Hey neighbors, I could really use some advice because I’m running out of options.
I live in a condo from the 80s. It’s not perfect, but I’ve always had a decent relationship with the neighbors around me. About a year ago, I started noticing unusual noise coming from a shared wall. I’ve had other neighbors there before and we almost never heard each other, so this stood out.
At first I ignored it, but over time it became more frequent and very targeted. If I’m in the kitchen near that wall, I hear cabinets slamming. If I go into the bathroom, someone on the other side will turn the faucet on and off. It feels intentional after 8 or 9 months.
Eventually I realized it’s coming from a young boy, probably around 7 or 8, who lives there with his mom. I’ve never actually met them. We tried knocking a few times but no one answered.
There was also an issue where the water was being left running for hours, sometimes for several nights in a row. My downstairs neighbor even thought it was me at first, so I showed him my place and cleared that up. The HOA got involved after we documented it, and the water issue mostly stopped, although now it still gets turned on and off whenever I’m in the bathroom.
From what I can tell, the mom is rarely home. It seems like the child is left alone overnight and for long stretches during the day. When he’s alone, the noise is constant. It started with bass sounds against the wall, and now it’s more knocking and tapping every few minutes. It happens from early morning, sometimes as early as 5:30am, all the way until we go to bed.
We’ve tried to ignore it, but it’s been escalating. It really feels like he’s reacting to our movements in the condo and trying to get a response.
We’ve called the police a few times for welfare checks. They’ve shown up, but since no one answers the door, they say there isn’t much they can do. CPS has also tried to investigate, but they haven’t been able to catch anyone home and eventually had to close the case.
At this point, I’m not sure what to do. I don’t know if this child has special needs or if this behavior is a sign of something more serious, but the situation doesn’t feel right. I’m also trying not to overdo it with calls to police or CPS, even though they’ve told me I can.
We’ve started documenting everything. That worked with the water issue when the HOA stepped in, but now it’s just constant noise and disruption throughout the day and night.
Has anyone dealt with something like this before? Should I reopen a CPS case or keep going through HOA and police? I’m just trying to figure out the best way to handle this without making things worse for anyone involved.
Should I just ignore it and let it be? Now that I have the sub playing brown-noise its blocked off like 80% of the noise, but now the kid is knocking on walls to annoy us. We don't know these people, so we don't know what has caused them to target us.
We can confirm. It took us a while to confirm. We didn't know it was a child, but it is definitely a seven or eight year old and based on when they make noises and when we step outside we notice the mother's never home and she does leave the child alone overnight, which in return just harasses us all night into the morning. The mother seems to almost weaponize this child. It's like they are working together as a team to bond over harassing us. And it lowers a little bit when the mother is home, but it does continue still. She doesn't stop the child from acting out. So she also refused to accept any responsibility for the water. It just so happened to stop after they told her a few times does knock it off after they inspected my house and hard it and confirmed all neighbors were fine but her.
It's just odd we've never come across someone so focused on us, a child.