They Were as Quiet as Humanly Possible at Home—Until Their Elderly Neighbor Filed a Campaign of Unjustified Noise Complaints
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Unless you live on the very top floor of a block, you’re going to have people living above you if you live in an apartment. And being the downstairs neighbour means that you have to accept one thing. There’s going to be noise. Now this doesn’t mean that you have to accept excessive noise – because we all know that screaming and slamming doors and playing loud music is unsociable – especially through the night – but the truth is, people make noise. And if you live in such close proximity to other people, they’re going to make some noise sometimes. Get over it.
But the couple in this story, upstairs neighbours, make pains to be quiet while they’re living life inside their apartment. And that’s even more the case since, on the day they were moving in, their downstairs neighbour greeted them with a tirade about all the noise they were making. And she started as she meant to go on, because their time since has been day after day of being yelled at and having noise complaints made against them.
Read on to find out why.
What would you do about my miserable downstairs neighbour?
I’ve had bad neighbours before, but this woman is an all-timer.
My wife and I moved into this apartment a year agom and the downstairs neighbour has been a problem from day one.
As we were moving in our boxes, she introduced herself by pounding on our door and asking us “Have you ever even lived in an apartment before??” For context, most of the unit is carpeted, and this was at 4pm.
I told her we would be pretty chill neighbours once we got our stuff moved in, and she just left in a huff.
And things haven’t got any better from there.
Since then, we’ve heard her screaming and cussing at us anytime we make any amount of noise after 9pm.
Just walking to our bedroom is enough to set her off, and she makes sure to keep her window open so everyone in the building can hear just how furious she is.
She constantly files noise complaints, but management has told us that they ignore them because she’s had the same issue with every other upstairs neighbor she’s had, and she’s basically been a huge problem tenant for years.
The manager said she is a “vile woman” who loves to drag everyone else into her rage. They’re on our side which is nice to know, but they’ve also told us they can’t really do anything besides document it in case things escalate.
This is even after this couple tried to get on her good side, too.
I tried bringing her cookies once early on, and based on the glimpse I got of her dark and dirty apartment, it definitely seems like she is just someone who lives in misery and looks for any opportunity to lash out at others.
I honestly feel really bad for her, and try to just ignore her screaming as much as I can, but I find myself getting so anxious knowing that there is this volatile woman screaming at me every night over almost nothing.
She brings so much negativity to our home life, and I can’t imagine her ever stopping.
What would you do?
It’s a real shame that this miserable woman is having such a negative effect on their life.
And the fact that she’s been this way with all her previous upstairs neighbours too suggests that there’s little chance of changing things.
You have to wonder what has to happen to someone to make them this way.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.
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This person had had similar experiences.
While others thought the couple should speak to their landlord.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a neighbor who keeps reporting a neighbor who is constantly parking in the handicapped spots.
Meanwhile, this Redditor encouraged them to be sickeningly nice to her.
Honestly, while being extra nice could work, it seems like the way that she has behaved with all the previous upstairs tenants suggests that this unpleasant woman is stuck in her ways. If they want to try being nice and seeing if she mellows they should absolutely go ahead, but it might be a waste of their time if the woman is resistant to changing. Because right now she seems content on blowing up about every little thing, and that’s a real issue.
The fact that management are so outspoken about her says everything really. They know that she’s the problem, not the upstairs neighbours, but they have to keep records as per their protocols. That’s understandable, and at least there’s a clear case building for her being fussy, but it seems really unfair to the upstairs neighbours. Really, unless management do something about this unpleasant woman (who, by yelling, actually causes a real noise disturbance) they’re going to lose another set of perfectly good tenants – and another set, and another set, as the cycle goes on.
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