She Confronted Her Midnight-Party Neighbors Directly—Then Realized Intimidation and Deflection Demanded a Procedural Escalation
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When you live in an apartment, you have to expect that you will hear noise from your neighbors sometimes, but if it gets excessive, you have to say something.
What would you do if your upstairs neighbors were loud late at night and early in the morning when you and your cat were trying to sleep?
That is what is happening to the woman in this story, so she is thinking about going up and confronting them, but she doesn’t want to be a bad neighbor.
It seems clear to me that talking to them is a good first move. Hopefully, they will listen, but if not, at least she tried. Read through the full story below and see what you think she should do.
AITA for wanting to ask my neighbors to chill out at night?
I (37F) live on the 1st floor of 4 flat. My upstairs neighbors are SO loud.
The time they are being loud is a big part of the problem.
Understandably, I get that it’s impossible to be quiet all hours of the day, nor would I ever dream of getting annoyed over a little noise a couple times a week, however, what started as a minor inconvenience I needed to get used to is progressing into something that seems to be getting worse and more aggressively annoying every day.
It started with them vacuuming at 5:30am almost every morning, and moving around furniture to vacuum. I don’t care if you vacuum every day – It’s good to be clean. I care that you’re doing it so early when most people are still asleep under you.
Clearly, the neighbors are very inconsiderate.
They have a couple of kids who run around relentlessly and stomp and scream until past midnight almost nightly.
They play their music incredibly loud until late at night as well, and the bass tends to shake my light fixtures.
It is even bothering the cat.
They drop things CONSTANTLY, and their dogs never seem to have an off button. Obviously that’s enough to drive someone absolutely nuts.
I was trying to not let it bother me so much, but it got to a point where it’s starting to stress my cat out beyond belief.
This is not a normal amount of noise.
She’s never had a problem until the noise started getting out of control. I took her to the vet where she was prescribed anti anxiety meds and had to have shots to calm her down.
She hasn’t gotten better and it’s been a couple weeks.
Of course, it isn’t wrong to try to talk to the neighbors.
I guess I’m here to ask if I’d be wrong for bringing this up with my neighbors? If anything, I feel like addressing the stomping, running and screaming and music blasting late at night is the most reasonable approach.
I don’t want to get the landlord involved if I don’t have to, but I’ve been patient for a while now. I pay an idiotic amount to live in this building and it was hard enough to even find it.
The landlord is not her problem.
I don’t want the constant noise to drive me out, but I also don’t see my landlord having an easy time keeping tenants if it does keep up the way that it’s been going.
WIBTA?
In this type of situation, talking to the neighbors in good faith is an important step. If they don’t quiet down (which they likely won’t) then document everything, record the noise, and report it to the landlord.
Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about the situation.
Why not talk to them first?
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Talking to the neighbors is an important first step.
There has to be some ‘quiet hours’ listed in the lease.
Wow, this is extreme.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who wants their shed gone, and won’t listen to any arguments.
This commenter explains it well.
There is nothing wrong with asking neighbors to keep the noise level down. She should ask them politely, and if it doesn’t help, then she should go to the landlord.
People have a right to peace and quiet (within reason) at night.
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