Writes Chelsea in Colorado: “This is just hilarious. Their bass shakes our floor at all hours on a pretty much daily basis, but they’re upset because…we walk loudly?”
related: How now, Mad Cow?
Hello, 911? My neighbors are loud walkers!
March 11th, 2012 · 154 comments
FILED UNDER: college life · Colorado · neighbors · noise · non-apology apology · smiley
154 responses so far ↓
#1
Ed
Hmmm, sounds fair enough. As an apartment dweller, stomping is extremely irritating, and so easily avoided. Take off your shoes and walk lightly!
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:30 pm rating: 55
#2
Uninspired Required Name
Are they going to be cited for walking too loudly? I’d like to know exactly what the charges for this would be. People really don’t know how to deal with living in apartments.
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:31 pm rating: 67
#3
beerwad
I’m sure the cops will get right on that.
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:31 pm rating: 94
#4
Siobhan
hmm sounds like the person who has posted this just seems petty if they wont talk about it yet continue to stomp on purpose and its a bit shite if they people downstairs have got kids as well.
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:33 pm rating: 10
#5
JVV
Since I’ve never been one for smoothing things over, I’d suggest Chelsea let them know that she will invite the cops in to hear how loud their music is outside of the legal hours.
Pretty sure the cops would kill themselves laughing at the original letter writer if they called to say “my neighbors are walking too loud.”
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:33 pm rating: 47
#6
aquapt
Thank goodness for that smiley face at the end – it completely defuses the tension, doesn’t it? (That and “We are over it,” immediately followed by what can only be read as a dark cloud of totally-not-over-it.)
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:38 pm rating: 80
#7
Ollie
Sounds to me like we have 2 sets of douchebags who deserve each other as neighbors. You’re both noisy a-holes and I’m glad your childish antics aren’t going on near my place!
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:42 pm rating: 53
#8
SeeYouInTea
What are these mythical creatures known as occAsians?
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:45 pm rating: 20
#9
weaselby
I hate the occasianal bout of thunder-feet-itous as much as I hate creatively phonetic spellers :p
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:49 pm rating: 21
#10
ljatty
Team Chelsea – You can help how loud your terrible music is but you can’t help how you walk. Being an apartment dweller since 2003, I have had every terrible neighbor in the terrible neighbor handbook and “loud walkers” are not in there. It’s the floors more so than the person. However, loud music with the bass turned up is #1 and they should be evicted. Or burned at the stake.
Mar 11, 2012 at 3:58 pm rating: 99
#11
Susan
If people can’t be respectful by keeping their music down to a tolerable level for their neighbors, then move the hell out of an apartment and get a house where you can’t bother anyone. And if you can’t handle the “stomping” of feet? Move the hell out of the apartment. Is this how adults really act? Grow up all of you….
Mar 11, 2012 at 4:03 pm rating: 33
#12
SevereCaseOfButtHurtItis
Sounds like a whole lot of butthurt going on on both sides.
Hey Chelsea, if their “bass” actually is annoying you at what you claim to be “ALL HOURS”, you could just call the cops when it’s up late at night.
Mar 11, 2012 at 4:07 pm rating: 6
#13
infanttyrone
Their bass shakes our floor at all hours on a pretty much daily basis
……………………………vs………………………………
…our loud music on the weekends…
One or both of these is likely an overstatement or an understatement.
Clearly, a neutral 3rd party is needed to sort things out.
Cops might not be able to find a disturbing the peace statute applicable to stomping, and the apartment manager might not have the negotiation skills necessary to engineer a mutually satisfactory compromise.
So, since the phrase “school night” has been used, a call to the local
Solomon Dispute Resolution Services office is the obvious choice.
Their go-to scenario of splitting children in two has stood the test of time.
After all, it was developed in the Middle East, an area known for getting both sides of major and minor disputes to go along and get along.
Mar 11, 2012 at 4:11 pm rating: 14
#14
Grammar Police
To her credit, her letter is well-written with no spelling or grammar errors. Points go to her for that! lol
Mar 11, 2012 at 4:14 pm rating: 2
#15
HRHjmp
I had a downstairs neighbor complain that my walking sounded like “bowling balls dropped on her ceiling.” Funny, none of the other tenants the prior six years complained.
When I would get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom (I had wood floors), she would slam her closet door repeatedly. When I would shower at 5:50am, she pounded on her bathroom ceiling.
It’s called living in an apartment. I hope whoever moved in after I left was equally “loud,” and the tenant got a clue.
Mar 11, 2012 at 4:28 pm rating: 47
#16
scott hall
eh just sounds like a fight. not that funny.
Mar 11, 2012 at 4:59 pm rating: 0
#17
Meg
I used to live below a 400 lb man who liked to run on his treadmill at 4 am, right around the time I was just falling asleep post graveyard shift. I just kept a pile of shoes next to my bed to hurl at the ceiling.
Mar 11, 2012 at 5:07 pm rating: 13
#18
DS
In one of my college apartments, I lived on the 3rd floor and we had girl neighbors downstairs that liked playing shitty music late at night. We’d asked them to stop, they told us to fuck off. My roommates and I used the wheels (with tires) from a jeep to make our coffee table. One night after hearing their crap 500 too many times, we took one of the wheels and bounced it to each other across our floor aka their ceiling for about 15 minutes. Never heard a peep from them after that. My friends that lived on the 1st floor below them later told us that stuff was falling off of their walls.
Mar 11, 2012 at 5:20 pm rating: 64
#19
Ruth
I’m pretty sure anyone who plays loud bass without gaining the full consent of their neighbours (preferably by bribing them) in an apartment deserves to be shot.
Why does this notewriter have the writing of a 14 year old, but complains about school nights? Since when do 14 year olds deal with the neighbours instead of their parents? I hate to think that someone with such pathetic handwriting and a bratty attitude is a parent themselves.
Mar 11, 2012 at 5:45 pm rating: 22
#20
Dibs
Their music may well be within “noise curfew” hours but if it’s above a certain decibel level you will get cited for it.
I live in a third floor apartment and I freak out when my dog starts thumping his thick tail on the floor, I know it must sound like we are hitting a hammer on the floor.
Mar 11, 2012 at 7:06 pm rating: 18
#21
Seanette
Some people do walk heavily, my husband being an example. This is one of several reasons we live on the ground floor. We also keep odd hours (he works swing shift), and we’re very aware we’d drive downstairs neighbors crazy, so we arrange to not have downstairs neighbors :).
Mar 11, 2012 at 7:21 pm rating: 16
#22
Kati
Thunder-feet-*itis? Swelling of the thunder feet? Okay then.
Mar 11, 2012 at 8:31 pm rating: 7
#23
Sir Puke
I had a family living above me in an apartment. There were two boys under ten years old. They would loudly wrestle in the afternoon before dinner. The parents would step up and try to get them to stop. I am almost sure it was because they didn’t like the noise either.
The mother and the father would argue and swear at each other and anyone else in their apartment. That was the biggest annoyance for me. She would curse at people in her apartment or on the telephone at anytime day or night, including on the weekend when I would try to sleep-in.
When my lease was up I was out of there like a bat out of hell.
Mar 11, 2012 at 8:45 pm rating: 2
#24
deprogrammed
For some reason, the mythical, magical 10PM curfew concept has spread across the country. For the record: there is no such thing as a time when disturbing the peace is OK. The upstairs neighbors should be the ones who call the cops. Not to mention the folks downstairs should be arrested for sheer gall.
Mar 11, 2012 at 8:46 pm rating: 21
#25
undund
quiet seems the privilege for those with money. “Just move” is not an option for everyone.
Mar 11, 2012 at 9:13 pm rating: 31
#26
goobler
Uh, grownups who can’t afford to buy houses can rent these nifty things called Duplexes.Nobody above the ceiling except mice and squirrels, nobody downstairs except dirt and plumbing. Easy to soundproof between units.
Mar 11, 2012 at 11:35 pm rating: 7
#27
Craphtlovr
I used to live in a shared apartment with very thin walls. So thin, that when my boyfriend and I would watch TV in bed, with the volume so low that even we could barely hear it, the neighbor would bang on the wall. We did have a later schedule than they did, and felt they should try something called “earplugs,” but we tried to keep it down the best we could. But sometimes, we wanted to, you know, talk to each other, and if our voices rose above a whisper, bang went the wall. (P.S. Other neighbors had called the cops on them for screaming at each other.)
One night, he banged so hard that it knocked a picture frame off the wall, which fell onto a glass and shattered it. Glass shards were everywhere, including IN THE BED. Although it was 2am, we were forced to run the vacuum or risk physical injury. The neighbor stormed over, banged on the front door, and accused us of doing it “on purpose.” Even when I showed him the bag of broken glass, and invited him in to observe the scene, he called us liars and threatened to call the cops. I wish he had, actually.
Bottom line, no matter the hour, if someone is doing something that is well within their rights to do, i.e. having a normal conversation, taking a bath, walking around, watching TV at a reasonable level, etc., get yourself some goddamned earplugs. They work wonders.
Mar 11, 2012 at 11:37 pm rating: 46
#28
undund
“occasians” — funny
Mar 11, 2012 at 11:40 pm rating: 1
#29
loribl
When we were in college many moons ago, we lived next door to some early punk rockers. They decided that slam dancing at 3 a.m. was fun. The problem was, their living room shared a wall with our bedroom and I had to be at work at 7 a.m. Being a light sleeper, I got very little sleep with these two morons living next door.
One morning, I pounded on their wall and they quieted down. However, they came over later in the day while I was not around and talked with DH. They asked if we had pounded on the wall and DH (who sleeps like a dead person) of course replied that we had not. One of the girl’s snappy answer to the noise was, “We are just young and like to have fun!” At the time, we were the advanced ages of 20 and 21 to their youthful 18.
I do NOT do well with repetitive noise. Today, I am not so tolerant of this sort of crap. However, I am not like my dad, who got arrested for the first (and hopefully ONLY) time at age 65. He had asked his neighbors to turn down their mariachi music for WEEKS. He had finally had enough and went to their yard and SHOT their car radio with a 45!
Mar 12, 2012 at 2:16 am rating: 59
#30
Red Delicious
Maybe it’s just me, but I’m one of those people that does my best not to piss anyone off, just out of common courtesy and decency.
But I guess those qualities don’t exist anymore in the real world.
Mar 12, 2012 at 2:16 am rating: 26
#31
The Elf
I think some roommate/apartment disputes could be resolved by simply talking to the person. It doesn’t work with everyone – there are some real crazies out there – but I think most of the population is willing to compromise if made aware of the problem. That’s why PANs get me so much – they’re often the first attempt at resolving a problem and they do anything but.
It seems here that downstairs neighbors attempted to talk to Chelsea about it on multiple occassions, but she won’t answer the door. (If we believe the note, anyway). Why is that? Unless the downstairs neighbors came up raving, in which case it could be a safety issue, why not answer the door and discuss the problem like civilized people. Maybe Chelsea could explain that she isn’t delibertly making noise, that it is a soundproofing issue, and resolve to attempt to walk more lightly after 10pm on school nights, provided those neighbors tone down their heavy bass. That would be a reasonable compromise. But without face-to-face discussion, such compromise is impossible.
Mar 12, 2012 at 7:34 am rating: 3
#32
Merv
My downstairs neighbors could have written this note. In their minds, my moving about in my living space is done out of spite and malice. The fact that they rent the basement apartment in a creaky, 110 year old building is lost to them.
Mar 12, 2012 at 7:57 am rating: 26
#33
Stacia
I could never understand why people think it’s okay to have bass in an apartment complex. Sure, music sounds better with bass, but it’s plain annoying to hear and it’s impossible to tune out with earplugs. I’m lucky with my land lords. They don’t allow bass regardless of what hour it is. And with the footsteps…I wear slippers to help with that or I walk on my tip toes.
Mar 12, 2012 at 8:47 am rating: 17
#34
Nope
It amazes me how many people don’t seem to get that apartments have thin walls and you can’t have music as loud as you would in a house. I don’t want to listen to your reggae, rap, etc., so please turn it down to a decent volume. One of my neighbors likes to have theirs so loud you can hear it outside of the building. Sigh.
Mar 12, 2012 at 8:52 am rating: 16
#35
Bill
If the person who wrote the note wasn’t a rude idiot herself, then she wouldn’t be having the problem.
There is NO reason to have the music that loud that your neighbors can hear it clearly. It is most annoying to hear the bass boom-boom-boom through the walls. It doesn’t matter if it IS within a noise ordinance time or not, it is just simply rude and disrespectful to jam the tunes that loud.
I applaud the stomping tenants in getting even. If the idiot would keep the music down, then the idiot wouldn’t have to deal with the stomping.
I’m so glad I haven’t lived in an apartment in almost 20 years. It seems that most (not all) people who live in apartments are immature anyways, so this note is no surprise.
Mar 12, 2012 at 9:40 am rating: 8
#36
tk.
I have an upstairs neighbor who is not light-footed and goes to work at 3am, so I… *yawn*… can relate.
Mar 12, 2012 at 9:54 am rating: 5
#37
Erin Kane Spock
I walk like an elephant, but made effort not to when I lived in an upstairs apt out of consideration. In turn, I’d expect the same consideration out of my neighbours.
Mar 12, 2012 at 11:46 am rating: 10
#38
Adriana
For a year, I lived in an apartment where I heard every noise my upstairs neighbor made because of how shoddy the construction was. Wasn’t his fault, but he didn’t make it any easier by inviting over all his friends every Friday and Saturday night. They often didn’t leave until 4 AM, usually drunk, screaming and laughing all the way to the car. My other neighbors loved to smoke pot on the weekends, stinking up my apartment most Saturday afternoons. So… that’s when I ran most of my errands.
My point is that thin walls and apartment living mean you’re going to run into lifestyle choices and habits that annoy you, but that everyone involved also needs to be considerate of that fact. Just because the floods and ceilings betrayed every noise didn’t mean that my upstairs neighbor had to be a loud douche at 3 AM. Be reasonable with your disturbances. They’re going to happen, but you can minimize them.
Mar 12, 2012 at 12:31 pm rating: 8
#39
Lil'
My neighbors just moved away, but they were an interesting family. They had regular screaming matches in the driveway. I’ve seen him lay down behind her car to keep her from leaving, and on New Year’s Eve she came pounding on our door after he drew a loaded gun on her and her daughter. He got no jail time even though he admitted it, and she took him back the next day. Oh, during warm weather, she watered her outdoor plants in her panties and bra (or a string bikini – if she were being conservative) every single day. She even changed into a bikini after work once and drove home with the top down. It was odd, but she was a hottie. She had to be…her husband reminded her often that if she got fat, he’d leave her like he left his ex. He was a real charmer, that guy.
Mar 12, 2012 at 12:36 pm rating: 7
#40
Bex
Since when does not answering your door when you’re not expecting anyone equal being rude and/or childish?
Mar 12, 2012 at 1:06 pm rating: 32
#41
Jennifer
Aaah, thank you again, PAN, for reminding me that people pretty much suck and putting as wide of a distance as possible between me and them is the best thing to do for my overall sanity.
Fortunately, I already do this, anyway. But a reminder is always good.
By the way, don’t people ever listen to music on their Ipods anymore? How are all these people blasting music from their stereos and bothering the neighbors on purpose when listening on their headphones isn’t a weird thing anymore, it’s pretty much the “normal” thing? I mean, they have to be making extra effort to be that annoying, right?
*continues to be mystified at humanity*
Mar 12, 2012 at 1:13 pm rating: 9
#42
Nahhh
I live in a house, in normally quiet neighborhood, and am being deafened AS I TYPE by a Harley across the street that is in dire need of exhaust work…but will never get it. Because they LIKE it like that.
So…Team Chelsea.
Mar 12, 2012 at 2:32 pm rating: 6
#43
yolanda
If an apartment has very little textile decoration, carpets, drapes, apholstery, etc, it will act like a sound box for and amplify the activity in it towards the neighbor’s home. My neighbors told me that my music was creating an issue for them and I was shocked as it was quite low and I never heard a thing from them. I went over to their cozy stuffed home and heard every tiny noise from my place through the walls amplified louder than in my place. Hanging a nice tapestry style rug on the adjoining wall solved the issue without me having to buy a vacuum for carpet.
Mar 12, 2012 at 2:38 pm rating: 11
#44
yolanda
I also wanted to suggest that all you apartment dwellers extend the courtesy of allowing a weekly stereo blast for an hour or so (length of an album) from each other because sometimes the music needs to hit your ribs, not your ears. I always did my occasional stereo blasting during the afternoon, though. (love my little house, I can vacuum at night!)
Mar 12, 2012 at 2:42 pm rating: 2
#45
cate
“We’re jerks for controllable noise-making, but you guys are bigger jerks for making noise that you can’t help but make.” WTF? I like how note-writer justifies being a jerk because “it’s not illegal” to be an obnoxious jerk. Team Chelsea.
Mar 12, 2012 at 4:20 pm rating: 17
#46
Some Old Guy
My mother has a ground floor unit in an upscale condo complex (she has bad hips and can’t manage stairs anymore). The upstairs neighbors recently put in hardwood floors. Despite being required to put in a sound-deadening layer, the declined to, saying that they would have had to cut all their doors to make them fit. So every footstep is clearly audible, every pair of heels sounds like a carpenter, and whatever it is they are rolling around up there sounds like a freight train on a dirt road.
A**holes…
Mar 13, 2012 at 11:23 am rating: 10
#47
bloop
Noise before 10? Submitter, chill the fuck out.
People walking? Letter writer, chill the fuck out.
One day, I’m going to live in a cave and never have to deal with this kind of crap again.
Mar 13, 2012 at 11:47 am rating: 5
#48
bleep
lol. they can’t call the cops for stomping… noise ordinances have a range clause. if the cops can hear the upstairs neighbors “stomping” from 200 feet away, they should call animal control to take care of the elephant upstairs.
Mar 13, 2012 at 2:49 pm rating: 1
#49
JBee
I was living in apartment housing that almost exlusively held students for a nearby university, and there was one guy down the hall who played music so loudly, with his windows open, that a guy from down the street came over to tell him to shut the hell up or he would call the cops. I only know because I happened to be going downstairs to do laundry when he arrived, fuming, and asked if I knew where the noise was coming from. I was quite happy to let him confront them rather than me, a woman who avoids confrontations at all cost. The direct confrontation took care of it, thankfully, though only after much screaming between the two parties.
Mar 13, 2012 at 3:04 pm rating: 2
#50
Phil
There is difference between walking and stomping. I had one family above me that jumped out of bed all night long and stomped something fierce. They moved out and I occasionally hear the people above us now. The stompers also loved to play loud music till 3am while mommy was at the club.
Mar 13, 2012 at 3:54 pm rating: 3
#51
Alistair
I am a 911 dispatcher and, yes, people call about this sort of thing – all the time. And then they get pissed when we try to explain that while it may violate a civil ordinance or the apartment’s rules, it is not a CRIME to be noisy. Asshats.
Mar 13, 2012 at 10:07 pm rating: 3
#52
Dr.Chalkwitheringlicktacklefeff
They don’t sound “over it”.
Mar 14, 2012 at 11:46 am rating: 1
#53
Emma
My downstairs neighbor skipped the note and just called the police. She had her TV turned up so loud we couldn’t hear ours and our landlady had told us to stomp on the floor as a signal for her to turn the tv down. We explained all this to the cops who issued her the citation for breaking the noise ordinance. WIN!
Mar 14, 2012 at 11:34 pm rating: 10
#54
no
1. Both noise makers in the note sound (intended) like assholes.
2. I don’t get why so many people here find stomping acceptable just “because it’s an apartment”.
As mentioned above in various forms, people who live in apartments have the right not to be subjected to excessive noise. This is not some excessive sense of entitlement no matter how much you try to spin it. There are some things you have to limit in an apartment more than you would in a house. Playing music loudly is one, running around is another.
If you happen to be heavy-footed enough to be causing a lot of noise by simple walking, then yes, you ARE part of the problem and need to find a way to solve it. NO your neighbors don’t have to suffer because you happened to move in.
Mar 15, 2012 at 3:20 am rating: 11
#55
shevrolet
Being considerate shouldn’t be so hard. When Boyfriend and I moved into our first apartment we spoke to our adjoining neighbours early on about letting us know if we were too noisy and whether they’d heard anything so far. Boyfriend likes his music loud, and we’d definitely had some bed squeaking in the first week, but we were lucky to be in a fairly soundproof building.
Mar 20, 2012 at 11:21 am rating: 2
#56
Ruthless
Loud walkers are some of the worst neighbours. If you live in an old, shitty apartment building you have to learn to walk softly and not slam your heels down on the floor. I suffered under one, plus the bitch had a CAST. I can sleep through music, I can’t sleep through thunderfeet. I moved out shortly after she moved in.
Mar 26, 2012 at 3:04 pm rating: 8
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