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10 p.m.? I think the cops will not respond to a noise complaint at that hour. I think most city noise by-laws go into effect after 11 p.m. And the noise has to be significantly loud, loud enough to hear clearly outside the offender's apartment. I do think some people are too sensitive.
I can't hear it outside of the apartment, but I can definitely hear it through my walls and ceiling. I'm sitting in my living room right now and I can hear it through the ceiling. It's louder than my fridge.
In any case, I tried the nice way, and got exactly what I expected. He lied, he's the problem, he kept it up multiple times, and he doesn't seem to care about anybody else's peace and quiet so we'll see if this note worked. The idiot security guard I called just previous to this (the landlord told me to call them that time) just walked around and couldn't hear it outside, didn't even knock on their door even though I said it was one of those two doors. If this happens again, I'm going to call security and tell them for sure it's them, to look in their window for the TV lights, knock on the door, and if he tells them he was asleep he'll know he's lying and he's the problem. Otherwise I'm not sure what to do. Do I tell the landlord that I already called security and I'm complaining about him to them again? Can I take it to the city or do I need to deal with this guy by myself? So far he wasn't the nice guy everybody says he would be and seems to only care about himself. Thanks.
It could be that security is friends with this guy. And that's why he won't pursue the issue...why he just walks around outside.
Go back & read your contract. There should be a clause that states all residents are entitled to a peaceful environment, or something like that, between certain hours. That would be your grounds for complaint to management. And it could potentially be your grounds for breaking your lease.
In my opinion the OP is overly sensitive to noise and I'm not sure that any advice can really be offered which is going to help. It seems that the noises which bother him aren't anything above the norm and not cause for any action from the landlord (and certainly not the police). If the OP is even aware of such minimal noise as a refrigerator or a heater doing its normal thing, he may want to consult an auditory specialist to see if there's some physical reason for his intolerance which could possibly be either corrected or a muffling solution offered by a professional.
You seem to have an answer for EVERYTHING, most oftentimes a RUDE answer that makes many assumptions.
How do you know his situation isn't like the one I used to deal with until I moved to the place I live now? I was living downstairs from my LANDLORD. On a regular basis (and ALWAYS on weeknights) he would get drunk and turn his Cerwin Vegas that were on the floor directly above my head up to 100% bass and volume. This would START around midnight. If I was lucky, it would stop by 3AM or shortly after. Some nights, he simply passed out with the music going, and it would still be thumping in the morning.
TRY living with that. I missed many days of work due to not being able to sleep at all, and now matter how much I begged, it didn't stop. At the time, I had nowhere else to go, so I was afraid to call the cops, and given the fact that he was the landlord, who was I to complain to?
The real problem is that you live in a poorly managed building. Part of what you are paying rent for is management and this means ensuring a livable environment for the tenants. No apartment dweller can expect pristine silence at all times but loud tv or stereo speakers blasting on a daily basis, especially late at night are disallowed in the noise clause present in virtually every apartment lease.
Many managers will pass the buck and tell the tenant to talk to the neighbor. This is not your job and the neighbor is not going to feel you have the authority to tell them what to do (you don't). Late night knocking on the door or walls of someone you don't know, who quite possibly may be high or drunk is not advisable.
Meet with the manager lease in hand and ask point blank what exactly are they going to do to resolve the noise problem once and for all, also send your request in writing to the top level of management. If you are not satisfied with the answer you are within your rights to break the lease and move. Make sure you have a paper trail documenting that a good faith effort was made on your part.
You seem to have an answer for EVERYTHING, most oftentimes a RUDE answer that makes many assumptions.
If you read my response I didn't offer a solution but made an observation and a suggestion based on this and another thread which the OP started relating to the same problem in two different apartments which seems from his own admission not to affect any of his neighbors. When he equates unbearable noise as being something louder than his refrigerator it would seem to indicate that he's particularly and unusually sensitive to noise which could indicate a physical problem.
Your own contribution to this thread offers no suggestions at all but appears to be merely an excuse to document your own situation with apartment noise which has little or nothing to do with the OP's dilemma.
How am I overly-sensitive to noise if it happens twice in a row? You've never had somebody be a repeat offender? The last apartment I moved in had multiple tenants above me (three in a year), and the last one blasted music through the walls all night. It was vibrating the walls! It woke my cat up too. I finally pounded on the wall and they turned it down, but over time it went back up. They finally kept it down but it was still something I heard as I went to sleep every night. It didn't keep me awake, but it was sure as hell annoying going to sleep with someone else's music coming into your ears every night; I didn't feel like I lived in my place, I felt like I lived in their place. It's given me anxiety since moving here, and I just want a quiet night's sleep! Obviously you can't always tell how thin the walls are when you check out the place, and you don't check out a place in the middle of the night either. When I sleep at people's houses, I love how quiet and serene it is. It's like heaven! People should be able to get this kind of sleep, not surrounded by noise and TV all night. I don't even think that's healthy for you.
I'm very sensitive to the problems you are having with noise --- it doesn't take much noise at all to keep me up at night. However, my thought was that after being 'forced by noise to move' the first time,...one would think you would have done everything possible to ensure you weren't moving into another 'nightly noise pit.' While I realize that may be difficult, I'm willing to bet that you don't allow the same situation to happen to you a third time!
dhinged, I'm not sure where you live, but I would look into renting a SFR if you can find one that is close to the price of a nice apt and within your budget. If not, then the next best thing to do is to find a condo/townhome to rent that is privately owned. You are then sharing the building with homeowners who are generally (not ALWAYS, but generally) more responsible and respectful than some random punk who is renting the apartment above you. My wife and I are selling our home and relocating and we will be renting for at least the first year and apartments are definitely not even close to being considered for this reason alone. Heck we have had issues in our nice neighborhood and have had to call cops on our drunkard neighbor on several occasions, but that is generally not the norm in privately owned residences.
The fridge in my apartment is loud and obnoxious, and probably broken. It woke me up a few times when I first moved in and people point out how loud and obnoxious it is. I got used to that and can close my door, but I cannot get the TV sounds out of my walls and ceiling at night when I'm trying to sleep (11pm). It raises and lowers; explosions, speech, you name it.
I put a sign on the neighbors next to them saying they should call security if it's bothering them. Instead they turned my note into the managers and they put a warning to stop doing that or vacate, but I never saw any notice on their door. I don't understand why it's not OK to repetitvely put a note on a door but OK to blast TV through your walls at night.
This won't solve your problem, but a short-term solution that might help you sleep is to buy the type of high quality earplugs that you can shape to conform to the shape of your ear. In addition, buy an air purifier than produces a loud constant noise. These two things together improved sleep and my well-being significantly when I lived in a noisy apartment building.
*I just want to add that the earplugs I'm referring to are not the same as cheap rubber earplugs.
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