Irrational, slightly aggressive(?) New Neighbors - Advice? (apartment, lease, tenants)

[ccpyrd]

Hey there,
I'm glad I found this forum because my roommates and I are at our ropes end with these folks -

It all started about two months ago - old downstairs neighbors moved out and the new ones shuffled in. Everything seemed fine at first; we introduced ourselves, asked if they needed help moving, invited them to stop by whenever, etc - they seemed kind of like shut-ins but that's okay, because they seemed to reciprocate these initial gestures. So, good, right?
Apparently not - not at all. Now, I will start by admitting my roommate and I both own a dog each, but they have been okayed by our landlord and are paid for in full as far as a pet deposit can be concerned. We try to keep them calm and are currently in the process of trying to afford some rugs to put down so as to help muffle the clickity-clack of their nails. The problem is that, about a month back at around 8:30 p.m. at night , my boyfriend (whom is on the lease with my other friend/roommate), a friend of ours, and I were sitting on our back porch talking. We weren't being loud, I remember that, but of course (out of the blue) two cops walk around from the front and (with little to no preamble) demanded I come down out front to speak with them. I was told quite curtly that we were the reason for a noise complaint, and to our surprise this was the second occurrence. The cop even had the nerve to try and scare me by threatening to arrest if it happened again (really guy?) - but to the point - we had never even been notified of the first instance (we have no problem improving our behavior if it's causing a problem, but we can't read minds, we need to be informed) and supposedly it was due to us blasting music... Difficulty is.. We never play music in our apartment. Like maybe the once. At 3PM. At a low level. From a laptop. Seeing as there'd be no point in arguing we saw the cops off and started researching our areas' sound restriction protocol and have since given our all to remain in adherence with them. Nowadays we barely make any sound (music of TV) after 10:29 pm (10:30 - cutoff).
So, yeah. Think it'd stop there right? Hahaha, NOPE. Now they bang on our floor/their ceiling with a broom(?) if the dogs so much as get excited about a treat after sunset. I barely do my laundry here anymore because, god forbid I'm off on my timing for the drying cycle by ten minutes (they got a note put up by the landlords about it, but really.. ten minutes?)
We can never catch a hold of them to talk, they see us and then slip away immediately - locking their door. If we're out of range to get them in time, but are able to see one another and make eye contact it's all dirty looks and cold shoulders. I just don't get it, this is the fifth place I've rented and I've had bad neighbors but never this bad. And then there was last night; My mistake: I didn't know my roommate was in the middle of doing laundry. She was in her room, napping, and I was getting ready to take a shower. There's a knock at the door so i go on over and open it, ends up being one of the guys from downstairs (two guys, one gal). He tells me a load of laundry just finished, and he needed to know whose it was - I tell the guy 'I don't know'. He insists I think 'harder', and at this point (i know i should not of but) i started getting somewhat bothered by his tone. I repeated that 'I did not know, but if he gave me a minute, I could check' (inferring he leave, and i'd take care of the issue if i could.) He didn't leave, just pointed at my door and said "can you do it then?" I was a little confused by how abrupt he was, and on asking he repeat himself, he responded "go check, can you go check right now, like you said?" Still with that attitude. By then I was pretty bent on getting him to back off, and head on out so i told him 'no', that 'i'd do it in a few minutes', and 'had he even checked with the upstairs neighbors?' He admitted he had not, so i told him 'to go check then'. He was hesitant, but then he made his way on upstairs. I closed the door, and left the room to shower; I was about to step in but then, another knock. At this point I was all towel so, reasonably(?) I was going to ignore him and get to it after. He kept knocking. My dog started whining so I got over as quick as I could and opened the door. He was there, waiting, and reported that 'the laundry was', in fact, 'not theirs'. I mean, I did maybe want to sock him in the face - important! I did not. (he was wearing one of those smug, self-satisfied smirk deals). Instead, I told him that 'fine, i'd check, but really, now - he needed to leave due to my state on undress'. Again, he seemed to want to hang around as if to keep an eye on me but thankfully headed back to his place. He'd been a little intimidating throughout both the first, and second exchange, so that was enough for me to rouse my roommate in hopes of preventing his return. I explained the situation and to my roommate, and she promptly retrieved her laundry. After that we began brainstorming on how to fix this uneasy rise in confrontational behavior, and we haven't stopped since - but man, we're stumped.
To top it all off? These guys, after the nitpicking and their passive aggression, have been BLASTING classical music at least once every, or every other day for the past three weeks. Like right now. It is literally blaring, and it has not stopped for 2 hours. Don't get me wrong, classical musics all good and dandy y'know - until it's been playing this loud and in such long spans of time.. But it's before 10:30pm, actually it's only 7:30pm, so I don't even know if I can do anything about it. I don't know if I WANT to because of how underhanded/petty they can be. And i'm sorry that this is such a long entry/post, and kind of too much like a narrative, and (probably) worded oddly. I'm just at a loss for what to do with these people, and it's really bugging all of us out. We love making friends with our neighbors - fact being my female roommate I mentioned? She began as our neighbor at our last apartment. She decided to come with us when we moved because by then we'd become very close. It's important to note: We don't want them gone, our downstairs neighbors, we just want to make peace with them and, if possible, be friends even.
*(oh and our up stairs neighbors love us; when we asked if it'd been them who filed the complaint - not that we were mad, we just wanted to fix any problems we possibly could've created for them told us they've never been bothered by us and if they were they would feel more than comfortable to come down and tell us. Aaand, it helps that they were several states away when the complaints were actually filed.)

+Some notes;
- I'm planning to go talk to my landlord on Thursday, or Friday to inform them of the issue, not for them to intervene, because that's our job, tenants to tenants, but to give them a heads up that we're trying to work on the problem and if they have any advice for us.
- I was planning on writing them a note, seeing that we're no good at getting a hold of them, and taping it to their door. The gist of which would be "I know we may've not gotten off on the right foot, etc, etc, but we hope we can maybe talk about this whenever there's a time that can be made convenient, etc, etc, we'd like to make good and hope you do too, etc, etc - then I planned to leave all our information, phone and text wise so even if we don't see them in passing - we can still establish some line of accessibility and communication.

Suggestions/Advice?
Thank you all so much, whether or not you can take the time to give your two cents, because I appreciate that there's a place like this with people like you all that take the time to network and problem solve to help one another.

-R.D.

EDIT: Went back through right quick and edited some of the type and grammar. Didn't realize I'd done that badly.

[sware2cod]

Maybe trim the dogs' toenails?

I wouldn't confront the neighbors. If they are not making eye contact then it's obvious they don't want to talk to you. (Other than when the one guy came to your door.). I think no matter what you say they will give you the cold shoulder.

Pick up some cheap rugs at Wal-Mart or Dollar General. Just runners so the dogs won't make as much noise.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Your wall of text was too much for me to read. Sorry. Good luck.

[Kim in FL]

You still have some editing to do (try paragraphs), but I'll do my best.....


You are obviously making more noise than you think; and before you get all ticked off, that doesn't mean I'm taking your neighbor's side. It seems that your neighbors are expecting total quiet and you won't get that in an apartment unit. If they are complaining about daily living noise, there's nothing you or your landlord can do. Other noise however, (like the kind that cops show up for) is another story. Complaints like that can get you evicted and or fined (if your city does that)

You need to talk to your landlord today. Dont' wait until tomorrow or Friday, stop in and see them today. Tell them what you've told us. Ask them the best way to handle the situation, it up to them to deal with these issues, not you. Don't confront your neighbor and dont' leave notes.


If you can hear your dogs nails on the floor, they need to be clipped. Maybe your dogs are making noise while you're gone? I don't know, I'm just throwing that out there. Make sure you remove your laundry from the machines as soon as it's done, set a timer or wait with your clothes. We have that problem here (thank God I dont' use the laundry room) and they put up a sign: " Do not leave your clothes unattended, we will remove them"

I hope this better for you because I don't think you're 100% of the problem...I think your new neighbors are expecting too much from apt living. Good luck and update when you can.

[Faworki1947]

at 8:30pm the cops come and tell you to be quiet? UH NO.. get a copy of the noise ordiance and be sure you have it on hand if it happens again.. the cops should know better and the complainers either are related to a cop or they are in some area law enforcement .. Most cops will not be that stupid ..not at 8:30pm
There is no law that says you cant laugh and talk on the back deck even after quiet hours as long as your doing it in a normal range of "just talking" .. trying to silence you like that is like sending you to your room with the door closed . yer neighbors suck btw .. ..

AND

To top it all off? These guys, after the nitpicking and their passive aggression, have been BLASTING classical music at least once every, or every other day for the past three weeks. Like right now. It is literally blaring, and it has not stopped for 2 hours. Don't get me wrong, classical musics all good and dandy y'know - until it's been playing this loud and in such long spans of time.. But it's before 10:30pm, actually it's only 7:30pm

something like that deserves a bit of passive aggressive reaction .. maybe bounce a basket ball on the floor .. in time to the music of course .. bad advice yes but sometimes you have to make it clearn that two can play the game they are trying to play

[charolastra00]

We had a similar issues with our old neighbors in a 2 family. Our unit had been under renovations for awhile before we moved in, and the neighbors didn't overlap with the old tenants of our place. They had a lot of silence in the evenings and weekends for awhile. We were told when we moved in that they would only be there a few months because they were buying a house. Then the wife got pregnant and they seemed to want to hold off until after the baby was born.

They started off fine, but then the pregnancy hormones must have flipped a switch and the wife became crazy. It was clear to my roommates, landlord, and I that it was the wife driving the show. The mother (not sure whose) and husband seemed reluctant. First it started with shutting off our laundry in the basement if it went one minute past 9pm. It's a 2 family - there are no official quiet hours. And at least give us until 10! A few times, I went downstairs to take out my laundry at 9 on the dot and based on the turned off machine and cold, damp clothes, they clearly turned it off sooner. We each had our own washer dryer so that wasn't an issue - they claimed it was too loud and woke them up. At 9pm.

Then, they started parking ACROSS both of our parking spaces. Our driveway is weirdly shaped, but there's plenty of room for 4 small cars. Because they drove very large trucks, they could only fit one in the driveway and the other had to deal with tough on-street parking. We had to get the landlord involved in that one because they refused to answer the door (even when I could SEE THEM peeking out the window to see me) and when I left them a nice note reminding them that we were leased 2 parking spaces and that I was only a few months out of chemo at the time and could not walk 2 or 3 blocks in the winter home, she informed me that she was 4 months pregnant and that it wasn't fair that we got two spots.

They also complained nonstop about our cats. At the time, there were 3 roommates and we each had a cat. Cats, of course, jump on and off of beds, furniture, etc and run around. There's no real training them - certainly not be silent. I can't control if my cat jumps off the bed or couch to go to the litter box at 2AM. Our landlord OKed the cats so it wasn't like we were breaking any rules.

A month after the baby was born, they closed on their new house and moved out. In that month, the baby kept ALL of us upstairs awake. When we approached the new mom about having walked on eggshells for the last 9 months because of their complaints, she squacked about her baaaaaaaaaby and slammed the door in our faces.

New neighbors have lived downstairs about a year. They say they can never hear us, and they are able to also park both of their cars on the driveway. Some people TRY to find everything wrong in a situation and are simply not meant to live in communal areas.

[Everdeen]

If you are having problems, aren't the other tenants? Talk to them first. When you talk to your landlord, if you have others with the same complaints, you will be in a much better position.

I had a neighbor that was just as irritating. I'm pretty "in your face" and was able to get him to stop with his nonsense. Ultimately, he was a coward and backed off when confronted each and every time he acted like an idiot. I'm a reasonable person but someone is going to act like that, I have no problem upping the ante (tap dancing at two in morning, that kind of stuff).

[parentologist]

You're trying to afford to put down rugs. Is there a clause in your lease that you have to have a certain percentage of the floors covered by rugs within a certain period of time after you have moved in? If yes, then go get some incredibly cheap rugs from a closeout place and fulfill your part of the bargain. If no, then ignore them.

As a landlord, I always try to put in wall to wall carpeting on all floors except the first floor, for sound muffling. Maybe your landlord would be willing to put in the cheapest landlord carpeting in your unit?

This is why I absolutely hated being a poor student. The best part about being able to afford a single family home in a nice suburban neighborhood is the peace and quiet. Talk to your landlord - tell him what's going on. If he cannot deal with them, tell him you're not going to renew the lease and go rent yourselves a single family house, if you can possibly afford it.

[NilaJones]

It might help if you can find out why they are so sensitive about noise. Like, do they start work at 5 am and need to go to sleep at 8pm?

[Hedgehog_Mom]

There are some people you can't figure out and can't reason with. Your new neighbors might be that kind of people.

Get some rugs from Goodwill if you have to, you can get them pretty cheap there. Also pick up a vacuum cleaner there for about $10 and vacuum those rugs every day during the classical music session. A vaccum sounds horrible when it's being run upstairs.

Don't feel like you have to be silent. The police have to hear you making the noise to give you any kind of ticket.

If you fix everything they're complaining about...never use the tv, get rid of the dogs, etc, they will just complain about other things. It will be things like the shower or the toilets or the sound of you walking around. I'm sure they've already complained to the landlord, so it is a good idea for you to talk to him.

Also, don't open the door to them when you're wearing just a towel. If you're busy, you're busy. Don't give the creep a free show.