r/Apartmentliving

I want to share an approach for loud neighbors that I, sort of, witnessed last night. As in I heard it all clearly from the comfort of my living room. Kill em with uncomfortable kindness.

I live in a complex with eight units per building. Four upstairs (me) and four downstairs. There are two particular units, one directly across from me, and one right below them, that feel the need to have frequent lengthy loud speakerphone conversations in the breezeway. Both familes moved in somewhat recently. Sound carries like an echo chamber in these areas. Standard noise is expected, people coming and going, kids/dogs making noise, whatever. That never bothers me. When someone has a speakerphone convo right outside my door, it sounds like they are yelling next to me on my couch.

On to what happened. My directly downstairs neighbor guy (GN) has also apparently been annoyed. After about 45min of this obnoxious loud, GN took action. Popped outside and said "hey man, there's a game on!" Bad neighbor dude (BN) responds confused like "yeah sure okay?" GN- "Come on in! It's like you're here watching it with us, come sit down!" BN- uncomfortably confused "uhh noo? No thanks. I'm just walking my dog." GN- "What? Oh you're walking? Couldnt tell. What kind of dog? I'm so glad we are friends! Come on in! You're watching this with us right? Bring the dogs we're all friends right?" BN- highly uncomfortable awkward laugh. GN- "ya know, we could even be more than friends. I feel like we are so close already. I mean you're here almost every night." BN- "no, no thanks." starts to finally realize what's happening and awkwardly goes back inside.

GN- yells to wife still inside. "I don't know hunny, I tried to invite him. Maybe it's something I said? I'll try next time he's out." Then shuts the door.

Perfection.

Months ago I sat down to watch the “Perfect Neighbor” documentary on Netflix when it first came out. About 2 minutes after I turned it on I hear keys outside my door, I sat up and looked at my door thinking someone just walked to the wrong door, kind of odd cause I’m at the very end of the hallway but still. I also am a single woman, and live on the ground floor.

As I’m watching the door, I hear them put the keys in the deadbolt, and then watch as the deadbolt flips to the unlock position. I instantly stood up and was panicking. Thankfully, I have those door jam bars that go under the door handle, I always put them up right when I get inside and lock my apartment. As I stand up I see my door open a crack, but stop from the door jam bar. I know for a fact the door opened because I had the lights off and the light from the hallway came in.

I’m standing frozen, heart pounding, as I’m watching this. After about three seconds the door closes, and the deadbolt flips back to the lock position. After a few seconds I slowly walked up to the door. I went to check that the deadbolt was really in the lock position and it was. That means someone has/had keys to my apartment, unlocked it, tried to get in, then re locked the door. I know for a FACT I locked the door when I got home earlier that day.

This happened on a Saturday so the apartment manager wasn’t in, but sent them a message so they would get back to me on Monday. I didn’t know what else to do so I called the non emergency number and reported it. I got a case number and everything. The officer I talked to said if this happens again to call 911.

Monday comes and the apartment manager calls me and after explaining everything they say how all their keys are accounted for and that they didn’t know what or how that could have happened. I got the impression that they didn’t believe me. I asked if I could get my locks changed and they said “yes, for $200”. $200?! Someone basically broke into my apartment and you want to charge me! I said how I didn’t think I should have to pay for it since it’s not my fault. The main manager/owner also “well since you didn’t report it to the police we can’t do anything”, I told her “I did report it, you want the case number?” She changed the subject and told me I could pay $100 instead of $200. I said fine since I didn’t feel safe and wanted them changed ASAP. They changed the locks and nothing like this has happened since but I get nervous now every time I hear someone close to my door.

This situation still makes me mad that the apartment didn’t and doesn’t believe me, and just scared/nervous in general living there now. Sorry if any of this is written poorly or doesn’t make sense, I just needed to vent about it.

I NEVER EVER FELT LIKE I HAD A REASON TO POST….

UNTIL NOW. I currently am up at 2:30 in the morning because someone in my building decided to wash what seems like a pair of shoes in the washer (idk I didn’t open it, it was just LOUD). I live on the first floor and the basement is right below us. We live in an old Chicago building so the floors and walls are fairly thin. In other words, you hear EVERYTHING. So tonight I woke up to a LOUD ASS washing machine to the point where I had to go and turn it off. Like come on, I get some people may not be able to do it during the day or work weird hours or whatever, but it’s literally Tuesday and I have to wake up at 5 🥲.

Just wanted to rant.

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.

Me and my friend are moving in together but we haven’t decided on who gets the bigger room. Well actually I think he already decided because when we talked about it he was talking like that was his room already.

It’s a condo and it’s really nice but the weird thing is that there’s a back door in the bigger bedroom. Either way that room is way bigger than the other room, way bigger closet, and it has a connecting bathroom that’s pretty big and much nicer. The other bedroom doesn’t have a connecting bathroom, is smaller and is ofc the general bathroom for when guest come over.

For reference I’m a girl and he’s a guy. My sister said he should get that room bc he’s a guy and the door is such a weird placement so if anything happens… lol. I definitely wouldn’t mind paying more but idk how to bring it up. He hasn’t brought the idea up either so I feel awkward. *I don’t mind either room I just feel weird bringing it up cause it feels like im calling it out since he’s already mentioned wanting the bedroom lol. *

What would be a fair split?

Hello,

I recently moved into a “rooming home” (didn’t realize that it was a rooming home but that’s a different story). Anyway the second I moved in the landlord installed two Ring cameras (one in the kitchen and one in the living room facing the sofas). I told her I was NOT ok with this but she just threatened to have me kicked out. She said it’s in the lease she can but I looked at it and there’s NOTHING in there about surveillance. But I’ve only been here a week and she’s threatened to kick me out three times (the last time was because I was taking a shower and she startled me and I accidentally left a towel on the floor and she told me it violated our “cleanliness“ contract). She told me she’d call 911 and have me forcibly removed. I’m just very concerned and wondering if anyone can give me any guidance mostly about the cameras, but anything would be helpful right now. Thank you.

My neighbor decided to post photos of me walking past their door, on their front door of me just coming to and from my apartment unit. I never talked to them other than briefly passing them by. He seems a bit weird, like pouring salt in front of their doorway (it's some supernatural thing to ward off bad spirits or something) but I always just thought it was harmless.

I feel fairly uncomfortable with them posting pictures of me just walking to my door. I understand that it's a communal area and there's no expectation of privacy but this just creeps me out a bit.

I don't know what to do here. I'm a little creeped out. I feel like if I go to the management this might escalate things and maybe if I ignore it, they'll take it down? For all I know this was just a cheeky joke but it's literally just me looking at the camera I pass every morning. It's their front door so I haven't walk up and rip it off because I don't want them to say I'm crossing a boundary or anything.

I asked my friends and one says I am underreacting and the other says I'm overreacting here. Any advice is appreciated.