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Loud TV Neighbor
wallabeeX
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
About a month ago I noticed the person who lives downstairs from me started watching TV pretty late at night. It was definitely all of the sudden, and it seems like he's either watching it super late, or he's just falling asleep in front of the TV. The house has pretty thin walls all around, and the volume he leaves it at has me at that frustrating "almost able to hear the words to what's being said on the TV" level. No one else in the house has this same problem - I think I just share the walls with his living room or something. Some nights it doesn't bother me at all, other nights I simply can't sleep until he wakes up and shuts it off, which has been as late as 4am in the past.
I grew up rural and so this is sort of a new problem for me. What's the best way to handle this kind of situation? I've tried ear plugs, which just made it harder to sleep, and sleeping pills just have too much of an affect on my following morning. He holds pretty strange hours so I can't reliably catch him at home before 11pm. Would it be awkward of me to leave a note in his mailbox alerting him of my inability to sleep and asking him to turn it down or put a sleep mode on the TV?
I grew up rural and so this is sort of a new problem for me. What's the best way to handle this kind of situation? I've tried ear plugs, which just made it harder to sleep, and sleeping pills just have too much of an affect on my following morning. He holds pretty strange hours so I can't reliably catch him at home before 11pm. Would it be awkward of me to leave a note in his mailbox alerting him of my inability to sleep and asking him to turn it down or put a sleep mode on the TV?
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Try to catch him in person if you can. Maybe try to see if he is around on the weekend. If not, leave him a very POLITE note. Choose your words carefully.
Definitely not an unusual occurrence, and not something to worry much about.
Since most people don't like confrontation and this is a little thing he will most likely just turn down the tv and not stop by to talk to you about it.
If he does politely point out your problems with his volume.
Satans..... hints.....
You should only leave a note if it's completely impossible to speak to him in person about it, which may well be the case and if so you should try to be as polite as possible about it.
Also, as a night owl myself, (check the time on this post) please don't imply to the guy that he shouldn't have his TV on late. This is still a free country and he's still allowed to watch TV in his own home any time he wants.
Oh man, I had the same issue with some room-mates before. Best part was when they put notes out about eating their food or not cleaning out the sink. I never cooked, or ate at home as I was working 2 jobs and had very little time to be there other than sleep.
So I took action.
I walked over, knocked on the door, and when they answered - I held out my hand and introduced myself. I told them that we're neighbours and somewhere along the line we just stopped speaking to each other. I didnt say that I was right or that they were in the wrong, but said that I'm quite a nice guy and that if they'd just asked, I would have been more than happy to help them out. They apologised, we sorted things out and I told them my name again so that they would know it wasn't "wanker" - They were so embarrassed, and now things are fine.
People just arent friendly any more and if you dont personally talk to people, they just become "that guy". I dont like notes very much.
We've been on bad terms ever since. If it bugged them that much, they should have came and told us in person, instead of getting the police involved for something that didn't need the police to be involved in.
So try to talk in person. Or leave a polite letter.
Since we're also swapping stories (and mine is about parking too!): Once while visiting some friends of mine I parked between their duplex and a neighboring duplex because there was nowhere else to park. Apparently this bothered the couple that lived there and they decided to leave a note on my windshield to tell me. The note was polite enough, and I never parked there again, but they did make the mistake of not proofreading carefully. Being the dick that I am, I marked it like a school paper and left it on their door.
As I said, using the TV being on to stop by and talk to him isn't really an option. He typically comes home and turns the TV between the hours of 10 and 12, and I feel pretty awkward rushing downstairs and knocking on his door that late at night. When I get home that late from work, the last thing I want is to talk with my neighbor.
I tried the white-noise music, and it helps. In fact, I'd go that route entirely, but my apartment has three people in it and as I said, the walls are incredibly thin. Thin as in "I would have never moved here had I known", or thin as in "I can hear my room-mate sniff when she's in bed", so turning on music sort of shifts the problem from my downstairs neighbor and myself to myself and my room-mates.
And, so we're clear, this is a neighbor, not a room-mate. It wouldn't be a passive aggressive note between two people who see each other regularly, it would be a note from one stranger to another, and the first contact between the two. I think I'll go the letter route and just leave a number he can call me at since we both have such strange "house hours" that seem to overlap (I don't get home until 10 or 11 most nights too, and I'm gone by 8 .. I pretty much just sleep and shower at home and that's it).
If you leave a note he might ignore it, or turn it up louder, or leave it on while he's asleep. Or he could be a nice guy & turn it down/off. But if you talk to him in person, even if he's kind of a jerk he'll probably agree with you. Even guys who you'd think would have a chip on their shoulder respond better when you talk to them in person. It helps you point out that you don't think they're scum; you just think their TV is loud and projects through the walls.
As I said, using the TV being on to stop by and talk to him isn't really an option. He typically comes home and turns the TV between the hours of 10 and 12, and I feel pretty awkward rushing downstairs and knocking on his door that late at night. When I get home that late from work, the last thing I want is to talk with my neighbor.
I tried the white-noise music, and it helps. In fact, I'd go that route entirely, but my apartment has three people in it and as I said, the walls are incredibly thin. Thin as in "I would have never moved here had I known", or thin as in "I can hear my room-mate sniff when she's in bed", so turning on music sort of shifts the problem from my downstairs neighbor and myself to myself and my room-mates.
And, so we're clear, this is a neighbor, not a room-mate. It wouldn't be a passive aggressive note between two people who see each other regularly, it would be a note from one stranger to another, and the first contact between the two. I think I'll go the letter route and just leave a number he can call me at since we both have such strange "house hours" that seem to overlap (I don't get home until 10 or 11 most nights too, and I'm gone by 8 .. I pretty much just sleep and shower at home and that's it).
While I agree you don't want to imply what a person can and cannot do, most states have laws strictly disallowing any noise being heard outside of your house after certain hours. Like in my state you can be fined, starting at 50 dollars then doubling for each infraction up to 1000 dollars if a law enforcement officer can hear noise from outside of your house/building after 11pm.
That aside, just be careful with that note. It's very easy to write something down with an intended tone and have it completely mis-interpreted.
Good tips for neighborly note writing:
-Leave your name, printed and legible. Nothing is more reproachful than an anonymous note.
-Leave contact info.
-Do not threaten anything(legal action, etc.).
A note is fine if you absolutely cannot find me home but I'd rather you come and say "hey dude, I'm having a hard time sleeping with the TV at that volume at X time, can you turn it down a bit?"
A note goes in the garbage and I will most likely forget, a face to face has more weight. I know your hours don't mesh but this is a 2 minute conversation at most and if he gets home at 10pm, we're talking 10:02pm. There is no excuse for not going to talk to the guy.
also, say please
ie "Hi there, I'm *** and I live at ***, beside you. I was just wondering if you could please try and turn your tv down a little at night, as I can generally hear it from my house. You don't need to turn it off entirely, just down a little would be really nice. Thanks, -***"
The newer posts have dissuaded me from doing a note, I'm just going to try to catch him at home. As you might imagine, this is one of those things that I don't really notice as being a problem until it's 2am and the only noise anywhere in the world is this guy's TV. I've interacted with him in the past, he asked if I needed help with my car when I was doing my brakes, seemed really nice. I don't anticipate it being an issue, it's mostly just my "Any calls or unexpected house guests after 10pm is totally not okay" ism that's kept me from knocking on his door.
Oh, and to one of the above posters - I'm not saying he can't listen to his TV, you're damn right it's his right to. It's mostly why I've tried everything else up to this point. I wasn't going to even confront him about it on the assumption that I was moving soon, but it's looking like I'm going to be here through the summer.
Firstly, unless the person is deaf as a doornail they probably know they're disturbing someone. So that tells me they're disrespectful.
Secondly, every time I've tried to approach someone politely about them making too much noise or a similar issue they've simply told me to 'f off'. And I was very polite each time. A few times my wife took the initiative and it happened to her as well. And it was a man who told her to beat it, then slammed his door in her face.
So this statement - 'people just aren't friendly anymore' holds true on both sides of the coin. With so many people behaving this way when asked to keep noise down or the like, it's no wonder some of us just call the landlord or the cops or leave a nasty note. Who wants to be told to 'f off' ?
I'm not nice about it anymore. If you're of sound mind and have something tuned up extremely loud or park in a spot that isn't allotted to you then you don't deserve respect. You deserve action taken against you. I don't kiss anyone's butt anymore and I don't make apologies about it. The world is full of jerks and I'll be one right back. Simple.
For the record, I've been at my current residence for 6 years and not one person has ever complained about me being noisy or anything of the nature. Believe me, my building manager would let me know if someone did complain. In a heartbeat.