Disturbing Neighbors
I feel like a really old senior complaining about disturbing neighbors (I’m 22 years old), but my threshold level has been reached. We live in an apartment building with a total of six apartments. All apartments have separate entrance and have a nice yard. The house could look more attractive if the owner cared, but he don’t.
Anyway, we live next door to a single mom with one daughter. The little girl is like thirteen years old and seems to have the hobby of disturbing everyone else. I’d guess she is looking for attention.
My girlfriend and I live with my girlfriend’s mother, who at Easter this year has been diagnosed with incurable cancer. She really needs all the rest and calm she can get to live with the disease.
The disturbances have been going on for a while and we didn’t say or complain at the start. We thought it was a one-off thing and tolerated it, but clearly it wasn’t. We and our neighbors talked about it and chose to notify the mom through a note in the mailbox. This seems most fair; maybe the mother could talk to her daughter about it. The note seemed to work at the start and it was really calm and quiet. The mom thought we were ridiculous writing letters and thought we should tell it to her face. I still think this was nice of us; otherwise she would’ve had nine neighbors at her doorstep.
The weeks went by and we had peace and quiet, but then it started again. This time I told the mom to her face, as she requested before. I pointed out that it had been good for a while but now it was like before. I believe the mother works nights in health care of some kind, and it’s not easy to control the kid from work. When the mother is home there is peace in the house, but as soon she leaves the daughter starts. The other neighbors have talked to the daughter as well, but it triggers her to disturb even more.
She usually turns up the music for everyone to hear and invites some friends over so they can have a little fun terrorizing the neighbors. They shout and scream, jump and stomp at the floor like elephants, slams doors as hard as they possibly can etc. If we are outside talking to other neighbors they sometimes scream “screw you!” through the door and then slams the door shut. Very mature I must say, sometimes I think she is still left in the despite age.
For those neighbors who don’t have a fence round their entrance, they have started to do ding-dong ditch at 1-3 am. This I can tolerate at single times but they seem to do it regularly. I think there is a big difference between the kids today and let us say ten years ago. It is not comparable.
We see how it goes, but we’ve tried talking to them and it doesn’t seem to work, the next step is to contact the landlord. Hope it will solve the problems. The positive about it is that I got something to write about, thanks for that little girl!
/ The precocious student :)
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Hi Daniel,
ReplyDeleteI’m so sorry to hear about your girlfriend’s mother.
I also feel sorry for your neighbour and I imagine that she struggles with just about everything. It can’t be easy to raise a teenager by yourself. However, that’s not your problem to deal with. I f I were you, I would contact the police and ask them to make contact with your neighbour and explain to them that they will be reported for disturbance if they don’t keep the noise down to an acceptable level.
As I understand, you and your neighbours have done what could possibly be done. I also think that it was nice of you to give her a letter instead of everyone standing in front of her, which could have been a stressful situation for all of you.
Very nicely written and I like the ending when you turned a negative thing into a positive.
Good luck!
Best wishes,
Marie
I am also very sorry to hear about your girlfriend’s mother. Me and my girlfriend had a similar problem a couple of years ago when we lived in an apartment. Our next door neighbors was a family of four people, two adults and two teenagers and one of the teenagers had a bad habit of turning on the stereo when she prepared herself for school from approximately 06.00 to 07.45. This may have been ok if it was a small stereo or that she listened to it with a low volume but no. She turned up the volume so high that we could have had a nightclub or “morningclub” in this case in our apartment.
ReplyDeleteThe first time it happened I went over to their door and rang on the doorbell, the music was turned down but no one opened. In fact I could hear footsteps on the other side of the door going towards me but instead of opening the door she just took a look at me threw the peak hole. The next couple of times the stereo was turned on too loud I went to their door, rang the bell and then got back to sleep. She maybe thought that this is the way to do it. If it’s too loud we ring the bell and she turns it down.
My solution to this problem would have been: DO NOT PLAY YOUR STEREO AT ALL BEFORE 08.00.
All my thoughts goes to you, your girlfriend and her mother.
Regards / Daniel
Hi Daniel
ReplyDeleteI’m sorry to hear about your girlfriend's mother. I have no understanding of your neighbor at all. It is very strange that some people do not understand or cannot accept that people really need to sleep sometimes. In this case the situation is even more serious because we're talking about someone who is sick but still cannot sleep. I think there is disturbing neighbors in many places, but so disturbing I have never seen before. But I must say that although I have neighbors at HAGAGATAN 1 in Karlstad that partying in the middle of the week, yelling and running up and down stairs. Believe me I am not talking about people who are 13 year old but adult people. Anyway I hope that your girlfriend’s mother will be fine and your neighbor will calm down eventually.
Best regards /Dolan
Oh my God! This reminds me of my neighbours! They have 2 little brats, that keep yelling and running up and down the stairs, and since their parents own the building, they seem to think it's ok that their kids do that, but if we maske a noise, god forbid, they knock on our door and complain! Hypocrits :S.. Anyway goodluck with the neighboor, and sorry for your girl's mother..
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