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Your home doesn’t have to be perfect, despite what you might have heard on social media. Whether you’ve just moved in and you’re wanting to decorate and make the place your own, whether you’ve lived there forever and are content with things how they are, or whether you’re still trying to find the home you want to move into, perfection is not the goal. Instead, you need to find a place where you feel comfortable and safe – the rest can come after.

The renter in this story has lived in their studio apartment for some time, and things have been fine for the most part. But recently things have started to change, since his upstairs neighbour’s boyfriend and dog moved in. Now their waking hours are erratic – and that’s before we even mention their nighttime behaviour.

Read on to find out what’s happening here.

Upstairs neighbour doing CrossFit or something the entire night

I have a standard day shift job. I leave in the morning at 8am and come home around 5:30pm.

On a rare occasion, I can hear my upstairs neighbour come back to their apartment at 6pm. But most of the time, I never hear them come and go, especially on weekends when they normally stay in (or maybe they just so happens to go out and about whenever I leave).

I live in a 450 square foot studio apartment, quite tiny, and the above unit has the same layout. My complex holds six units, and is an older type building.

I’ve been living here a little over a year, and didn’t really have an issue with my upstairs neighbours (aside from knowing that they are night owls and active until 1am). But this has recently changed due to the fact that they are active throughout the ENTIRE night.

Let’s see what has changed with the upstairs neighbours.

A couple of months ago it seemed like she had got a dog, as I started hearing the dog walking/running around. Then it seemed like a man (presumably the woman’s boyfriend) moved in as I started hearing a male voice.

This dude started screaming, stomping, and running around between the hours of 9pm to 8am. When I say stomping, he is straight up pounding the floor so hard my windows and the pans in my oven are shaking. Either it sounds like he’s getting angry over a game or rough housing with their dog?

I’m hearing stuff like “NO!!! NO!!!” and “AAAAAAAAAAAA” multiple times, especially between 2am and 5am. I tried wearing fancy noise cancelling earbuds, but unfortunately they only muffle the sounds, and I can straight up feel vibrations whenever he’s being active.

So after a couple of nights of this, I left a note about the noise next thing in the morning.

Read on to see if things are different now.

Fast forward now, he did kind of stop yelling and stomping, but they are still very much active the entire night. Although the stomping stopped, it kind of switch to hopping “lightly”. Literally, I’m hearing them jump.

Every day they are constantly dropping things on the floor, a couple times a month they would repeatedly turn off and on the bath water (which you can hear loud running water and the shut off) for three to ten minutes at a time for the next two or three hours. Im assuming they are cleaning their clothes in the shower?

If they step on a squeaky part of their floor, it’s like they stand in place and shift their weight to make it squeak more.

Like I’m just genuinely confused at what they are doing and their sleep schedule. I straight up started laughing one time at 4:17am because I heard him running to side of the apartment and ranting and yelling “waahhh!!”

And this weird behaviour remains a mystery to this unfortunate downstairs neighbour.

Being up the entire night means you would have to sleep during the day right? Nope! Between the weekends and weekdays they switch their sleep schedules. Sometimes they are actually quiet the whole night and are active during the day at least once or three times a week.

But their routine is pretty much active from when I get home from work (I hear normal walking around, maybe eating, fixing something up) but the noise levels really start to pick up from 9pm all the way to 8am.

And the fact that on occasion I can hear them come back after I come home from work means they are active during the day and still somehow have the energy to stay up the night. Especially the random spurts of running back and forth which very much sounds like they are playing with the dog.

We live in a tiny, TINY unit that has a big built-in round table with oven in the middle. It takes up a lot of space so there isn’t very much space to run, let alone to try and play with a dog.

And this all has this neighbour glad to be moving out.

I used to work night shift so I understand the need for quietness during the day, but they live on the very top floor. There is no one above them to bother them.

I live on the second floor and cannot hear anything from my downstairs neighbour, so they can’t be bothered by the noise I’m making and I’m not home for majority of the time. They constantly shift their sleep schedules at random times so they’re pretty much active the entire 24 hours.

I had my brother and his girlfriend borrow my apartment when they were visiting for a night and I stayed at my boyfriend’s place, and the next morning they told me it sounds like my upstair neighbors kept moving furniture and doing crossfit the entire night.

This has been the weirdest experience I’ve had with apartment neighbors and thank god I’m moving out soon.

This must be so frustrating – as well as absolutely ridiculous to experience.

It’s bizarre the tiny amount of sleep this couple must be getting – and it sucks that it’s impacting their neighbour’s sleep too.

What on earth are they doing up there?

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person could relate – but had taken much more drastic action.

While others suggested a gentler approach.

Meanwhile, this former night shift worker couldn’t understand how her upstairs neighbours could be so rude.

Sure you should be allowed to live your own life in your own place, but if you know that your life fits into very different schedules to the majority of folk, you need to have some awareness and show some courtesy towards your neighbours. Because not everyone is awake all night, and just because you are, doesn’t mean that they should have to be awoken by you. And there’s a difference between doing normal things like making dinner, using the bathroom, and walking around your home, and literally doing CrossFit and yelling all night.

Clearly this downstairs neighbour doesn’t just want to go and create a load of drama, but it’s important that they do something, in order to protect their own quality of life. This could be just discussing the issue with the couple upstairs again or, if they fell unsafe to do that, talking to the landlord. Whatever it is, it’s clear that the upstairs neighbour needs to make a change. Because no one should have to live like that.