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Loud neighbors
MurphysParadox
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I live on the middle floor of a three story apartment building. The layout is long, with a living room/dining room open area leading to a hallway which has a small bedroom off from the side and a master at the end; the entire place is only 1000 sqft. A few months ago, a group of three guys moves in above us. Ever since they moved it, it has been nothing but extremely loud music.
They love what I have come to call Mexican Polka. It has an extremely heavy bass; so much that when they play it in their living room, we can hear it clearly in the master bedroom. The guy in the second bedroom picked up GTA 4 when it came out and I have, on several occasions, been able to tell what mission he was on by the volume of the game. At the current time of posting, they are going all out - Loud FPS + Loud Rap (I can only make out that it is a latino rapper, but the beat sucks), and playing the Polka in their living room. There isn't a place in the apartment that is safe from the noise.
We have complained to management several times with no results. We have gone upstairs and pounded on their door with about 50% success (25% actually results in someone answering the door, but they either don't speak english or at least pretend not to). We have pounded on our ceiling (75% effective). This time, they responded by turning things up.
Options:
1) Complain to management again - Hasn't worked before and there isn't anyone there at this time of night.
2) Pound on the ceiling/door - Tried that; made it worse.
3) Call the cops - This is an option I am loathe to perform because the cops won't (can't) do anything but ask them to be quite. The guys upstairs will just turn it up again later. This also escalates the situation into places that leave me concerned. These guys, if at all aggressive or angry, know where I live and which car I drive and can easily retaliate in ways that cannot be associated back to them.
4) Fire with Fire - If it were the people below us, I'd have already flipped our speaker system down to the floor and given them some Lords of Acid or Aphex Twin (and not his Ambient album). But they aren't and I can't just do a free-for-all sonic assault because I have my own neighbors.
5) Move out - Working on this as fast as the Real Estate folks can get contracts signed and the Bank can get mortgages approved.
Anyone have other suggestions or lessons learned?
They love what I have come to call Mexican Polka. It has an extremely heavy bass; so much that when they play it in their living room, we can hear it clearly in the master bedroom. The guy in the second bedroom picked up GTA 4 when it came out and I have, on several occasions, been able to tell what mission he was on by the volume of the game. At the current time of posting, they are going all out - Loud FPS + Loud Rap (I can only make out that it is a latino rapper, but the beat sucks), and playing the Polka in their living room. There isn't a place in the apartment that is safe from the noise.
We have complained to management several times with no results. We have gone upstairs and pounded on their door with about 50% success (25% actually results in someone answering the door, but they either don't speak english or at least pretend not to). We have pounded on our ceiling (75% effective). This time, they responded by turning things up.
Options:
1) Complain to management again - Hasn't worked before and there isn't anyone there at this time of night.
2) Pound on the ceiling/door - Tried that; made it worse.
3) Call the cops - This is an option I am loathe to perform because the cops won't (can't) do anything but ask them to be quite. The guys upstairs will just turn it up again later. This also escalates the situation into places that leave me concerned. These guys, if at all aggressive or angry, know where I live and which car I drive and can easily retaliate in ways that cannot be associated back to them.
4) Fire with Fire - If it were the people below us, I'd have already flipped our speaker system down to the floor and given them some Lords of Acid or Aphex Twin (and not his Ambient album). But they aren't and I can't just do a free-for-all sonic assault because I have my own neighbors.
5) Move out - Working on this as fast as the Real Estate folks can get contracts signed and the Bank can get mortgages approved.
Anyone have other suggestions or lessons learned?
Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong will go wrong.
Murphy's Paradox: The more you plan, the more that can go wrong. The less you plan, the less likely your plan will succeed.
Murphy's Paradox: The more you plan, the more that can go wrong. The less you plan, the less likely your plan will succeed.
MurphysParadox on
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If you know any of your other neighbors, encourage them to report these folks as well.
Agreed on both. If you check you local municipal code, there should be noise standard which they can actually be cited for violating, especially if it is "nighttime hours."
I'm actually dealing with some of this myself right now as some asshole has moved in upstairs who doesn't seem to know how to use the volume control on his TV (which I think has a sub woofer on it), and I'm pretty sure has been making illegal modifications to the unit (installing satellite dishes, installed windows conditioners which don't seem to have any support and could easily fall out of the window and kill someone, etc.). Seriously, I hear him talking on his phone all the time, and he really is an obnoxious, self-centered asshole. Sorry, venting a little.
Yeah, this probably won't do much good. If there is a specific section in the lease that deals with noise issues, keep bringing this up repeatedly, but by the time you annoy them into doing something...Hopefully you'd be gone anyway.
As you noted, will only make things worse.
Well, this pretty much shoots down the method I used to nullify the idiot in my case - although he was a skinny lil' vegetarian pot-smoker, I don't know what your neighbors are like obviously. I would note that I think generally cops won't mention who actually made a complaint, but again, I don't know how hard (or not) it would be for your neighbors to figure it out.
If you like, let me know what part of NoVA you live in, I can try and find out if there are any appropriate laws covering this sort of issue. The cops WILL eventually do something that will stick if you get them out there enough times - especially if the neighbors are doing something else illegal in plain sight on top of the noise. Depending on the exact law, there could be fines, eventually escalating to jail time with enough violations. Chances are there is a certain time of night past which no noise above a certain level is allowed.
If you have neighbors, get them to complain and call the police also. As far as retaliation, the more people you can get involved, the less chance there is of you being targeted specifically.
The final straw in my case ended up being an incident where the jerk upstairs had his buddies over for a loud party starting about 6 PM, culminating with me calling the cops when they started having a drunken shouting match around 10:30 or so, complete with loud music and literally slamming themselves and other random objects on the floor. The officer was NOT amused, I can tell you.
Things had already escalated over the last couple months from polite trips to his door, to shouting matches at 3 AM, to calling the cops when he decided to have a dance party with a few friends at midnight on a Sunday.
Yeah, as with #2, this won't help.
This is probably your best choice long-term, aside from getting the neighbors evicted and/or thrown in jail.
You have already said you don't want to call the cops for fear of retaliation, this is sound, unfortunately, Mexicans tend to be very violent and seek vengance by any means necessary, no joke.
Sorry I can't give better advice, but I normally never enter into a fight when there are so many obstacles to achieve victory.
Plus a lot of times these tickets double in price each time.
Wow, thats some solid advice. Especially since you said they seemed afraid to confront you in english.
MWO: Adamski
This sounds like it would be hilarious and useful!
If you then call the cops a week later they will think they pissed off some spanish dude!
I live in the same general area as the OP, and I can't say this is really true, unless you're dealing with gang members or something. It's more likely that these guys just have a very different standard of what is normal as far as noise.
Not saying that makes their behavior any more acceptable, but assuming they're all violent thugs just because they're Mexican isn't going to help anything.
The best options remain either to move, or start getting the police (preferably with a spanish-speaking officer along) involved repeatedly instead/in the meantime.
Unless, of course, they can actually read the language. Babelfish fucks up a lot of grammar.
Uh, can we avoid stereotyping people? I'm Mexican, and I don't recall going into blind rages the times people have asked me to lower the volume on my games.
And if you want, write the note here and I'll translate it for you.
It's actually pretty good if don't try to use slang or any other common English mannerisms when it comes to short-speak and the like.
"Let's go get some pie." Might not translate so well.
Whereas
"We should travel to the market to purchase a pie." Might translate perfectly into the other language.
-Terry Pratchett
Then if they respond with "callate pinche gringos" that means "Sorry, we'll be sure to turn it down"
But I do think your best bet is to move. Calling the cops will help, they can give a fine as mentioned earlier, but um, then you might face some retribution. I had the problem with loud neighbors back in college, but it was college, so to be expected. Getting a note and having it translated should probably be the first step. If that doesn't help, then call the cops and see if that helps. If that doesn't or you don't want to go down that road, move out immediately. If you have a rental contract, hopefully management would be smart enough to let you out of it because of the people above you, particularly if they're not going to do anything about it.
Steam
XBOX
The one saving grace here is that the guys upstairs usually cut the noise around 10-11... and then turn it back on around 2 am at just loud enough to keep you up if you are already up but not enough to wake you. The real fun time is when they hit the music at 6 am Sunday mornings and wake me up. This makes me sad.
As for their specific country of origin. They are Mexican/South American. I have only mentioned this because they do fit several of the stereotypes (music choice, language, etc). My fear of retaliation has nothing to do with this - I'd be just as concerned with any trio of 20-something males that show a disregard for noise concerns.
Thank you for the offers to translate and to look up sound ordinances. If it comes to that, I will take you guys up on the former and investigate the later myself. For now I shall remain following option #5.
Murphy's Paradox: The more you plan, the more that can go wrong. The less you plan, the less likely your plan will succeed.
If you like the apartment you shouldn't let some people ruin your situation because you are following the rules.
water spirals the wrong way out the sink
Oh come on. It was probably a joke, but even then the fact that they do not speak english can lead people to think that way. They sure aren't tourists if they've taken up residence in Northern Virginia and have lived there for the past few months.
it wasn't the most serious suggestion. don't feed the trolls or something, even me. guess I should leave the tasteless jokes on fark.com only where they are expected.
Steam
XBOX
That could work, and ties into something I just thought of. You could record the music when it plays, if it is loud enough. Just record it, state the day and time, and use it as evidence for the landlord. If they don't get off their butts and do something, it can help in breaking the lease in your favor.
Murphy's Paradox: The more you plan, the more that can go wrong. The less you plan, the less likely your plan will succeed.
Good tip. If you don't start following it yourself I'll give you a card too.
The report a post system exists for a reason.
CUZ THERE'S SOMETHING IN THE MIDDLE AND IT'S GIVING ME A RASH
they'll know what it means
Murphy's Paradox: The more you plan, the more that can go wrong. The less you plan, the less likely your plan will succeed.
Call them, several times if you have to.
Of course, they may just be annoying, but ultimately peaceable, 20-somethings. However, given how much a set of tires cost and my general pessimism, I'm not inclined to try it out.
Murphy's Paradox: The more you plan, the more that can go wrong. The less you plan, the less likely your plan will succeed.
No offense, but that's a pretty weak reason to not call the cops. If this is a real concern (do you have any reason to think they would actually do this?) you can voice your concerns to the police.
Honestly, you're more likely to get your tires slashed if you try to do something directly to them (like banging on the walls all the time).