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thaiyoga

Being a 'noisy' neighbor

thaiyoga
17 years ago

My husband and I moved into a 2nd story apartment in a 8-unit complex. It has hardwood floors. Three days into the move, my neighbor downstairs began pounding on her ceiling while I was moving the dining room table. I tried to be quiet the entire day and it's quite difficult when you're trying to move in.

When the cable guy came in to install the cable at 11 am, she pounded on the ceiling again and when my husband came outside, she said that she had the flu and he apologized. She began pounding on the ceiling throughout the next two months even when I was simply folding laundry, or opening my closet door. Once, while the toilet 2 doors away was being replaced, she pounded on the ceiling when there was hammering in the other apartment.

One night we got home at midnight and she pounded on the ceiling again, from the moment we entered the bedroom to the time I was opening the closet. I went outside and she just began yelling at me, saying that I was very inconsiderate, that I moved my furniture and dropped things all the time, and that I must walk like an ogre, et. Then she said, "watch out, you're new."

The next day while I was folding laundry again, she pounded on the ceiling and this time I complained to the landlord, who told me that yes, he had problems with her in the past, and that she was mentally unstable, and was taking medication for it. he told me to "consider the source" and that if I can be tough about it. He also told me that I could have the police deal with it. He did talk to her and the pounding stopped.

Fast forward 2 months, and we haven't heard a thing from her. then last night at 3 am the police come knocking. They said that they were responding to a complaint from the people downstairs about loud noises from our appartment. The call was made at 2 am and we had gone to bed at 11 pm.

My husband told the police that we had had run-in's (his word) with the people downstairs over noise and that we had talked to the landlord about it. THe officers said that it was routine for them to investigate a complaint and that if they had to come back again they'd have to cite us and it would go to court.

Now, if we absolutely didn't do anything other than walk around our apartment like normal people do, how can we defend ourselves against someone who's very unreasonable. My husband says that she seems to have it out for me, always targeting me about the noise, and when we had our confrontation.

Do we wait till we end up in court to defend ourselves? We did sign a one year lease and we're 5 months into it...this was my landlord's reference to "tough it out"...but the woman downstairs is clearly unreasonable and has apparently found another way to 'harass' us. We've resorted to walkign barefoot and almost tiptoeing around our own apartment, and sometimes not flushing unless we absolutely have to...but that's not the way to live.

Any advice?

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