on me, she seems to know exactly where I am at all times. If I go to the bathroom she is in the bath above me as the units are identical, if I am in the kitchen, there she is slamming doors and stomping around, or the most aggravating, when I lay down at night, she is in the bedroom directly above mine and you hear hard thumps above my head spaced every couple of minutes, sometimes you just want to take a drill with a long bit and put it right through her floor…UGH!!!

Nevertheless, once my mom is gone, and I hate to say that, I will definitely put it on the market and find a house, no more apartments or condos for me.

I’ve lived in a few good apartments since then (concrete floors, great insulation, etc) and aside from some street noise and the occasional upstairs walking, it was fairly peaceful and I never minded the rare noise-making from neighbors.

I am now 2 months into a 1-year lease at the most expensive apartments I’ve lived in yet, and as an almost brand-new construction, either the insulation is horrible or the person above me really is excessively loud. I hear her stomping literally the entire time I am home every day… During the week, from 6:30 a.m. until I go to work around 9, and then the second I get home from work it’s already going and lasts until about 1 in the morning. I can’t imagine what requires stomping and making noise for that much of the day, and honestly I am losing sleep … 1 to 6:30 a.m. is the only quiet time I’m afforded?? I realize that moving into an apartment runs the risk of *some* noise, but some does not equal constant. I’ve told her once and she said she didn’t realize (which I completely understand) and I even pointed out that it’s possible that the floors are just thin and it’s not her fault but if she could just try to please be conscious of the fact that I can hear her not walking, but stomping, like she’s about to fall through my ceiling. She said she’d try, but it only lasted about 2 days.

So I am now fairly certain of two things: 1) it’s very possible to live in an apartment that is built well and has solid floors and good insulation, and 2) people do have the capacity to be considerate, even if they choose to ignore it.

I really didn’t want to go to my landlord because it honestly feels almost childish… but at this point, I have no choice but to either try to have them enforce some quiet or let me out of my lease so that I can get more than 5 hours of sleep and peace and quiet. Next time I move though, I’ll be going back to a smaller community like the ones I’ve lived in before, and I’ll be “test-driving” the apartment before I lease.

So you’re not alone, just do what feels right… honestly. Some people are going to tell you “buy a house if you want peace and quiet”, others will say they “shouldn’t be inconvenienced just so you can have quiet”, etc. etc. They’re wrong. You as a human being living in the free-land have every right to rent an apartment AND have peace and quiet - the two were never meant to be mutually exclusive.

I had an issue with people living in the apartment complex next to mine. Since it was not my complex I went straight to there apartment manager.

The issue was an alarm radio blaring at 2AM in the morning. I totally get we need alarms to get up for whatever work we have. I also understand that some people are heavy sleepers but to have it continue every day for an hour and a half is where I draw the line.

I called and left a message that simply stated the apartment management had a week to resolve this issue with the noise or I would start calling the police every day till it stopped. Harsh maybe, but I don’t pay almost 1000 in rent per month to deal with none-sense.

Sometimes we have no choise where we end up living but have respect for those around you.

Another comment, not all condos are constructed of high-quality soundproof materials either, mine sure as h-ll isn’t, I can hear every noise my upstairs neighbor makes, although she is just plain noisy, previous owners weren’t quite as much, they walked softer, didn’t drop crap all the time or slam doors. I have been blessed with my shared wall rental neighbors being quiet, occasionally I hear their TV, but that sort of thing doesn’t bother me, it’s the damn foot-stomping above me that grates on my nerves so bad. So, buying or renting a condo doesn’t always ensure peace and quiet, concrete in between floors and walls does, but most condos nowadays are wood-frame with, like you said, just wood wall studs or ceiling joists and 2 pieces of drywall separating you from your upstairs or next-door neighbor. I got so mad one night late that I actually slapped the wall so hard up near the ceiling that I accidentally put my palm right through the drywall, damn glad I didn’t hit a stud, probably would have broke my hand. Of course 4 days of patching, sanding, repatching, sanding, then painting made me learn my lesson, retaliating doesn’t do a bit of good at all…

Back in October of 06 I moved into a really nice upscale high rise apt building, I had a beautiful huge 2 bedroom on the 18th floor with a view of the water and city and all was perfect, the people above me I never once heard, and the neighbor with whom my master bedroom was sharing a wall with was an elderly woman that was extremely quiet, much like myself. I could fall right asleep and not hear a single sound in the building at night and always slept like a baby, this actually went on for 2 whole years and then August 08 she moved out and this really noisy military guy with his loud screamer of a girlfriend moved in and everything quickly went downhill. They would come in everynight of the week at 1am and stay up until 4 just having loud rough sex and never would shut-up and when I just tried to deal with it by leaving my TV on all night they had the nerve to say I was to noisy and this aggrivated me so bad its the mentality of “I will do whatever I want and be as loud as I want but when Im ready to be quiet you better be too” I filed complaint after complaint nothing ever worked. I even ran into him in the elevator one day and was very politely in asking him to be a little quieter and his response “Nope, go F**k yourself” this guy was the biggest pain in the A**. So if thats not bad enough someone moves in above that stomps and sounds like they are dropping things all the time, at this point Im just now sleep deprived and suffering from just severe depression, the worst part about my neighbors was the fact that they moved in literally 3 days after I signed a lease for another year, talk about bad luck! Anyway my point is I tried and tried and management was no help at all they acted so apologetic and helpful but in the end didnt do sh*t, so this miserableness went on from August 08 until november 08, what happened, did I move out? NOPE it got so bad that I literally didnt care if I would go broke I was going to get some sleep, so I rented a winter rental in a high rise condo about 20 minutes from where I was living from november 1st until the end of June so my solution was not a good one I was essentially paying double expenses for double homes and literally left my noisy apartment vacant for those months, the worst part being the rent in that noisy place was $1,585 a month, and for the winter months I had a beautiful 2 bedroom oceanfront condo for only $1,050 a month so here are some differences I noticed.

*Obviously newer high rise APARTMENTS are built in the cheapest way possible even if they’re meant to be upscale, you are sharing a wall that is literally just attached with studs and no insulation between.

*My high rise winter condo I rented was DEAD SILENT because being that they are relatively expensive condos the walls were actually solid cement with a firewall in between every wall just as double security for noise. The only noise I could hear was ocasional hall noise when I was in my kitchen, but that was no big deal, I sometimes slept with my tv in the room on until late and my next door neighbor told me they could not hear a peep and I could not hear them either, so they obviously put more quality into a high rise condo vs. apartment complex.

-Anyway my point is my solution wasnt the best being that it was costing me almost $2,700 a month just to get sleep, 2 houses, 2 utility bills, etc, etc… and when I had to move back july 1st to my apartment those aggrivating people were still there but even worse since they obviously figured out I was gone for so long, point is from july 1 until August 30th when my lease FINALLY ENDED was miserable I was alernate between sleeping on the couch and trying to sleep in my bed late at night after they were asleep some people have told me to just sleep in my other room since I had a 2 BR and I know I could have but the point is I wasnt paying almost 1600 a month to not even be able to use my own MASTER BEDROOM.

MY ADVICE CONDOS ARE AWESOME, APARTMENTS FORGET IT

I now live in a house and I feel like I have my life back, its so amazing! Good luck everyone!!