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Some people are very loud, and that can drive their neighbors nuts, especially when living in an apartment building.

What would you do if you kept calling the cops on your downstairs neighbors due to their noise, but one day they came and talked to you and asked that you just text them or knock on the door if they are being too loud?

That is what happened to the couple in this story, but since they have social anxiety, they don’t want to do that and would prefer calling the cops to let them handle it.

To me, that is very extreme. The neighbors seem reasonable, but this couple does not. Read through the full story below and see what you think.

AITA for trying to reason with the neighbors?

My partner (29F) and I (29M) have been together for 2.5 years and lived together for most of it.

Neighbors will always make noise, but some people are excessive.

We live in an apartment building and most of the neighbors here are nice/quiet. However, the unit below us (one M and one F, early to mid 20s) tends to be obnoxious during all hours of the day, but mostly at night.

I work from home, so I hear it a bit more than my partner but at night when my partner is home and it makes her very on edge hearing them slam cabinets and yell and stuff.

Calling the cops seems extreme. Have they filed complaints with the landlord?

We’ve called the police on them a couple times for having their TV or music blaring that it vibrates our floors or when they are arguing so loud.

The guy is also very heavy footed and stomps around and it shakes our apartment. We are on the second floor so we shouldn’t even be able to hear their footsteps.

Ok, apparently they are left with no other choice.

I know a lot of people will say “well why don’t you just talk to them?” We are both very socially anxious people who do not like confrontation, and they didn’t seem the type to take that kind of confrontation lightly and we’d be met with anger or worse.

Our leasing office does nothing to enforce the noise policy in their lease agreement, stating they can’t do anything without a full police report. We’ve reiterated time and time again that we don’t want them fined, we just want the noise to stop.

The neighbors want to handle this maturely, or so it seems.

Recently we called the police on them at 1 AM because their TV was so loud it was vibrating our bedroom floor and we couldn’t sleep. The police came and knocked on their door and they said they didn’t have anything loud going as she was sleeping. I say she was lying, but I digress.

Well, this morning the guy knocked on our door wanting to talk because of how often we’ve called the police on them and said “they don’t understand why we can’t just talk like adults”.

Why would you not want to solve the problem amicably?

I partially agreed, but my partner was dead set on not talking to them and continuing to go to the police or the leasing office.

We’ve even contemplated hiring an attorney to potentially get us out of the lease agreement with little to no fees since they are not enforcing their own noise rules.

You can’t force someone to talk like this.

Sorry for the sidetracking. Back to this morning, my partner was leaving for work and one of them started chasing after her to talk to her.

I found this to be kind of threatening, so I rushed out and he saw me. We then started talking and I aired out my concerns.

The neighbor seems reasonable. If his partner really wants peace and quiet, why is she against talking with them?

He seems like a decent guy and his partner came out as well and we talked. We exchanged contact info and said if we found any noise to be too much we could shoot a text or knock on the door.

My partner called me later and I told her all this. She started crying saying that she feels like the bad guy all because she just wants to live quietly without being on edge all of the time, which is obviously very valid.

Sometimes you have to talk to people, even if it makes you uncomfortable.

But we do live in an apartment building, so we will hear them from time to time.

I feel like maybe I shouldn’t have said anything to the neighbors and just kept doing what we were doing and not talking to them, but I’m not sure.

AITA?

While being socially anxious is understandable, that doesn’t mean that you never have to go outside your comfort zone to deal with problems. This couple is way out of line for going to the police as the first step.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Calling the cops first is going to burn bridges.

This person thinks they should talk to the neighbors directly.

What kind of person calls the cops before talking to them?

Talking to the neighbors is the right thing to do.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who was angry after coming home to a surprise hole in their fence.

They never even tried to reason with the neighbors.

Talking to the neighbors face to face is the right thing to do. Calling the police should be the last resort.

Sure, conversation is uncomfortable sometimes, but that is life.