How to deal with loud upstairs neighbors?
My husband and I have lived in our current apartment nearly seven years and over that time, we've had various of neighbors include college students, military members, and their S/Os; we never had an issue with any of then until our current neighbors moved in a month ago. I genuinely have never met such inconsiderate, self-entitled, smooth-brained imbeciles.
To start, its a younger couple with their two children. Their eldest is about 2/3 years old and in typical toddler fashion, looooooves running, jumping, and throwing toys on the ground all day everyday. We're childfree, but also not one of those "we hate kids" couple; Kids are people too and are allowed to make noise. However, this couple allows their eldest to stay up late as in 1 or 2 am, and running/jumping while so. Not to mention, the couple are each EXTREMELY heavy-footed; you'd think that they're each 500lb. They're constantly on a daily basis dragging/sliding heavy objects across their floors. We've also had instances of them vacuuming at 10pm or later, hammering nails into their walls to hang photos at nearly 11pm.
Between my husband and I, we have asked them no less than three times to please keep the noise down, as we work a mixture of 3rd/1st shift and require waking up at 3am. Each time has been blatantly ignored. We've sat down with the leasing office/property manager, filled out a noise complaint, banged our broom against the ceiling (only 3 times), and flyers have been sent out to be "mindful and respectful" of each neighbor, but all of this has done absolutely no good. Our last resort is calling the police, as recommended by the leasing office, but frankly, I don't want to involve the cops in an easily fixable situation.
This morning after another trouble night of sleep, I came up with the idea to play music loudly in our guest room, which beneath their kids' room, around 9am. Yeah, its playing "dirty" and apologies to the babies bc they're in no control or know better, but we're at our wits end. I played it long enough to wake up the kids and their parents or basically until we heard their eldest running around. You don't care about the noise ordinance of our town (10pm to 6pm) or disrupting our sleep schedule? Fine, I can do the same until they catch the hint, but again, I don't want to bc I'm too old and grown for all this pettiness. But of course, the noise continues as I type this at nearly 1am.
I just want some peace and quiet in my own home and be able to get some sleep. Any tips/advice would be appreciated.
Edit: Update: The situation has unfortunately escalated 🙃 Yes, only two hours after posting things have gotten worse. My husband went upstairs to ask the neighbors to quiet down at 12:30am. Male Neighbor: "What is it?" Husband: "The noise, dude." MN: "They're kids. What do you expect us to do?" Husband: "Maybe have them in bed before 10pm." MN: "Why don't you guys get your kids to bed by 10pm?? Oh wait you don't have kids because you're a f-----!" Its worth mentioning that we proudly hang a LGBTQIA flag outside of our apartment, and my husband has dyed green hair. So in their eyes, 2+2= Queer My husband began to walk away when MN and his fiance were outside, berating/mocking him, as they were yelling, "Yeah, that's right, f-----! Run away!" Once inside of our apartment, my husband insisted that I call the cops, which I did. Roughly 15 minutes later, cops arrived. Explained the situation and of course, they magically quieted down. They explained the protocol of a decibel meter and noise complaints, which at the moment, there was nothing they could do other than talking to/warning them. Thankfully the cops were nice, reasonable, and advised us to talk to our property manager about the incident (basically bug the hell out of him until action is taken to address the issue). Since the cops left, things have been quiet, but now its personal; I'm getting these low-lives outta of my neighborhood. It's official: they're intentionally making noise, been retaliatory/discriminate against us for not having children and members of the LGBTQIA, and incited violence against us.