Painful neighbours

[yeahright31]

Have you ever had neighbours you dreaded that became enemy? I have had 2 in the space of 4 years.

The first experience was the thumping on the wall, me just checking my mix on the new track. Little did I know what would happen the next day. Knocks on my apartment door saying "Who the fuck lives in number?? Well it so happened that person was me. It couldn't of came at a worst time, a time I was very depressed and just wanted to be able to check my mixes on Saturdays as headphones was the case 98% of the time. Been considerate of others all to often in my apartment.

The bullshit didn't stop there, she was racist to me and I had to stand up for myself been the only black guy surrounded by white people. In doing so didn't help us get along, to make matters worse she became friends with my housemates and came over way to often. She moved out eventually and I got my relief in the end.

For 1 year after this I had nothing but great neighbours and no issues what so ever. Now the new neighbours are an absolute pain in the arse to a point where I can't even have my headphones on 3 notches of volume without a thump on the wall, on the weekend the guy said " To much noise" I reminded that it is the weekend and told to piss off- Now I didn't wanna ever be the neighbour people do get along with but I feel that I won't take no bullshit even if that means getting kicked out.


Anyone else got a story to share about their experience or even noise complaints and such?

[yeahright31]

I suppose with the type of set up I have it's portable to an extent carrying 4 items. Although I need to check the mixes and i'm not talking cranking up speakers - if I really wanted to I know halfway would give the walls a true shaking. Haha

[normen]

I don't know how it is in Australia but in Germany you're allowed to play instruments the whole day, that is from 9 in the morning until 12 and then from 2pm until 6 and thats protected by law. When I was still living in a flat and a neighbor was getting angry I reminded him of that and that I could just as well use *ALL* that time, then he was silent

I especially hate people who instantly yell at you instead of telling you in time that they hear it and that it becomes annoying to them. This one was even more special in that he always complained when I had my window open - thing was he had his open as well and didn't close it, noooo, he wanted me to stop making music.

[Last Alternative]

Shoot back in my apartment days I didn't care if it was during the day - I cranked my amp and rocked the whole complex like The Crow! Still have a ticket from when the cops came. My mom almost got evicted because of me but I was young and never played past 10 so I thought I had the right.
Fast forward to now - I live in a house so it's no biggie but my girlfriend lives in an apartment by the mall. Anyway, people there love their subs! And it subtly shakes the whole place and produces major headaches! Well one night a couple had just moved in and I feel bad for this because it was New Years Eve but their bass was so high it was ruining our party upstairs.. so I went down and politely asked the guy to turn down his bass. This guy was one of those meat head dumb Jersey Shore looking fellows and he gave me the 'I'm gonna kick your ass' stare and said he doesn't have a sub, while strongly puffing on a cigarette, acting coy.. smartass.. So I didn't feel like getting beat up over it so I said ok all cool like whatev. Went back to the party and wouldn't you know he turned the bass up more!!
This went on a long time. Months but I never wasted time approaching him. However, he was always outside smoking and brooding and staring me down along with my girlfriend and whoever else I was with, day or night. He was always blaring his music after that just to upset us. Made us feel very uncomfortable by following us halfway to our car and staring at us from the steps while smoking, always watched us going upstairs to my girlfriend's apartment... I swear him and his girlfriend did some serious drugs too because it was always loud down there and they screamed a lot.. she often locked him out so he'd be beating down the door like King Kong at all hours. Well one day they had an eviction notice on the door and now thank God they've been gone since.

I hate apartments!!!!!!!!!!

[plaamook]

Yeah, I've had problems. Almost all on the cecieving end though. All I can say is that having been subject to other pelple's noise and some of those people being real count about it, I've got loads of sympathy for people with that problem. It's way worse than not being able to play your music loud. Totally ruins your mind state. In my opinion if your place isn't sound proofed you need to tak other people into consideration. And I don't mean 'I only play shit loud once in a while', I mean all the time. Part of modern close living IMO. At least let people know you're about to make a racket. Having some one dicide to have a party on a thursday till 4 am when you have to go to work and you've got kids and a pissed off wife is no fucking joke.

[normen]

I'd rather hear music than buses, trains, workers, cars, factories or such. And we don't need to talk about "4am", obviously thats not okay. In many countries people are much more chill about music being heard in the streets. And what is somebody who's playing the trumpet supposed to do? Not learn how to play because he's living in a flat? BS.

[jappe]

Neigbors problems...lots of them in the past!
These days I live in a house - much less risk of neighbor problems.
On the other hand, owning a house and living in Sweden means carpenter problems,
Severe carpenter problems.
Reminder to myself: create a Kitchen thread about severe carpenter problems.

OnT:
I've lived in several apartments during and just after my student years.
I've had:

* Neigbors above doing some kind of gymnastic excercises with clogs.

* First night after finally finding the paradise apartment, silent and cosy: Woke up in middle of night several times by house owners slowly leaking air compressor located in his repair garage directly beneath the bedroom. It regularly had to start compressing since there was a leak. It was not a noise. It was like being surrounded by walls acting as loudspeaker membranes in a resonance chamber. It was hell. He patched the leak after some days, but the problem persisted with low frequency. "Will the compressor start tonight? Hope not, important day tomorrow, need to have a fresh mind"
We moved.

* A sound battle with my neigbors above, where he eventually started a useless tune on high volume autorepeat and then left his apartment.
Luckily I found the fuse to remove in the basement. I can't recommend sound battles

* Experiencing terrible student neighbor behavior in dormitories, as well as occasionally practising similar behavior myself. (Coming home after student parties wasn't happening very quietly. Students shouting "Clock is 4AM and all is well", prank knocking dormitory doors, playing loud music, making art installations in our common kitchen by building furniture towers with kitchen utensils on top)

* Exhausting seagull neighbors, screaming extremely loud 5AM for absolutely no good reason (why do they waste energy like that ffs), every morning, in the resonance chamber courtyard outside my apartment in the city center. Closing the window entirely helped, but then the chemical smell from some apartment material accumulated due to the lousy ventilation (Since we can send spacecrafts to the moon and mars and all, is it at least theoretically possible to construct a ventilation system that always works well? Yet to experience that.)

Happy with my terrace house neighbors currently, though one of them should probably fix his garage door somehow, it sounds like a controlled explosion when he shuts it. He's not using it very early or late though so it's acceptable.

My general advise for persisting neighbor problems: Move.

[4filegate]

I agree with you, some don't have any culture.
As the police repeatedly in the week visited me, these were looking for the musicians and instruments...
Policeman was pleased, he found no further musicians. He was astonishes, what "InTheBox goes.
Heart keeps dancing on our virtual instruments!

[chk071]

I don't know how it is in Australia but in Germany you're allowed to play instruments the whole day, that is from 9 in the morning until 12 and then from 2pm until 6 and thats protected by law.

There is a sound level limit though, you can't just make all the noise you want, even in those times. It's just work times, where it makes no sense to limit noise whatsoever, because street work, garden work or whatever will make noise anyway. For the sake of social intercourse, i wouldn't make all the noise i want. What if in the flat next to you, a 90 year old lady is living? I doubt you'd want to turn your guitar up full volume, and blast riffs out in that case. Or simply for the sake of not pissing everyone off in your environment. I wouldn't want neighbours who make noise all day long, so i wouldn't make noise all day long too. I don't believe it's necessary to do so either.

[normen]

There is a sound level limit though, you can't just make all the noise you want, even in those times. It's just work times, where it makes no sense to limit noise whatsoever, because street work, garden work or whatever will make noise anyway. For the sake of social intercourse, i wouldn't make all the noise i want. What if in the flat next to you, a 90 year old lady is living? I doubt you'd want to turn your guitar up full volume, and blast riffs out in that case. Or simply for the sake of not pissing everyone off in your environment. I wouldn't want neighbours who make noise all day long, so i wouldn't make noise all day long too. I don't believe it's necessary to do so either.

That 90 year old lady is probably deaf anyway, you can be as loud as your instrument is and nobody here is talking about "making nose all day long".

[chk071]

That 90 year old lady is probably deaf anyway, you can be as loud as your instrument is

So you just assume that, and act accordingly? Hmm...

[normen]

So you just assume that, and act accordingly? Hmm...

Yes, you can learn to play the trumpet and the law is on your side, believe it or not.

[chk071]

I don't think you got my point, but, nevermind.

[normen]

I don't think you got my point, but, nevermind.

I don't think you get my point about you pulling out some made up 90year old...

[Noplan]

Fuck that shit with neighbours. I am so happy to have an rehearsal room / studio where i can be as loud as i can at every time.

[4filegate]

painfully, if the neighbour gives you a Non-paternity event!
leaning slightly forward so you don't get any on yourself
https://soundcloud.com/4filegate/25th-w ... legate-avm

[yeahright31]

Yeah, I've had problems. Almost all on the cecieving end though. All I can say is that having been subject to other pelple's noise and some of those people being real count about it, I've got loads of sympathy for people with that problem. It's way worse than not being able to play your music loud. Totally ruins your mind state. In my opinion if your place isn't sound proofed you need to tak other people into consideration. And I don't mean 'I only play shit loud once in a while', I mean all the time. Part of modern close living IMO. At least let people know you're about to make a racket. Having some one dicide to have a party on a thursday till 4 am when you have to go to work and you've got kids and a pissed off wife is no fucking joke.

Well in Australia the houses are too close and the thing that pisses me off is real estate are like saying "It's a quite street" to up the rental prices, yet what about the poor muso? Give me a frigging cave with electricity and clean water and I will be happy living away from all these arseholes who demand peace and quite when I'm checking my mix at 2pm on a Weekend & if it sounds good then I get $200 for my new tunes and I can pay rent and be happy using my headphones. Gosh some people! If it's a week night I can understand.

Coming to a conclusion to move or rent a space at an industrial area where I don't have deafening silence been against me.

[selig]

I don't know about any of the rest, but "Painful Neighbors" is a great band name IMO.
I'll get me coat…

[plaamook]

I'd rather hear music than buses, trains, workers, cars, factories or such. And we don't need to talk about "4am", obviously thats not okay. In many countries people are much more chill about music being heard in the streets. And what is somebody who's playing the trumpet supposed to do? Not learn how to play because he's living in a flat? BS.

Well you're talking to some one who really doesn't like the trumpet but never mind.

Of course people should learn how to play instruments. But it can really suck for some people. And we don't necessarilly have the luxury of living next to like minded individuals, which would be perfect of course.

Since I've moved to and gotten stuck in London I've become really sensitive to sound. I don't like loud gigs, I really don't like listening to other peoples TV's or radios with all the adverts. I used to live near a quiet pub that got bought out and turned into a really loud one with a really late license. It really sucked. Where I'm at now I have neigbours who argue all the time and yell at their unhappy children. It's a real drag. Not just noise but negative angry noise (they're at it now actually). All this stuff really gets me down some times. I used to live on the edge of a canyon.

So yeah, I'd like to live in a sound proofed bunker too but not so I can play my music loud particularly.

[normen]

Easy, this is what I do when I get annoyed by noise:



And actually I use them the whole day after mixing a festival or something, can only recommend doing that sometimes to "recalibrate" your ears.

[zeebot]

Maybe you have these two living next to you?

[gak]

Hmmm, I guess I'm losing it. I thought I replied to this............here I go again....

First, if you are doing something/ANYTHING that the neighbors can hear, then the odds are against you.

Second, as a homeowner, (in about the last decade) it's much better. I realize that not everyone can be in this situation, but it's much better.

Third, people should NEVER have to "enjoy" their neighbors music, ever.

Some people are super touchy. I'm one of them. When I lived in apartments, I was the neighbors worst nightmare. Why? Because they constantly fucked with me regardless of day or night. It wasn't some guy playing "their" music through monitors as "x" time, it was people fucking with me. I fucked back BTW, when I was trailer trash, it wasn't much better. Some count banging their RV cabinets from 4am to midnight didn't work for me either

It's a tough situation, you might be right, but they might be dicks. And, everything in-between.

[orthodox]

I live next to an ice hockey arena. They hold various town fests outside the building on every weekend during the warm season, bringing their multi-kW speakers in 100m from my house. 3-layer windows do not help. I cannot compete and fight back .

[Kov]

If have funny ones underneath. They used to complain about thumping noises coming from my flat at night while i was sleeping. They never complain when i'm fact making noise for real. They are some kind of familly fail too. The lady is able to yell at her boyfriend/husband for 7 hours without stoppping. He then goes and locks himself into their laundry room in the basement and their kid then has to beg him to come out from there...

[gak]

This is why gun control is a bad idea. I say give 'em a gun at birth and then when anyone fucks with someone else, BANG.