Hey, Dumbo

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May 21st, 2013 · 53 comments

As it turns out, a surprisingly large number of American apartment buildings are pachyderm-friendly. (It’s the owners that are the problem, of course.)

related: How now, Mad Cow?

FILED UNDER: neighbors · noise · shit

53 responses so far ↓

#1 shwo!

Apparently Wilson has finally discovered Mad Libs.

May 21, 2013 at 10:49 pm rating: 90

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#2 Jan

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jetta

I’m confused. … which Jetta did Wilson mean?

May 21, 2013 at 11:00 pm rating: 90

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- #2.1 Beatus Mongous
  
  How many elephants can you fit in a Volkswagen?
  Five. Two in the front, two in the back, and one in the glove compartment.
  
  How do you know if an elephant is hiding in your fridge?
  There are footprints in the butter.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 2:28 pm rating: 90
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#3 Eliavy

Whatever you do, don’t Google “elephant poop.” You’ll need a Unicorn Chaser.

May 21, 2013 at 11:44 pm rating: 91

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- #3.1 Who passed out the Haterade?
  
  I’ll take your word for it about seemingly-innocuous Google searches… my eyes never quite recovered from the day I tried to look up a story about how someone in NYC got severely burned by an electrified manhole.
  
  In retrospect, “red hot manholes” probably wasn’t the best choice of search terms.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 11:16 am rating: 91
- #3.2 redheadwglasses
  
  I admit, I do some odd searches when I”m bored. I once wondered whether anyone had posted a video of an orifice and how it looks when someone is farting.
  
  Why did I even have to wonder? Of course someone has.
  
  I’ve recovered, but it took a while.
  
  My boyfriend can’t believe I googled that but he laughed his butt off.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 11:46 am rating: 90
- #3.3 pooham
  
  My bosses search at work was flagged. He was researching laser beam characteristics and googled “six inch spot size.”
  
  May 22, 2013 at 3:10 pm rating: 90
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#4 FeRD

I have soooo many questions about that last one. But, at the same time, I know any answers I got would only lead to even more questions.

The first one just leaves me in awe of the rich variety of clip-art options available nowadays. Truly, this is a great time to be passive-aggressive.

May 22, 2013 at 12:05 am rating: 90

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#5 HJB

I like that the poo sign itself appears to have recently been peed on (pissive aggressive?)

May 22, 2013 at 7:06 am rating: 90

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#6 redheadwglasses

Don’t like the noise of upstairs neighbors? Either talk to them or suck it up. Notes are juvenile. I live on the first floor of a very old four-unit building. I hear every step she takes (I also have seen her unit and she has rugs everywhere). It kept me awake when I was new, but I’ve gotten used to it and usually just tune it out.

I do love when her cat gallops up and down her hallway (our hallways are 23′ feet long) — that cat is so loud, one of my cats will hear him, think it’s a sibling running down the hallway, and will take off to chase after the invisible upstairs cat.

May 22, 2013 at 7:11 am rating: 90

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- #6.1 H for Toy
  
  How do you feel about every move she makes, and every bond she breaks?
  
  May 22, 2013 at 8:13 am rating: 90
- #6.2 The Elf
  
  I hear ya about the cats. If beasts of less than 20lbs and known for grace and silence can make so much noise, what can you possibly expect of a human?
  
  May 22, 2013 at 8:31 am rating: 90
- #6.3 Lil'
  
  I lived on the bottom floor apartment for a year. My upstairs neighbor had a pool table. That was great at around 11 p.m. And since he had a blue light bulb outside his front door, all his buddies had no trouble finding the place. Yay!
  
  May 22, 2013 at 8:54 am rating: 90
- #6.4 Rene
  
  Ok, the cat thing is kinda cute. My cats can hear when the squirrels get on the roof (I’m trailer trash) & act hilarious.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 9:22 am rating: 90
- #6.5 Beatus Mongous
  
  Wait…
  
  You saw her unit? How big is it?
  
  May 22, 2013 at 12:49 pm rating: 90
- #6.6 The Elf
  
  Not too big, unless Red isn’t easily intimidated. She’s laid down a some rugs too, and that always makes a unit look a little smaller.
  
  I question the pronoun usage, though.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 12:56 pm rating: 90
- #6.7 pooham
  
  One of my cats put her paw right through my 2nd floor window screen when a bird landed on the ledge. I was laying on the bed with her and at first I thought something had sucked her right out the window. (aliens?)
  
  Now that we’ve live here a while the cats are no longer that interested in the birds, who no longer land on the ledge.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 3:15 pm rating: 90
- #6.8 Seanette
  
  I’ve had cats nearly my entire life, and have come to believe that they can adjust their local gravity at will. I have no other explanation for just how hard a paw can dig in when a cat is standing on a human, or for how a two-pound kitten can sound like a horse galloping down a hallway.
  
  May 23, 2013 at 2:38 am rating: 90
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#7 Dane Zeller

Must be a slow day at the passive-aggressive notes store.

May 22, 2013 at 9:23 am rating: 90

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#8 redheadwglasses

Toy: HA! That ear whig is going to drive me crazy this morning, so thank you very much for that.

Rene: I agree, it’s cute. Poor Rose looked so confused after she ran after the invisible cat and got to the living room… and there was no cat there.

May 22, 2013 at 9:39 am rating: 90

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- #8.1 H for Toy
  
  So glad it’s stuck, redhead. As soon as I read the first half of your post, I couldn’t get it out of my head, so I knew I needed to share the joy.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 12:50 pm rating: 90
- #8.2 redheadwglasses
  
  You. Will. Pay.
  
  Come on Eileen
  Oh, I swear what he means
  Aah, come on let’s
  Take off everything
  That pretty red dress
  Eileen (tell him yes)
  Aah, come on let’s
  Aah, come on Eileen
  Too-ra-loo-ra, too-ra-loo-rye, aye
  And you’ll hum this tune forever
  
  May 22, 2013 at 12:58 pm rating: 90
- #8.3 H for Toy
  
  There’s a commenter on here named Eileen, and every time she comments, I start humming that. I’ve only once posted “Come on, Eileen,” in reply to something she’s said though.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 4:09 pm rating: 90
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#9 Madrias

I live in a middle apartment. I’ve asked upstairs neighbors to quiet down at times, and I generally try to be quiet when walking around, so I don’t disturb the neighbors downstairs. Usually it’s received well.

So when I ask the upstairs neighbors to please quiet it down, and they decide to go out of their way to make as much noise as possible, I get a bit passive aggressive. I’ll wait till the downstairs neighbors are out of the house and play loud music. I’ll toot air horns. I’ll work on projects where I end up making tons of noise.

The best part: when they come down to confront me for being “unnecessarily loud” and I mention back that “I asked you to quiet down a bit, and I was nice about it. You got louder instead. Suck it up.”

May 22, 2013 at 9:59 am rating: 90

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- #9.1 redheadwglasses
  
  I feel your pain, I do. But… is it possible that your upstairs neighbors aren’t actually making more noise on purpose just to bother you, but that the activities they want to do just happen to make more noise, and they aren’t planning to curtail those activities just because you want it to be quiet?
  
  May 22, 2013 at 11:47 am rating: 90
- #9.2 Beatus Mongous
  
  The funniest upstairs neighbor story I have was when one of them emptied their fish tank onto my porch with a tank vacuum, and then dropped the vacuum. They never came to ask for it.
  
  Another good one was a next-door neighbor couple waking me up with the soundtrack of incredibly loud sex at about 2am. She screamed for about an hour. When she finally left, I had to look out the window to see what was making all the noise, and the woman was amazingly scary looking. The next day, a friend of mine, who lived across two parking lots and a street, asked me if I heard anything the night before. Apparently, SHE was awakened, as well.
  
  Then, of course, there are the fights, followed by the make-up sex. Or the sex that sounds like a fight. Those are always fun, because I don’t know whether to call the cops or just sit back and enjoy the “music.”
  
  I’m not in an apartment anymore. I get a lot more sleep these days.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 1:06 pm rating: 90
- #9.3 Madrias
  
  Red: When you’re on a day shift job, is vacuuming at 3:00 in the morning a normal thing? They weren’t doing it before I asked. How about having parties in the middle of the week that last from about 5:00 PM until 5:00 AM? Or playing loud music at midnight? All of those things weren’t being done in the first month before I asked.
  
  Beatus: I loathe fish tanks. Upstairs shattered one and flooded the living room here.
  
  As far as loud sex, that’s the downstairs neighbors. Screaming sex, followed by fighting, followed by sex.
  
  And the best part: the cops around here don’t give a shit cause they’re too busy writing tickets to people running the red lights.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 2:16 pm rating: 90
- #9.4 redheadwglasses
  
  Ugh, that all sounds pretty awful, madrias. Thanks for the examples.
  
  May 23, 2013 at 7:53 am rating: 90
- #9.5 Madrias
  
  One gets used to it after a while, it’s just annoying, and it’s nice to have a place to vent once in a while.
  
  May 23, 2013 at 2:21 pm rating: 90
- #9.6 Fartycat
  
  I’m going to call my astonishingly loud farts “tooting my air horn” from now on.
  
  May 24, 2013 at 9:47 am rating: 90
- #9.7 Hannah
  
  When my husband lived with friends in college, the girl who lived below them was INSANE about their foot steps making ANY NOISE… because it caused her little dog to yap uncontrollably.
  
  One night, she called the cops and told them that someone was getting beaten up in my husband’s apartment. The police kicked the door in, only to find three guys sitting on the couch and playing video games.
  
  They went down to the first floor and chewed the girl out about crying wolf.
  
  Then her roommate came upstairs and said, “If she ever does anything like that again, just report her for subletting.”
  
  Jun 2, 2013 at 12:19 pm rating: 90
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#10 Kwyjor

My quality of life improved immeasurably then I moved out of my old apartment and no longer had to deal with the upstairs people making the floors creak and taking showers at 2 AM. I highly recommend taking similar measures if you are faced with a similar problem.

This is why I may never buy a condo – so that I will never be on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars should I ever feel the need to extricate myself.

May 22, 2013 at 10:28 am rating: 90

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- #10.1 redheadwglasses
  
  I bought a condo. It was great. Most of the other owners were pretty cool, we’d even have occasional building parties. Then the younger people (why oh why do 23 yos BUY a place to live?) decided “Oh, I’m not ready to settle down, I want to live elsewhere for a while,” or “Well, I”m getting married now, time to abandon my unit and let it go into foreclosure” (17 units, at least half went into foreclosure, all of the owners being under the age of 30).
  
  Then crappy owners moved in (units that had sold for $120K to $160K now were on the market for under $40K). The woman below me literally went out of town and left a key at my door and a note, asking me to take care of HER PUPPY for 10 days. I did not. I mean, I did feed it and water it, took it outside when I could (which meant it was alone in her unit for 18 hours or more a day sometimes). It destroyed her unit. Her couch literally was shredded into pieces. The entire wood floor was ruined by poop and pee. I hate that bitch’s guts from then on out — and so did everyone else in the building.
  
  Long story long, I, too, abandoned my unit (since it had lost 90% of its value and I lost my 20% down payment (cash) in that).
  
  I’m never again buying into a condo.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 11:51 am rating: 90
- #10.2 The Elf
  
  “why oh why do 23 yos BUY a place to live?”
  
  Well, I can’t speak for every 23 year old, but my 23 year old husband and I bought our townhome because we wanted to start building equity. Why not? We also wanted to trade neighbor-noise on three sides for neighbor-noise on one side, and act which I think many PAN writers here would understand. We lived there for more than 10 years, then sold it when the housing market crashed for more than double what we bought it for, which enabled us to buy our current home.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 2:51 pm rating: 90
- #10.3 H for Toy
  
  Most 23 year olds aren’t as responsible as you and Mr. Elf. At least not any I am acquainted with.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 4:12 pm rating: 90
- #10.4 kermit
  
  I don’t think the question relates to equity so much as why a town home over some other abode.
  
  Having lived in apartments most of my life (thus far), strikes me as the worst of all possible combination between apartment living and individual home ownership. You’re in hell if you have a noisy neighbor because it’s no different than an apartment complex. And you still have the pain of mowing the lawn and shovelling the snow.
  
  Toy, no offence but most 23 year olds don’t buy homes at that age because it makes zero financial sense to do so, since they have no money. If you have parents that are willing to foot the bill for your down-payment AND are lucky enough to have a secure job that will pay your mortgage, then of course in makes sense. But the vast majority of 23 year olds are just out of college, make little money and have student loans to worry about.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 9:45 pm rating: 90
- #10.5 Alex
  
  Redhead: I can’t imagine the contingency will ever arise again…but if it does, a better course of action would have been to call animal control and report that the neighbor had abandoned her puppy. Puppy would have been taken to a shelter where s/he would receive adequate care before being adopted by some more responsible party*, and neighbor would still have found an unpleasant surprise when she returned, in the form of a criminal charge.
  
  *As a rule, puppies in US animal shelters aren’t in much danger of euthanasia, unless it’s an *extremely* rural area. Most places are not overrun with puppies, and they’re easy to adopt out.
  
  May 23, 2013 at 2:55 am rating: 90
- #10.6 The Elf
  
  Well, in my neck of the woods it was townhome or nothin’. The single family homes were too expensive, even the small and old ones. And if you buy an end-unit, you only get neighbor noise directly through the wall on one side. That’s a step up from most apartments. The “community areas” suffer from the same problem as apartment complexes, along with the same sorts of parking issues, and the wondefulness known as the HOA. So, yeah, it’s not awesome and you’re locked there until you can sell it, unlike an apartment. We had to mow our lawn, but we’re talking about a yard the size of a postage stamp. I could do it with a weed whacker. It’s better than renting an apartment, for us.
  
  Building equity is not to be underestimated, even with the housing market crashes we’ve seen. We bought the house just before the housing market started to skyrocket, leaving us with a fixed mortgage payment on a relatively inexpensive house. My brother lived in my old apartment complex when we moved out. His rent – on an apartment identical to our old one – was almost twice my mortgage payment. While that mortgage payment was tough to make at 23, it was a lot less tough at 35! When the market crashed, we weren’t underwater because we had bought so long ago and stayed there so long. Then we sold that townhouse to a young couple with a baby on the way, and we took that profit and rolled it right into the down payment on the house of our realistic dreams. There is no way I could have bought that house without that huge down payment, and no way I could have saved up that same amount paying an ever-increasing rent for so long.
  
  It just depends on individual circumstances. For us, owning made a lot of sense.
  
  May 23, 2013 at 7:24 am rating: 90
- #10.7 redheadwglasses
  
  Elf: You were married, and already farther along in the adult world than most 23yos are. The people in my building who walked away from their homes had just bought because everyone was telling them how stupid it is to rent. (It’s not! There are pros and cons to renting AND owning!) Several people moved out becuase they were getting married and didn’t want to live in the equivalent of a two BR apartment as a couple.
  
  Alex: I realized that after the ordeal was over. FWIW, she had had two dogs taken away from her already (by friends/family, who knew she was a crappy pet owner).
  
  Before I knew she was a nutjob bitchfuck, I set her up on a date with my friend, who later informed me what a nutjob bitchfuck she turned out to be!
  
  May 23, 2013 at 7:57 am rating: 90
- #10.8 Tom
  
  Elf, I’ve thought about possibly doing what you did. The rent is, as they say “too damn high”, and I can see that a mortgage on even a small regular single house would be lower in my area. The problem, naturally, is escaping the rent hole. It’s high enough to makes it difficult to save (it eats up about 60%-65% of my income, which is about 25% too much according to just about everyone). That of course makes it difficult to save up a substantial enough sum for a down payment. And it makes me leery about the additions of heating and property taxes and so on. So I’ve been shying away from ownership even though with some research, I might find that a condo would likely fit the bill rather well as a stepping stone to my very own house.
  
  HMMM.
  Thank you for the information.
  
  May 28, 2013 at 2:20 pm rating: 90
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#11 Ann

I live on the top floor of my building, so I don’t have anyone above me. I’m quite sedentary myself, so hopefully, I’m not causing problems for others. I’ve been fortunate to have reasonably well-behaved neighbors over the years. AFAIK, no elephants live in the building, either.

May 22, 2013 at 1:51 pm rating: 90

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#12 The Elf

Nun chuck stance? I’m not even going to ask.

Yes, I’ll ask. But I won’t google image it.

May 22, 2013 at 2:55 pm rating: 90

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#13 pooham

I love the elephant drawing in the second note! I want to learn to draw an elephant.

And the elephant poop one is just disgusting! I loathe people who don’t clean up after their dogs/elephants. That’s why I don’t go to public parks…people are just inconsiderate. I’ll be environmentally unfriendly and grow my own grass in this drought-stricken state instead.

May 22, 2013 at 3:24 pm rating: 90

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- #13.1 Gaji
  
  I was going to post the same thing. That is some impressive artwork for a passive aggressive note.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 3:38 pm rating: 90
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#14 Captain Hampton

It would behoove the recipient of the second note to acquire an elephant costume forthwith. Or a pet elephant.

May 22, 2013 at 3:35 pm rating: 90

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#15 Turbo

I think the “elephant” she’s training with is probably a big, muscle-bound person (male?) who is teaching her some sort of martial arts out on the lawn. Just my guess.

May 22, 2013 at 5:03 pm rating: 90

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#16 Elle

I love the implication in the second note that if “dear neighbor” actually *is* an elephant, it’s okay to jump around.

May 22, 2013 at 8:57 pm rating: 90

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- #16.1 FeRD
  
  Not only that; I for one would totally support their decision if they decided to jump up, jump up, and get down.
  
  May 22, 2013 at 10:04 pm rating: 90
- #16.2 matt
  
  Funny, ’cause elephants can’t jump!
  
  May 24, 2013 at 11:59 am rating: 90
- #16.3 Lil'
  
  Unless they see a mouse.
  
  May 24, 2013 at 1:01 pm rating: 90
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#17 vegangeekgirl

The second is a really nice drawing of the elephant!

We live on the 4th floor, our upstair neighbours are extremly loud we have tried talking to them several times.
They explained it wasn’t them but rather them but rather the people on the 6th floor. It seems that sometimes it actually is the ones on the 6th floor.

We have given up on talking to them and are going to move out of here as soon as we can.

There is a lot of yelling so much that we actually contacted social services because we where genuinly worried about the children.

We met them sometimes in elevator and they are really nice people just loud.

The people that lived there before where also loud. It’s not that I don’t get that you have to vaccum regulary but when you are doing at 3AM it suddenly doesn’t feel ok anymore.

We are trying to disturb our neighbours and I hope somebody tell us if we do.

May 23, 2013 at 8:30 am rating: 90

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#18 tarn

I think my upstairs neighbour is a were-elephant….
I’ve met him, he’s James Blunt-sized. Or even Jamie Cullum. A skinny little guy. But he thumps around up there like he weighs 400lbs. It’s not the floors, they all have carpets, and none of the previous tenants made anything like that much noise walking around.
Oh, and more proof – he farts the loudest I’ve ever heard. It’s a real room-rattler. Which would make more sense if it was the elephant trumpeting, wouldn’t it?

May 24, 2013 at 9:05 am rating: 90

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#19 Ginger

I work night shift, so on my nights off, it’s not uncommon for me to vacuum at 3 or 4 am. Which it doesn’t really bother me when others do it during their regular life hours. But I live in a good complex that doesn’t allow excessive noise and has removed loud people quickly. Having great neighbors helps too.

May 25, 2013 at 10:13 pm rating: 90

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