My Upstairs Neighbor is a Twerp

08 Apr 2007 By

I live in an apartment building. It’s impossible not to hear others’ presence through the walls. That’s fine. Especially since we all have hardwood floors. Given the sturdy construction of the 1920s, it’s probably not nearly as bad in here as could be.

So if you’re watching a movie in which lots of things get blown up, or you really need to practice your guitar with the amp, or your child is having a temper tantrum, I’m not surprised. I do, however, have the right to address it with you if it’s really bothering me. Sometimes I’m inspired to rock out to my new favorite song, or I’m trying to hear Wait Wait from the other room. If that bothers you, you have the right to address it with me, too.

Last Saturday evening I was hearing my upstairs neighbor’s bass over the sound of my own iPod playing on my stereo. When I shut my music off, I could hear his music clearly enough to name the song had I known what the song was in the first place. So I went upstairs and rang his doorbell. I could even more clearly hear his music from outside his door.

Dude opens the door and I politely say, “Hey, I live downstairs and I’m getting a lot of your bass right now. Would you mind turning it down just a little?” He pauses a second, and then says, “Are you the one with the surround sound? I thought you liked it loud.”

What?

I said to him that I was just asking him to turn it down a little and he could choose to do so or not. Additionally, I would hope and expect that if he had a problem with the volume from my apartment that he would say so, because how could I know that it was disturbing him if he never said anything?

He lamely repeated his “I thought you liked it loud” line a couple times and then pointed out that it was 8:00 on a Saturday night. Dude, this is an apartment building, not a dorm. I repeated my “comply or not, talk to me if I’m bothering you” bit and then walked away from him.

I get it if the guy was a little annoyed, but he lost all credibility with his lame ass rejoinder and inability to actually respond to what I was saying.

He did turn it down, though.

  • http://www.srah.net/weblog srah

    My apartment building seems to be really well-insulated, except the floor. So I can’t hear anything from the apartment next to me and I hardly hear anything from outside the apartment, but I can hear my downstairs neighbor playing the guitar all the time.

  • http://mysocalledblog.com Lachlan

    What a maroon. That was the best her could come up with? I have a similar story from this weekend that I’ll have to blog about later.

  • Elizabeth

    I live in an old building in the Warehouse district with no insulation between the floor of the apartment above me and my ceiling. Late last year, I had super annoying upstairs neighbors that would come home after bar close and blast techno music until 6-7 AM at times. It didn’t help that their living room was above my bedroom.

    I talked to them in person and got the reply, “you live downtown, you should expect noise.” There were times it was so loud they couldn’t hear me knocking on their door to talk to them. I also called the police and complained to my apartment manager.

    I won, and they’re gone.

  • http://www.flippingrich.com derrikd

    Thank god he wasnt doing something nasty!

    Are you getting my emails?