Music coming through ceiling at night (Millcreek: apartments, to rent, condo)

[davetah]

I am asking this in the Utah forum because I'm curious how fellow Utahns have handled this and some other forum members just told me I was psycho for knocking on the walls even though someone told me that's what I should do (and someone else told me never to even talk to the neighbor). Here it is as simply as I can describe it:

I hear music coming through my ceiling at night (10:30pm - 7am+) which has woken me up or kept me awake several times so I knocked on the wall and he turned it down. The next night, the same thing, so I go knock on his door twice and when he didn't answer I left a note saying "Please turn off your speakers at night. They are keeping me awake". The next night is nice and quiet. The next day he sees me walking around and for whatever reason, the speakers are back up that night. I pound on the wall and he turns them off but 20 minutes later they are back on so I sleep somewhere else again. He's turned them down once but I could still hear them, and in fact, I can hear them not only in the bedroom but in the living room.

What do I do now? I want to confront him at his door but if he's got some kind of backwards logic like "well, you woke me up with your banging so why should I listen to you?" what do I do? He didn't care if I was nice, he didn't care if I was noisy. What do I do?

[skibarbie]

I think "confronting" is not the way to go but I do understand your frustration. Some people have a tendency to escalate every little thing and once that happens, well, it's hard to un-escalate it.
Have you talked to the apartment manager about this? I would think that would be the logical route to try first.
If that fails, I would buy myself some of those noise canceling headphones or buy a nice set of head phones for your noisy neighbor.

[affiliatepowersite]

confront him, and if he don't listen, report him.

[Calibelle]

Are your apartments individually owned? Or is it an entire complex that has to comply by the same contract and rules? If its the latter, you can go to the front office, and they will put a stop to it. You cannot make any excessive or bothersome noise from 10 pm until 7 a.m. Period. The guy needs to get some head phones.

You are not crazy to bang on the wall or ceiling. He is being inconsiderate, and he needs to realize, that part of apartment living is that walls are thinner, and you can't behave the same way you would if you were in the walls of a single family home in your own place.

Until then, if you want my advice.... get a fan and turn it on when you sleep. The white noise will block out the music if it is quiet enough. If the music is full of bass, it may not help entirely, but at least you can get some sleep until the problem gets solved completely. I would be SO TICKED if my upstairs neighbor was behaving that way.

[Royboy1984]

This is exactly the reason why I hate living in apartments. I dealt with this kind of crap twice, no three times while living in apartments. And it's always the same tripe. The first one the guy upstairs was a real liar and would play like he was asleep or didn't know what was going on when my roommate stepped upstairs to speak with him about him leaving his TV in loud all night long I could hear him turn off the TV as he heard the knocking and immediately went for the door - doesn't sound like someone who just woke up to me.

Also in another apartment I actually got confronted by an angry neighbor for telling her kid to stop playing on the roof at eleven o' clock at night. She then went on to say that "we" were too quiet and in fact IF we wanted silence to move into a house.

[TCAS007]

Report him at the landlord or whoever manages the appartments.

If it does not stop call the police.

[dcisive]

I always sought out homes to rent instead of the apartment route. Not that it is a guarantee you'll have decent neighbors either. It truly does suck to live in an apartment. Bad enough in a condo but at least they have to conform to a basic level of rules. Too many scum bags in apartments these days. It's a sad thing. One apartment I lived in in E. Millcreek was good because they were strips all on one level and I had an end unit with the one next to me typically vacant more often than not. I'd surely try to avoid multiple level types of units. They are just asking for trouble.

[chicagorunner]

Oh man... sounds like this may be another classic case of people who haven't developed reasonable social skills yet...

First, DO NOT just pound on the walls (sounds like it may be too late for this advice).

Here's the thing, the person listening to music may not know he's disturbing you; may not know how poor the insulation between units is. But you, you're INTENTIONALLY trying to disturb him by pounding on the wall.

Just talk to the guy. Start by trying to determine if he's REALLY playing his music unreasonably loud OR if the insulation between units is so poor that even a low volume is going to be heard between units.

People in these situations get so emotional they can't deal with the situation logically. Or, like so many Americans, can't deal with any confrontation at all, and wait until a situation gets totally out of hand before they do anything at all...

[BuckeyezRule]

I've been lucky to live mostly in single family dwellings. I lived in an apartment when I first moved out for a year. I did bang on the ceiling once or twice when it sounded like they were playing tackle football upstairs. Lol

On the flip side, I lived in a twinplex, and my guest was loud, and my neighbor beat on the wall, and we were quieter.

This, however, was before kids. My kids sound like a herd of elephants a lot. We were able to build a home 2 years before we had kids.

I put up with a lot, but I also think respect of others should be important too.

[stycotl]

Originally Posted by TCAS007

Report him at the landlord or whoever manages the appartments.

If it does not stop call the police.

this is what i would do.