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Apartment etiquette halp
Belasco32
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My other half, @spool32 , and I moved from the quaint spot in the 'burbs where we'd done all the raising of the family stuff over the last 15ish years in the Austin, TX area to an apartment that's smack in the middle of Uptown (they don't say downtown) Charlotte, NC. Before we bought our house in Austin we'd lived in rental houses in Ireland for about 4yrs, a rental house in Austin before that, and if you reach back a solid 20 years you can get back to the last time we lived in an apartment.
A couple of things to note ('cause I dunno what's important in this and so I'm opting for the more is better idea):
The last time we lived in an apartment it was a typical apartment complex with each building having its own number and being 3 stories tall. There was a clubhouse that was attached to the leasing office and that's where the pool was, etc. We were in our early 20s and had an infant, a 2yr old (y'all know her as @Blameless Cleric ), and a cat. Now we're in a pretty fancy high-rise, it's the flagship for its parent company - we have a 24hr concierge, valet parking, and we live on the fanciest floor at the top with our two big dogs (a St. Bernard, Mouse, and a German Shepherd, Ace, who is my service dog).
Part of why I need a service dog is part of why we stopped renting. In Ireland I was attacked by an ex-landlord in a house he didn't own and then stalked by him for several months before finally moving back home a decidedly more broken human. Yes, unfortunately, this is relevant. The other reason I need Ace is because I have Fibromyalgia (FM) and he helps in a ton of little ways, and some not so little. FM also means I need every tiny bit of sleep I can eek out, a decent night's sleep can be the difference between a good day and an awful one.
After we signed the lease in our new, fancy place someone who works here decided to have an issue with me (basically, the apartment wasn't ready when we moved in and they'd gotten in trouble and blamed us) and confronted me when I was alone in our new apartment with one of their employees as a witness. The management took things seriously when we took this to them, but it was hugely triggering for me and left me very unsure.
Because of the incident with the employee here and because of over all PTSD I can't tell when I'm having a rational issue with our neighbors' lives impacting ours. Unfortunately, because it's been so bloody long since we were in an apartment and since we've never been in a super fancy place before, spool32 isn't sure of the etiquette, either.
Right, sorry, I'm getting to the question -
We have a new neighbor who has set up their sound system so it's really pretty annoying. The folk who lived in that apartment before these people were "party people", but we only ever heard them once and they apologized to us out of nowhere the next day. We know their apartment is set up so their kitchen and one of their bathrooms shares the wall with our bedroom. The first several times the sound was an issue spool tried going over and knocking on their door (this wasn't late at night or anything like that), but they won't answer... so we've had to resort to asking the concierge to contact them for us. The first late night (after midnight) issue was really bad and after that the music hasn't been as loud, but nearly every morning around 10am the vibration and some of the sound from the bass wakes me up. Last night they started playing music around 1:45am and finally the concierge had to come up to speak to them since they weren't answering them - which didn't happen until close to 2:30 am. They turned the music down for a while, then back up, but not as loudly, about 15 minutes later.
We're to the point where we're thinking of moving our bed to our interior wall, even though that will mean neither of us will have room for a nightstand and one of us will have their side of the bed up against a wall. The thing is, I don't think we should have to rearrange our entire bedroom into a configuration the shape of the room isn't really meant for and inconvenience ourselves because the new folk won't keep their music down. The alternative feels like being an asshole, though... and I'm afraid of them lashing out at us in a totally irrational way *sigh* So, I'm hoping y'all will have some wisdom for wall sharing.
Oh, also, there are two very clear factions in this building - the young party crowd who invite hordes of people to the community areas on the top two floors of the building and want this to be a party hot-spot AND the people of all kinds of ages who want to come home and be able to relax. The issue exists because the previous management spent the first 18mos this place was open just trying to get it filled, but the partying got to be such an issue for the other group of people who were sold on the place as a quiet, classy, and upscale community contacted corporate and now the new management have been evicting party-people like mad for nearly 6 months, but the building's reputation as a great place to be drunk and stupid persists.
A couple of things to note ('cause I dunno what's important in this and so I'm opting for the more is better idea):
The last time we lived in an apartment it was a typical apartment complex with each building having its own number and being 3 stories tall. There was a clubhouse that was attached to the leasing office and that's where the pool was, etc. We were in our early 20s and had an infant, a 2yr old (y'all know her as @Blameless Cleric ), and a cat. Now we're in a pretty fancy high-rise, it's the flagship for its parent company - we have a 24hr concierge, valet parking, and we live on the fanciest floor at the top with our two big dogs (a St. Bernard, Mouse, and a German Shepherd, Ace, who is my service dog).
Part of why I need a service dog is part of why we stopped renting. In Ireland I was attacked by an ex-landlord in a house he didn't own and then stalked by him for several months before finally moving back home a decidedly more broken human. Yes, unfortunately, this is relevant. The other reason I need Ace is because I have Fibromyalgia (FM) and he helps in a ton of little ways, and some not so little. FM also means I need every tiny bit of sleep I can eek out, a decent night's sleep can be the difference between a good day and an awful one.
After we signed the lease in our new, fancy place someone who works here decided to have an issue with me (basically, the apartment wasn't ready when we moved in and they'd gotten in trouble and blamed us) and confronted me when I was alone in our new apartment with one of their employees as a witness. The management took things seriously when we took this to them, but it was hugely triggering for me and left me very unsure.
Because of the incident with the employee here and because of over all PTSD I can't tell when I'm having a rational issue with our neighbors' lives impacting ours. Unfortunately, because it's been so bloody long since we were in an apartment and since we've never been in a super fancy place before, spool32 isn't sure of the etiquette, either.
Right, sorry, I'm getting to the question -
We have a new neighbor who has set up their sound system so it's really pretty annoying. The folk who lived in that apartment before these people were "party people", but we only ever heard them once and they apologized to us out of nowhere the next day. We know their apartment is set up so their kitchen and one of their bathrooms shares the wall with our bedroom. The first several times the sound was an issue spool tried going over and knocking on their door (this wasn't late at night or anything like that), but they won't answer... so we've had to resort to asking the concierge to contact them for us. The first late night (after midnight) issue was really bad and after that the music hasn't been as loud, but nearly every morning around 10am the vibration and some of the sound from the bass wakes me up. Last night they started playing music around 1:45am and finally the concierge had to come up to speak to them since they weren't answering them - which didn't happen until close to 2:30 am. They turned the music down for a while, then back up, but not as loudly, about 15 minutes later.
We're to the point where we're thinking of moving our bed to our interior wall, even though that will mean neither of us will have room for a nightstand and one of us will have their side of the bed up against a wall. The thing is, I don't think we should have to rearrange our entire bedroom into a configuration the shape of the room isn't really meant for and inconvenience ourselves because the new folk won't keep their music down. The alternative feels like being an asshole, though... and I'm afraid of them lashing out at us in a totally irrational way *sigh* So, I'm hoping y'all will have some wisdom for wall sharing.
Oh, also, there are two very clear factions in this building - the young party crowd who invite hordes of people to the community areas on the top two floors of the building and want this to be a party hot-spot AND the people of all kinds of ages who want to come home and be able to relax. The issue exists because the previous management spent the first 18mos this place was open just trying to get it filled, but the partying got to be such an issue for the other group of people who were sold on the place as a quiet, classy, and upscale community contacted corporate and now the new management have been evicting party-people like mad for nearly 6 months, but the building's reputation as a great place to be drunk and stupid persists.
Belasco32 on
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Calling the leasing office is a first step, calling the police is a second step. Most towns have a sound variance. Your neighbors may get miffed a bit, but you are paying fancy apartment prices for peace and quiet.
The way to stop it is to call the cops every time they get loud. If they are at the same place 3 or 4 times they’ll start writing tickets, and it is almost assured at any party like that there will be underage drinking. At which point handcuffs will get involved.
Personally, if it's every once in awhile I've just put in earplugs that night and gone about my business--no harm, no foul, it's Saturday, whatever. But it sounds like that isn't the case for you--it's regular, it's annoying, and it's so far inside what should be quiet time that it's totally reasonable to be irritated at your inconsiderate neighbors. So, you're not being a jerk. Keep bringing it up with the concierge and management. The concierge may or may not be letting management know--you should directly inform management as well in case this is a case of information not making its way to the relevant parties. There were building rules I had to sign and agree to for the last two places I've rented at; they included quiet time hours. Does your lease or other documentation you signed have something similar? If so, you can directly point out the rulebreaking to management, which might get them off their ass.
Other than that, if it's bad enough to call the police as zepherin suggests, that's an option as well. I don't know how that works in a building with secured access but maybe someone else can help out there.
Until things change (or until you get sick of the situation and break your lease), it's probably a good idea to reconfigure your bedroom anyway--given how much you say your wellbeing depends on getting good rest, that seems like it would trump the desire to not have to change because someone else is being an asshole.
Anyway, good luck. Bad neighbors suck.
If they turn it down then turn it right back up again, call again. The alternative is you do have to be somewhat understanding on Friday and Saturday nights. Not to the point where the music is shaking your room or anything (I’ve had that before), but you can’t expect perfect quiet either unfortunately.
My rule of thumb has always basically been that if I can’t hear it with my TV on it’s not really a problem.
I can't really see calling the police over them being loud. The police here have their hands so very, very full with a growing homeless crisis and impending protests and counter-protests for a list of issues...a noise complaint just feels woefully unimportant. Also, we already have multiple steps in place that should prevent us ever needing to be the ones that need to call the police if it comes to that - that would be security or the concierge's call to make, not our's.
Last night I could hear it over my audiobook and halfway into our living room (the bedroom opens onto the living room) and the bass actually vibrates our headboard which moves into our mattress and pillows (not as fun as it sounds ;p ), also, putting in headphones wouldn't have (and later, didn't) help
I don't want my disabilities to screw up other people living their lives within their apartments, but I also know our former neighbors listened to music loudly enough you could hear it on our balcony or near their door in the hall, but not anywhere in our apartment. It's gotta be easier for them to move their speakers (heck, it's a corner apartment, they have twice the number of outside walls) than it is for us to dismantle our bedroom...especially since that's not a guarantee I won't still get run out of our room the next time I need to rest. I just don't know where the reasonable line is in between asking someone to be more thoughtful because the folks next door might do shift work, have a baby, or an illness and when the folks next door just need to suck it up and be uncomfortable in their own space.
For perspective, the neighbor on the other side likes action movies and has a really good sound system. We're the first people to ever live in this apartment so when we moved in and our wall was vibrating we spoke to him, he moved his subwoofer and though we can hear it pretty often it's no big deal at all. When our old neighbors were in the apartment we're having issues with we could hear them, their music, and TV from time to time, but that's normal and it was super rare to hear anything after midnight, though we knew they were late night people like we are.
We're literally in the middle of downtown in one of many high-rises...so if one lives here people see $$$, but the crime rate is high enough our car and renter's insurance are both high (both are based on our zip code) and the number of crimes I've witnessed in my life has quadrupled since 9/18.
I'm also just not going to use the fancy building I live in as a way to waste the cop's time. I have retired cops in my family, I know exactly what they think of that bullshit and they're right.
Eventually we simply outlasted them, they moved out.
I realized just how loud my old neighbors were when we cycled through a few new people who have done everything from listen to music to throw parties and manage not to bother us. I've only had to complain about music once since they left, and it was some lady on the other side of the building listing to dubstep in her bedroom at 5am on a sunday morning (??). We only had to complain once, and that stopped completely.
All that is just to say, if its consistently during quiet hours and you've had neighbors that could easily and happily adjust to not vibrate your walls, you are being a perfectly reasonable neighbor.
Kinda a poor apartment layout to not mirror the bedrooms, honestly. Something you might want to look for if you have to move, as when my neighbors were being loud, I could at least retreat to my room for actual quiet. Being adjacent to even a relatively reasonable persons kitchen isn't the best.
I think you're in line with etiquette, but I also consider it par the course to have to tango with neighbors and management near constantly while renting. You're rolling the dice on a lot of factors that are just outside of your control. With your history, you might consider that dice roll and if the stress that it will cause is worth it. My management has changed three times in five years, and I think only one of the adjacent apartments has the same tennant as when we moved in. Notably, This kid still lives here and has taken his bullshit down to such an infrequency that I deal with it, but I did have to call the cops on that one.
Be as patient and kind as you kind while asserting your reasonable needs, and if the whole thing becomes an ordeal, document it heavily so you can consider breaking your lease if shit hits the fan.
As far as involving cops go, I agree it's better if it can be handled internally by the management but I would think - and what the cops used too tell me when I had to call them - is they'd rather deal with a noise compliment now than a triple stabbing later. That is, it's better for them to tell the neighbors to STFU than you do it and get into a fight.
Current plan:
Try once more to talk to them directly, possibly use management to make this happen. I can tell them about the cool, and inexpensive, sound proofing stuff my brother's band used to use when they were practicing in a rental house that was in a very, very quiet neighborhood with the houses super close together and surrounded by judgy old people.
If that fails, then we'll move our bedroom around (not a small deal in my life, unfortunately) and start putting in official noise complaints through the management.
We've been talking about buying a condo in this general area, I don't suppose if any of y'all know if it would be any better? I'm concerned we'd just end up with the same issues (especially as there's an NFL stadium and a minor league baseball stadium right next to us and folk AirBnB their places constantly, regardless of the rules), but with fewer avenues of recourse.
@spool32
I think so, but I'm not the only person in this.
#marriage
For any building, it depends entirely on the construction and layout.
We lived in a top floor corner condo unit with a poured concrete construction and the neighbors below us were loud enough to vibrate my chair through concrete and carpet. Went on from 8PM to 2AM.
A townhouse could be better with only one shared wall, but really depends on whoever is on the other side.
Sorry you're having this trouble. Neighbors are rough.
And we'd have to balance that with all the benefits that renting has (homeownership *shudder*) and the benefits that come with living where we currently are, or somewhere near by. Stuff like not needing a car (though we kept one and were able to give our other one to our sons when we moved...and we only use it maaaaybe once a week), spool being able to walk home for lunch (which saves us a stupid amount of money and gives us some time together when I'm most likely not to be feeling like hell), and being walking distance from 75% of anything we'd want to do.
At the same time, I'm a serious fish out of water here in a lot of ways, and I'm trying to learn how to be a good tenant and a good neighbor.
Noise doesn't bother me - we hear sirens, super loud cars, bass from the club 31 floors below us on weekend, bits of music from the outdoor concert venue several blocks away, the announcements and fireworks from the baseball park we're next door to, etc. None of that bothers me, if it did I'd really be in the wrong place. It's the thrum of a city, it's its own music and I genuinely enjoy it.
The piece that's difficult is having our bedroom feel and sound like the bathroom at the club at all times of day and night out of no where and with no recourse (yet) that doesn't feel like tattling. I think, with the help we've gotten from y'all, we have a pretty good game plan and a much better idea of what's normal and what's not. I'll let y'all know how it works out, fingers crossed!
If the TV is on the wall you are sleeping against, its on the opposite side of the room from his bed, and its probably warping how loud it seems to him. If the stud his TV is mounted on is shared or just connected to a bunch of shared structure, the vibration is going to be bad even if hes listening at what would be "normal" levels in the room hes in. Setting up your sound system in an apartment bedroom is a dick move, but the bedrooms should also have better sound proofing between them than it sounds like your building has. I think we have a bunch of brick between us and the next bedroom.
I think your luck might be worse with a condo, but I'm not very experienced there. I've personally never seen the benefit or been in a condo that I thought was nicer than an apartment.
Id keep working on your bedroom situation. Draft an email where you talk about your needs, document the hours when you hear the noise as extensively as possible. Always back up your complaining with emails so you have some documented records.
Also, if you aren't, you should invest in some sort of white noise in your room. Whatever you find to be the most tolerable, a box fan is the cheapest but there are dedicated electronic solutions as well. I haven't slept without a box fan running in like 20 years, started using one in college highschool.
The noise issue happened again last week, unsurprisingly, and we haven't been able to arrange a meeting through management for a series of reasonable reasons (including our own schedules and my stupid health). However, after the last time the concierge had to come up to talk to them, the noise has stopped entirely. We'd talked with that particular concierge about our TV theory and we suspect they spoke with our neighbors about it.
If it happens again we'll get the management to either help us meet with them or work as a go-between (which I think is ridiculous, but these are also the neighbors that have had some real dramatics in the hall and I'm not sure they know how to adult terribly well).
Thank you all very, very much for all of your advice and insights! It's difficult to take a 20ish year break from one way of living and then step back into a new version of it...I'm really grateful this community is what it is
After our year agreement was up we moved into a mobile home. I never thought i'd live in a mobile home but we ended up in a very inexpensive place that gave us privacy and a good nights sleep. We stayed there for a few years and finally moved into a house.
You have to do what you have to do, and it sounds like you've been pretty reasonable about it. Loud people that are inconsiderate are the worst.
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Since what's waking you seems to be mostly vibration, you might want to look into isolating your bed. There are products that can go between the bed and the floor (or wall) to stop the actual bed from vibrating. For example:
https://www.supplyhouse.com/DiversiTech-MP-4E-E-V-A-Anti-Vibration-Pad-4-x-4-x-7-8
(Example product, haven't tried it.)
Note that these have a max PSI of 50 pounds. I think that means you'll want to spread the bed's weight a bit. (Math time: back of the envelope calculation gives 1000 lb for everything involved in a bed used by 2 people, rounded up quite significantly. That's 20 in^2 total contact area. If your bed has 4 legs, that'll be 5 in^2 per leg, or a 2.2" square contact area for each leg.
Depending on your HOA/Condo/Rental rules, you might be able to do something.
If you create enough of a paper trail with management about rules violations, and they are able to verify the infringement, eventually you are able to fine the violators until they comply with building rules.
At least that's the case in the high rise condo I work in.
Thanks for this suggestion! We just ordered 8 of these, hopefully they'll help...