If you’ve never had to experience your peaceful neighbourhood turning ugly when a problematic neighbour moves in, count yourself lucky. Because sadly, this situation is more common than you might want to believe.

And it’s not just the anti social behaviour types. There are other kinds of behaviours that take place inside of one’s home that might seem harmless, but could cause havoc for neighbouring properties.

Take arguing with your partner for example. It might just be part of yours and your partner’s dynamic, and you know that you love one another really, you’re just fiery personalities. But to your neighbour who is used to living a quiet life, hearing the two of you yell at one another through the wall could become quite distressing.

Then there’s the folks that park their cars unsociably, allow their kids to run riot in the street, or even do unsightly things to their yard, damaging shared fences and even blocking your view with sheds and outhouses. None of these things are really wrong per se, but they are incredibly annoying to those innocently having to deal with them.

Of course, there’s also the music types – you know, the ones who listen to their favourite tracks at a volume more appropriate for a stadium. They’re just happily living their lives, but for the neighbours whose houses are being shaken by the racket – as was the case for the woman in this story – the new soundtrack to their home lives is rarely a welcome addition.

Read on to find out how confronting the neighbour about the noise made things even more awkward.

Dropping the bass neighbour

I own my condo and so does my neighbour. I’ve lived here over a decade, and she’s been here ten months.

She used to leave for work around 5pm and listen to her ****** bass-heavy music for an hour or so before, while I was working from home, but I could deal with it.

Quiet hours don’t start until 10pm per the bylaws so technically she was not doing anything against bylaws.

Since the weather got nice, she has started cranking it at 10am when she wakes up. And it can go for hours.

Yikes! Let’s see what this homeowner has done to try to resolve the problem.

I can wear headphones with my own music or play my own music, but it doesn’t cover the vibrating and pounding (I can’t hear actual music from her).

I finally went over there Friday to ask her to either change her music to something without the bass, or turn it off (please).

Unfortunately the visit wasn’t smooth.

Read on to find out what happened.

First thing when I went up to the gate from the sidewalk (which is along a pretty busy street) I saw her door was open and she was standing there looking in the mirror, completely topless. Our patio fences are only 3.5 feet high, there’s definitely no privacy between it and the street.

At any rate, I took a step out of view and said “Hey…”

She gasped and darted out of the doorway, but I kept going and told her the bass was bothering me as I was trying to work, asking could she switch music or turn it off?

She replied with a mortified sounding “OK.” The bass stops.

But it didn’t stop for long.

Yesterday and today she’s back listening to her **** again. She’s moved the speaker so it’s not as strong as before, but there’s still pounding/vibrating.

I can’t record it properly to get evidence for a noise complaint cause it’s just too low. And after Friday’s booby viewing, I’d rather not go over there again.

My Strata (condo board) are ineffective about responding to any kind of complaints and I suspect since the blasting is inside permitted hours, they won’t care.

She’s on a corner so I’m the only one who shares a wall with her.

This situation really sucks for the condo owner who is trying to work from home.

Noises like this can be really disturbing, and not just because of the distraction.

The incessant thudding of bass is really annoying, not to mention the way it shakes your house.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a townhome owner who is at his wit’s end with the noise from next door.

Let’s see what the Reddit community made of this.

This person understood why the bass was so annoying.

While others offered solutions for trying to mitigate the sound.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that there could be legal options after all.

Sure the neighbour was embarrassed that the other woman had seen her topless, but in reality there were bigger problems here. Being a nuisance with noise not only isn’t very neighbourly, it also has the potential to land her in some hot water. Because of course, there are options like hanging rugs and buying a load of books and bookshelves, but in reality the homeowner shouldn’t have to take those measures in order to live a peaceful life and be able to work from home without being constantly disturbed. It would be a big expense and would mean changing a lot about her home – when on the other side, the other woman could just stop it with the bass.

When you own your own home, it’s easy to feel that you should just be able to do whatever you want, but the reality is that you still ought to abide by decent morals. Sure listen to your music, but it doesn’t need to be at a level that shakes the neighbour’s property. Sure walk around topless, but you don’t need to do so with the door wide open. Because just because it’s your home doesn’t mean that respect for others should stop. You can live a happy and free life whilst also being a decent human being.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a homeowner who responded to an HOA violation letter by investigating the bylaws and having the whole board removed.