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We just moved out of our apartments! I couldn't be happier. We had a complete nut job woman living above us. Cops always coming and going, DYFS, 2 am drunk fights complete with arrests, oh it was like something out of Jerry Springer. They were so noisy. And our complaints were not addressed by our slumlord. They'd wake my baby constently, and I worked nights, so often I'd get no sleep.
Then one AFTERNOON my son (now 4, but at the time was maybe 2) was in the kitchen which we usually keep gated, and slammed the pots and pans cabin open and shut, I'm not kidding, maybe 3 times, and our upstairs neighbor banged back! Well, I had finally had enough and I flew up there and completely out of character nearly physically hurt her. I had been tired of them disrupting our lives for 2 years, and the first time we make noise, she bangs back.
Needless to say, I should ahve handled it better, but sometimes emotions get the best of us.
What my neighbor didn't know, was all the personal stress I was dealing with, including my DS being diagnosed with autism.
The two years following, we barely taked, and seeing how the apartment complex did nothing to address noise complains, I was "lively" at 5am, when they were loud the night before. Civil? No. But I had tried for two years to go about it the right way, and only hit dead ends.
However, as the years went on, my autistic son became very loud, and still in. He has a lot fo very vocal tantrums, and went through about a year where he'd walk up in the middle of the night screaming, sometimes for like an hour.
As for the people across the hall, it turned out they had an autistic child too, and they were understanding of all the noise coming from our apartment.
I'd take screaming kids and obnoxious notes over loud sex-couple any day. At my old apartment, the upstairs neighbor (a single guy in his 20s) would have REALLY, REALLY loud sex at all hours. It wasn't just annoyingly rude, it was embarrassing when we'd have company over.
I am sure that in many cases, apartment living for a new parent is not ideal but is the more financially sound option. My sister just had a baby a few months back, and though she and her fiance work, they can afford an apartment, groceries, and necessities for the baby. That's it. They would love to have a home, more ideal to having a baby that makes noise, but you know, we'd all love to have things we just can't afford. It's definitely not their intention to be an imposition-you can't control some aspects of life all the time.
I would agree. Which is why I dont think it matters if its a dog or a child. I'm of the opinion that your rights end where mine begin, and i think i have a right to not have someone impeding on my space constantly. I feel the same about other public places. There are reasonable noise levels and behaviors, and unreasonable ones. The burden is not on the one whose space is being invaded to change the situation. The onus is on the one who's being rude.
Can i be understanding of a parent who has a constantly screaming, sick baby? I could. But why is it on ME to lose sleep, not be able to relax in my own home, etc. When I still have to get up and go to work, and deal with all the responsibilities in MY life-- and for all the yelling about how nobody knows what you(pl) have to deal with, there seems to be no realization that you(pl) have no idea what your(pl) neighbors are dealing with in their own lives. The last thing someone else needs is your(pl) drama on top of their own, and it is so rude to expect everyone else to deal with your (pl) choices.
ETA: Since I think someone will respond that it's not a choice to have a sick baby, etc. I'll clarify that the choice in this situation is to remain living in a location that is not fitting to your situation. In other examples, just having loud children, or energetic dogs, etc., those are choices.
Mom of screaming sick baby here
The majority of new parents simply can't up and move into a house away from people, if we could, we probably wouldn't have lived in an apartment anyways. Nobody wants to live in an apartment with a baby if a house was an option.
We did end up moving into a house, purely because my husband could afford it on one salary. But most young families do not have that kind of money. I know when I was single and childless, it was far easier for me to move out of a crappy apartment situation (I had some weirdo keep putting condoms on my car and leaving roses at my door, eek!) than to expect some poor mom with a young baby to leave and find housing away from other people.
I actually understand him He's under stress, having a small child, having to put up with his (hard definable at times) need, his wife's needs, his wfe's hormones, his job, his new apartment ... I'd loose it too, and, to be honest, as far as I know myself, Id write the exact same note. not meaning any harm, but just being pissed and wanting not to be talked to
as a neighbor, I'd say "so what?!" to myself and compliment the baby on various occasions
I guess my point is more that when Person X is the one disturbing everyone else, even if they feel they can't help it, they need to realize they have NO right to get snotty with people who are tired of it. THEY are the ones disturbing the peace, and being a nuisance. They need to change things on their end, not just expect everyone else to just deal with it, or uproot their lives because misery loves company.
I agree - to a point. People whose children are obnoxiously loud or intrusive because they haven't been taught not to be, and people who keep loud pets in places that are unsuited for such animals do need to simply take responsibility for their households. However, I think that when dealing with really difficult issues for which there are no simple fixes (or possibly no fixes at all), such as sick infants and children with major mental/emotional/behavioral issues, it's understandable that parents or other caregivers get worn down and snappish about complaints that they can't do much about. I don't really understand how your statement above squares with the one from your first post on this thread (below). Were you being sarcastic?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brown
People like that are annoying. I'm going to put a sign up that says "If you're coming to complain about the noise, don't bother. We have a DOG. They bark. We're trying our best. Suck it, Trebek."
Children and dogs make noise. That is just the way it is.
I have a huge woofer living on one side of me. He is a beautiful hunting dog.
The landlords can't discriminate against people renting with children.
Most cities have an ordinance against excessive noise before and after a certain hour. And there is a curfew for children under a certain age.
There are all adult communities. But I live in a neighborhood with 4 children right next door to me. They make a lot of noise. But they visit me and I give them books and kids movies. They like me. We have long discussions about fantastical adventures, and bugs, and firetrucks and airplanes. And I teach them silly kid songs. And I listen to them. They have a lot to say. None of the other neighbors associate with the kids but me.
And I have a noisy schoolyard behind me.
But I like children. Noise and all. I like to see them enjoying life. They are a lot of fun.
When I was a kid we had a couple of old grouchy neighbors. I made up my mind not to be the neighborhood grouch when I grew up. It has paid off. The kids really like me...and so do their parents. But I have a really hateful neighbor who will call the cops when the 4 little kids congregate on my porch to talk to me. They are ages 2,5,7 and 11.
She considers them to be an unruly gang! LOL
I just had a new neighbor move in with 4 more kids. And a couple of my friends are all up in arms about the kids. I hear one hateful complaint after another.
The kids are 2,5,6 and 14. The 5 year old girl is just darling. The 2 year old is so cute. The 14 year old can ride his bike 30 miles. OUCH! And the 6 year old is still shy of me. So I showed him a couple of Monarch butterfly caterpillars I am raising in my milkweed. Now he knows not to hurt them because they will be flying over 2,000 miles to Mexico later in the year to overwinter. And I let them all pick my raspberries. And I let them take home a little garden toad for an hour. When my pears get ripe next month, I'll invite the little ones over to pick a few. It's great to help build happy childhood memories for the little ones.
Summer is a great time to get to know my new neighbors.
I WOULD GIVE UP CHOCOLATE, BUT I'M NO QUITTER.
We had a cool neighbor lady like that growing up and she made our summers so much fun!! those kids will ALWAYS remember you!
We also had a hateful type of lady who tried to yell at us. Turns out she was just lonely and sad. Allergic to animals so no pets. Two children living far away from her. I had the good sense to bring her baked goods a few times and visit with her, and the yelling stopped. She died a few years later from cancer and was in a lot of pain before hand.
I think often about both of those neighbors and what I learned from them.
People make complaints about babies crying? What on earth is anyone expected to do about that, smother the baby? We're living next door to a baby, and yes, it cries, and it even has the audacity to cry at night. It can be off-putting when we're, erm, in bed but busy, and it's not great to be woken up in the middle of the night by it, but there are thick walls in this block and it must be far, far worse for the poor parents who are getting sleep-deprived on a regular basis.
On the other hand, I had several years of local children playing outside my bedroom window for months on end every year. They would literally scream for eight hours a day, and they were either young enough that they should have had adult supervision or old enough that they should have been at school. I spend almost all my time in bed due to chronic illness and nap during the day, so this was really unpleasant to live with. Eventually I did try to take action, but it turned out to be impossible to get anything done, especially as I had no idea who they were or which flat they were from.
This summer I've had a fun time of it trying to get the council to act on one of the local pubs. Every summer they have an outdoor band in their beer garden, with amplification. It's extremely loud in my flat which is two streets away; if you're in the street where it's going on, you're pretty much shaking from the sound. Unfortunately, the council have to witness the sound a certain number of times before they can take action. A lot of times I don't bother - there are plenty of occasions when you don't actually want a random stranger from Environmental Health coming to your flat, especially in the evening and later - but when I do, the problem is that it takes about half an hour to process the call, and then at least another half hour for the guys to turn up, and they have an incredible knack for turning up two minutes after the music has finished, or when the band is between sets.
At least it's not like my previous flat. The first floor neighbours on one side were total racists. They were happily spreading malicious gossip about the Pakistani family who ran the corner shop, and about me because they knew I was Jewish, and also for the crime of being the youngest person in the block. Apparently, every time someone slammed the front door, it was my fault. The first floor neighbour on my side was a dotty old woman who would pause only to put on her skirt and her "fang" (as she called it) before swanning down to my flat whenever she detected someone male visiting me. She kept on coming on to several of my friends, who were a third of her age and gay anyway, and she actually groped the guy from the council who was fixing the front door. She was convinced that the guy upstairs was sexually harassing her, which I think was delusion as well. He had certainly never shown the slightest bit of interest in any women that I'd seen, including me. And then one day when I was visiting my current flat prior to moving into it, I missed a huge drama with a bunch of uniformed and plain clothes cops breaking down this guy's door (apparently all his rooms were padlocked) and taking him away in an armoured van. Though he was brought back a few months later.
Undoubtedly the worst neighbour noise experience I've had was a previous flat in a fairly rough area of town, where I had to call the police because a neighbour's down was being broken down. The police turned up and accepted the guy's excuse that he was just worried about his girlfriend, even though it had domestic violence written all over it. (This is the usual police response to domestic violence, they even get trained in how to brush off cases. My best friend's sister is a copper, and when she was working in the Family Protection Unit I heard some pretty horrible things about how they're trained.) I heard the woman going down the stairs with a friend saying to her, "You've got to report him, he's beating you black and blue." The guy didn't live there, so I slipped an anonymous note under her door with her name on it and with the phone number of Women's Aid inside. I really hope she was OK, I never found out what happened.
I'd put a nice sticky note on their door that says.
"Don't judge my life just because I choose not to have kids, and you know nothing about it. Thanks"
Myself I try and stay away from places that a filled with kids and even people my own age. (animals I can tolerate as long as the dog isn't barking 24/7) I had a nightmare of a time when my landlord went to germany for the summer (she lives above me) she rented out the place to 3 people are my age...rude, inconsiderate and I swear they just moved out of mommy and daddy's house...either way I refused to converse with them and when they took my stuff out of the dyer while it was drying I locked them out of the laundry room for two weeks. (Don't touch my sh1t, especially when I'm not home ALL day and they were they could have did laundry, or waited 30 more minutes until my stuff was dried and use the dryer since they were up until 3 in the morning.) also they walked like elephants at three in the morning, dropping stuff on the floor over my head and moving furniture...Let's just say they got the hit to stfu, after I played Hanson MMMbop repeatedly for an hour at 3am. They seemed to quite down and not be so disrespectful in the middle of the night. (that wasn't the first time they woke me up either, it was pretty much that whole week, but that one night I couldn't fall back to sleep and I was p1ssed... I work 3 jobs, so my sleep is precious...LOL)
He's under stress, having a small child, having to put up with his (hard definable at times) need, his wife's needs, his wfe's hormones, his job, his new apartment ... I'd loose it too, and, to be honest, as far as I know myself, Id write the exact same note. not meaning any harm, but just being pissed and wanting not to be talked to 
