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There are ways to scout out a building that would be quieter. There are no guarantees about neighbours, no. But maybe you could endure the renting for a while longer if you found a quieter building. They aren't all the same.
A unit in a house with fewer tenants might be an idea worth exploring. Maybe even a basement unit, some are quite nice. Or one in a quiet residential neighbourhood. Look for a building that has seniors in it. Not a very glamorous lifestyle, true, but it would be quiet.
Actually, this one is one of the nicer ones I have been in my life. In my youth, I lived in some really bad ones.
I am not old enough for a 55+, and even though they may say 55+, a lot of them still allow a certain percentage to be rented out.
I lived in a large house but for reasons I won't get into (long story), am now living in an apartment, which I have not had to do since my 20's. I am miserable, people running up and down the stairs at 3:00 AM, etc., and this is a pretty upscale apartment - not cheap. I can't live upstairs because I am older and the stairs would be hard on me.
I have some money to buy something, but not quite enough to put me in the kind of neighborhood I want to be in. My income is not enough to save, it all goes to rent.
I am ready to buy, but am still researching other cities, as I can't afford a decent home here.
I am so tired of moving and getting very depressed.
Stay in school, get a good job, and buy a house one day. That is my advice
I don't miss home ownership at all and am enjoying apartment living at this time. They are garden style 2 story places, well built and maintained, great location, all adults. My SFH was an absolute nightmare, the neighbors were unbelievable... louder, more disruptive, and more inconsiderate than any apartment neighbors I've ever had except one. And there's nothing that can be done, police care even less than the average landlord about noise/vandalism/trespassing etc type issues with neighbors. No easy way to move, no lease to be up, etc. Took me awhile to find a place like this but boy was it worth it.
I also hate apartments. Mine was reasonably sized, and upstairs. Aside from dealing with groceries and stairs, I prefered upstairs. Some of the people were wonderful. But then there were the rest.
My next door neighbor was a lovely lady in her late 80's, interesting and very alert. And her son. He had a temper. I got to listen to him screaming at her and unexplained thumps. The neighbor under them had called the police more than once and she just said 'nothing happened'. Then he met some druggies when she was back 'visiting' her family. I lived next door. The low lifes would knock on my door and say he needed to know the code so they could get on the internet. I said no and locked my door, but my dogs stared at the door in protect mode.
I'd rented rooms before that which has its own dilemas, but with him next door, a roomate who likes the Stones full blast while zoning out every night was trivial.
Then they lost housing certification since there were very well hidden problems. People moved in mass. They lost between half and 3/4 of the residents who had boggied. One building had ONE person renting but it was full of people every night, and the druggies broke the lock on the gate so they didn't have to climb the fence.
But for me it wasn't *just* that it had been taken over. There were boxes lost in the office since they didn't secure it, and not even a 'sorry'. Then someone telling me I had to empty my mail box more often. They stuffed all the third class stuff in too and the office had become unpleasant after they told the people who liked to sit in their AC and visit they could stay for events, or mail but shouldn't 'loiter'. It was also that I could just FEEL the people so close. I wanted space. The office policies didn't help at all.
I'd visited a friend in Oklahoma the year before, and had started looking at local home prices, and found a house for 17k. I asked family if they could help and they said its could be an 'early inheritance'. That's how I ended up moving here from very over crowded and busy socal.
I have enough space around me that I don't hear them and they don't hear me. When all the dogs are yapping while mom is getting their dinner measured, from outside you can barely hear the noise. No, there are a lot of places I had easy access to which I don't now, but I don't feel like the walls are closing in and the noise too much and that psysic space I need is there. I don't EVER want to live in an apartment again. Even if its the nicest place ever, it still shares walls with strangers and I feel crowded. Some of us are just like that.
The only thing that bothers me is leakage from the upstairs bathroom which has happened in two different apts. I found a solution to the noise above my head which is finding a place that does not allow pets. Most of the noise I heard from people living above me was from their pets not the actual tenant.
home ownership is not for everyone. For one thing, I love having something go wrong in the apartment and all i do is call the landlord, and its fixed within 24-48 hours. Its also fun to sit in my chair enjoying the view of watching someone else tend to stuff i dont want to tend to. its wonderful NOT to have to spend my weekends mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, paying $3,000 for a boiler that broke down, etc etc.
home ownership is not for everyone. For one thing, I love having something go wrong in the apartment and all i do is call the landlord, and its fixed within 24-48 hours. Its also fun to sit in my chair enjoying the view of watching someone else tend to stuff i dont want to tend to. its wonderful NOT to have to spend my weekends mowing the lawn, cleaning the gutters, paying $3,000 for a boiler that broke down, etc etc.
I get you on the yard, though the guy who showed up at my door with his riding lawn mower saying the last guy I used, whoever that was, had a broken mower so for 60 dollars????? And the back yard has hardly grown anything IF you could get his mower in the gate...
But then I love that it is MY yard and MY beautiful trees and nobody is going to do a extreme trim on them or decide I shouldn't have flowers there. I also have a six foot fence on the back and am putting semi private shade cloth on it to make it more private. I can let the dogs out without a leash. I have space for a garden. These things are important to some and an apartment will never make up for it.
As far as fixing, the rented placed I've lived didn't seem to know what that was. The duplex where I rented an apartment I took pictures of water pouring through the ceiling and a veiled reference to the health department for the owner to send someone out NOW after several months of wet ceiling and then drips. I sent copies of the pictures to the owner and the people she had bid on it. It only got patched and was leaking again when I was moving out. The apartment I last rented had a toilet with broken parts. The office said they give you a kit, but they wouldn't have more for a week. I bought my own from Walmart and almost deducted it from my rent. And the biggest? The smoke alarm started going off amid a hard rain outside. I pulled it down and it was wet around it. The office was notified. I bought a standalone smoke alarm with a battery and sat it on a high table next to the empty wire. When they had buyers coming through when they sold the building, the guy asked about the second smoke alarm. I said the office never had it fixed. Too bad for them they didn't ask more questions.
Most of the people I know who live in apartments have had to resort to fixing at least minor things since they'd really rather not. I was ready to call the health dept over the water and would have.
Some landlords may wish to fix when needed, but my experience has been they ignore you and hope you end up doing it for yourself. The last place was the worse.
If its mine and I don't bother to fix a problem its MY choice, but part of that rent is there to do maintaince like repairs.
My new place gives you the option to request maintenance online through their website so that seems to be a lot better than my current building which was two old drunks with a ladder
I've had a bad apartment situation when i rented from a condo owner. I now ONLY rent from apartment complexes that hae a policy: 24 hour maintenance. (sometimes they have 24-48 hours which is ok like if they have to buy a part or something).. but i had one lousy place where the condo owner made me wait 1-2 months before i got things fixed because he has one handyman for several apartments, and other things always took precedence. i guess he did not consider my having to step out of the tub with the dirty shower water in it (2 inches high) and then had to step into clean shoes.. Yuck! never again. that place also had about 3 kind of bugs in it, and it was nasty. never again. and the storage area downstairs had pipes leak two times on my stuff, fortunately the first time, the water from the pipes overhead only peed on my stuff that was linens and the stuff was in cardboard boxes, the cardboard box was full of water, so it imploded when i tried to pick it up, so thats when i got Rubbermaid containers.. and when the pipes burst again and peed on my stuff it did no damage. i could not cook on 2 out of 4 of the burners on my electric stove because the thing that your pots and pans sit on, was bent, and even with a heavy pot, i could not cook, pots would be tilted and if i was cooking with oil, that was not safe. i did not know all these things when i got the apartment. he b.s.d me about it and i didn't see the evidence of all these things till i started living there.
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