Dear Alisha,
We recently had new neighbors move in next door—a stylish young family with kids my kids’ age, so we were excited for the potential borrow-a-cup-of-sugar / kids-play-together possibilities that might come with this. However, instead of this lovely set-up, I’m about at my wits end!! I think the husband must be a huge gamer-- as in sitting on the couch all day in front of a gi-normous tv with speakers flanking both sides-- because all I hear, night and day, is the base of the whatever game he’s currently playing. (Mind you, we don’t live in an apartment, and our houses are not attached!)
I’ll find that during the day I have a pounding headache and then I’ll realize it’s because besides the sounds of my own house, I can hear constant rumblings and ka-booms from whatever he’s playing over there! It’s ridiculous! After the first few times I thought maybe it was only when he had friends over, but after hearing it all day now for about two weeks, and even laying in bed at 1:00 in the morning listening to it, I’m convinced this is just how they are all the time.
What would you do?? Is there a tactful way to ask them to turn it down? Am I just being a snot? I haven’t taken over the “pleased –to-meet-you” loaf of bread yet—could I say something then? I just can’t picture how to say “welcome to the neighborhood, but could you please turn it down?” without offending them and getting our neighborly relationship off to a bad start. I hope you can get to this soon… I’m running low on Advil and patience!!
Sincerely,
Living Next to the Louds
Dear Living Next to the Louds,
First off, my heartfelt sympathies. How annoying! What an invasion of your privacy! This must be a pet peeve of mine because I'm ready to go yell at your neighbors for you. You must stop this right away. The longer you let it go on, the more comfortable they become with their noisy ways. They are probably clueless as to how loud it is outside of their house.
With out delay, you need to go over and have a firm talk with one of the adults. If this was only an occasional problem I would say to mention it to them more in passing, but since it is continual, I think you can skip that step. Do not mince words. Be pleasant rather than rude, but do be very clear in how loud they are, how it is a constant problem and how it is the base that you hear the most. (Base carries the most but you can turn off base speakers easy enough.) Let them know how much it bothers you without getting too emotional. Even in you do get too emotional, fine, at least you'll make your point. Do not chicken out or soften to "could you turn it down maybe a little?" once you are speaking in front of them. If it makes you feel better to bring a loaf of bread over to butter them up, fine. Keep in mind you may have to ask them repeatedly till they get the volume level right. Persist. Be prepared to drop off a box of cookies with a note attached sweetly saying "Your speakers are still too loud. I can hear you in my sleep. I love what you've done with your front yard", if that's your style. If repeated attempts do not work, but I bet they will, I would contact your home owners association. You could go crazy and contact the police, but then you're really asking for war. I would take the path of being a kind, friendly, all be it proactive neighbor.
Readers, do we have any other ideas? Be honest, would you have a talk (or two) with your noisy neighbor or would you suffer in silence?
Wait, are you one of those noisy neighbors??
P.S. If they don't seem to believe you, or they act like you are being overly sensitive and do not adjust the situation enough, I would record the sound from your house and then play it back for them.
13 comments:
That is awful! I would definitely say something. I would probably just act like they didn't know how loud it was.
Our neighbor, in the summer, starts his motorcycle early in the morning and it is right outside Benton's window. He didn't do it too often but he did wake Benton up a couple of times. Babies already wake up early enough so to have them woken up earlier is no fun.
But since it has only happened a few times I didn't go over and say anything. Then one day we stopped by to say hello and he asked me about it. And before I could respond he said that he tries to angle the bike so that the pipes are not facing our window to make it quieter. Then his wife told us that most days he goes down the street to let the bike warm up so it isn't loud.
HOW NICE right? I would hope that people are decent enough to quiet down when they find out that they are bothering their neighbors.
I woulnd't keep going back to ask them to turn it down or do anything like record it. Ask politely then give them an opportunity to respond neighborly about it. If they care, they'll change their ways quickly. If they don't, they won't, and you continuing to ask nicely is only being a nag, and an ineffective one at that.
Occasionally our neighbors will have a party and they turn their music up very loud. Usually I don't feel like I can complain because growing up (I live in the same neighborhood I grew up in) my brothers and I would throw parties with loud bands playing outside. We didn't do it all that often, maybe 2 or 3 times a year and always on the weekend. Anyway, so I don't really feel like I have a right to complain about their parties usually. There has been only one time I complained and it was the day we brought our older son home from the hospital. My husband walked over and told them we had a brand new baby and would they mind turning the music down. All the women fussed about how cute brand new babies are and turned the music right down, actually they may even have turned it off.
So my advice is if you have kids, use them as the reason to convince your neighbor to turn the noise down. You could mention that is waking your child up from their nap, or making it hard for them to concentrate on their homework.I would probably just go over there and say, " I'm sorry to bother you with this, but I can hear your music/game/noise at my house all day long. I'm sure you didn't even realize we could hear it, but would you mind turning it down?" maybe make a joke about it driving you crazy.
I would just call the cops. It's not going to do any harm. If you can hear it, chances are the other neighbors can too. When you call the cops, they don't know who actually did it, they can only assume. Heck, right about when the cops leave, go over there and asked if everything is okay, and you just stop by to ask if they can lower the volume. You see where I'm getting at? Cause if you complain to them, chances are your gonna have to again. And if anything else happens to there house, chances are, they are going to assume that it's you. Then its really war. Heck, you should just call your HOA, and they will say it for you, "we've been driving by to check the community the last few days, and your music is way too loud"
Lien
I suggest you move. Just kidding. I would definitely let them know it bothers you. My husband is good at that kind of thing so I am sure I would make him do it--repeatedly if necessary.
I also remember some friends who bought a really nice set of headphones for a teenage neighbor boy who liked to play his music too loud. My friend's husband worked graveyard so he had to sleep during the day. I don't know if the teenager used or appreciated the headphones but I think he got the point.
Rebecca, you got the picture!! Congrats! I have no prize for you.
In my experience most people are reasonable and if kindly called out on something will apologize and change their ways.
Recently one my my fellow instructors at the gym acted in a highly inappropriate and unprofessional towards me. She is as type A as they come and I just knew I had to find the courage to kindly call her out on her behavior, and let her know how unprofessional I thought it was. I did it! (Kindly mind you, I believe that is the key.) And she apologized over and over again. I was so happy with the way things turned out. Especially because I HATE confrontation, but when done kindly and without accusation, can bring the results you are looking for.
I'd call the police and ask them to visit the home while keeping the complaint anonymous. I would call the police every time they have the sound too loud. Your neighbors will get the point and hopefully buy their own head phones.
Then I would take them their bread but they sound like they would be too lame to be friends with anyway.
Okay guys, I DID IT! I went over and talked to her because it was THUMPING today, and she was a T.O.T.A.L. B!!!! I'm fuming right now!
I'm usually such a push over and totally non-confrontational when it comes to these moments, but I mustered up my strength and went over there. I could hear it as I was standing on the porch--so I thought it would be a great time to bring it up since it was OBVIOUSLY loud. She couldn't even hear me knock, so I persisted and knocked about 4 times until she came. She turned it off before she answered the door, and then got super defensive and said they weren't even watching anything loud and that her son was just watching cartoons (and then her son said "we have a Wii!!" and I felt like saying, "I know dear, I can hear it!"). When I told her I'd been hearing it ever since they'd moved in and sometimes late at night, she interrupted me and scoffed and was like "you are crazy, I don't know what you are talking about!"
The fact that she was immediately so defensive and unapologetic makes me think she was embarrassed, but STILL, it was totally confrontational. I offered to let her come hear it from my place, but she wouldn't.
I told her she might be able to turn down the base, and she just scoffed again.
That's it, whatever. All I know is, it's on!!! (and, no welcome bread or Christmas cookies for them... that'll show'em.)
Lisa, I can't believe this! I know how easy going and nice you come off, so this lady must have issues. Has she kept it quiet? If not, there have been many harsher suggestions....
Lisa, you tell me which house it is and I'll bring my bat! Seriously, don't you be messin' with my peeps—RECOGNIZE!!!!!
Either that, or we can enlist some help of some people I know, well, let's just say they're from Jersey and they have really deep trunks in their Caddys. . . I'm just sayin'. . .
Alisha and I lived in an apartment when we first were married and we had very noisy neighbors above us. It used to drive us crazy when the bass was thumping. One day, I went upstairs to ask them to turn it down. When they opened the door, I was amazed at how low the volume was on their TV. The volume was low, but the bass carried through the walls and almost became louder by the time it got to our apartment. It took a lot of convincing to help them understand how much it carried through in our apartment but eventually they figured it out and adjusted the bass. Everything seemed much better until our other neighbor purchased a karaoke machine to practice with.
i am a little late on this... but if it hasn't stopped, i would call the police. i know it's crazy, but i did it in my apartment in college when my neighbors kept throwing loud fiestas after i asked them to be quiet. it worked. and i am still alive. but, then again, i knew i'd only be living there a max of a year. so, that did influence my decision.
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