Getting Worn Down by Neighbors

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This may be long, so please forgive me.

I have lived in this unit for five and a half years. I started out with a very noisy neighbor on the other side of me, who I put up with for a whole year. After speaking to him multiple times, I wrote a letter of complaint to the landlord. He responded by having this guy move to another unit. I had two other neighbors after him who were fairly quiet and I only had to speak to one of them 2 times. One of them switched to another unit, and one just moved out.

Last year, a girl moved in. She started out fairly quiet. If she played her music I could hardly hear it unless I went near the back of the unit. Then her boyfriend started hanging out there. Nearly every night there was a party. My life became living hell. Since the house doesn't sit squarely on the ground, their every move causes the house to vibrate. One night, the loud music and noise went on until nearly 1:30 am. I am not very good at confronting perfect strangers, but I went around and asked them to turn the music down. A few nights later, it happened again, and I melted down.

My fiance went over and politely asked them to please keep the noise down. (He is not good with confrontation either) It ended with me having to write to my landlord AGAIN. I knew that he would probably think that I just liked to complain. The excessive partying died down, and they began spending the bulk of their time elsewhere. Then one night I went into my bedroom and caught my neighbor's boyfriend peering into my bedroom window. He walked away very quickly but I recognized him. I felt that if I called the police he would deny it, and if I told the landlord he would just think that I was trying to make trouble for them. So I reported that someone had been looking in my window and to please alert the other neighbors. A broadcast email went out, and this way that guy would know that I had seen him.

I got a hint that the landlord wasn't happy with me because he had been not charging me as much as the other tenants but now raised my rent to full price. I suspected that he hoped that I couldn't pay it and leave. But I did not have a problem with the new amount. The new problem arose from the landlord himself. He started blasting loud music every night around 10:30 which was when I usually turn in. I had a meltdown that made me positively ill. My fiance went over to ask him to turn the music down and disclosed that I was autistic. His response was that this explained a lot. Then he said that my complaints were becoming a problem.

The message that I am getting here is that neighbors who play their music loud and party a lot are valued tenants, and people who like to enjoy quiet in their own unit are a problem. Two mornings ago I woke with chest pain and had to go to the ER. The stress is making me crazy. I never play loud music or bother anyone. It hardly seems fair to be viewed as the trouble maker. What are my rights here?

Can probably get a copy of your local ordinance from city hall or the library. Most cities and counties have these in place to control the time, types and loudness of noise.

Your landlord sounds like a real creep. (As do your neighbors)

I once had a similar problem (~30 years ago). I got up into the crawl space above the apartments, and dropped a few cheap fish fillets from the market into the inside walls of the neighbor's apartment. Then I waited. The neighbors were gone in a few weeks, and the landlord had to remodel. He never asked me anything about it, and I didn't know that I had new neighbors until a few weeks after they moved in - we all got along nicely.

Today I tried an experiment. Since I always use headphones, I wiped the dust off my CD player and brought into the kitchen which shares a wall with the neighbors. I put in a CD of African drumbeat music and turned it up just loud enough to carry over into their place. For some weird reason, their music was turned down. I wonder why?
I figured that if my considerate behavior has not been appreciated, I may as well give them a taste of their own medicine. I will definitely not be renewing my lease here. Too bad that I must stay here until next year before I can leave.

I hate sharing walls with strangers. Sorry to hear you've had a bunch of inconsiderate jerks for neighbors. I've been there too. After putting up with a bunch of sh*t for several years(after complaining & being called all kinds of unsavory names by tenants & property mgmt unlike), we moved out. It was the best thing we ever did.

Now life is not perfect in a single family dwelling. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had a rude neighbor who decided to throw a techno/hip hop bash at his/her home. The noise was making us crazy as it went on well after 1:30am & it was loud enough it sounded like the party was in our yard. Calling the cops didn't help because even though there's something like 300,000+ people who live in our area, there's no noise ordinance in place to protect peace & quiet. That is, unless we wanted the cops to produce a signed document with our legal names & address to the offending neighbor. My hubby was unwilling to do that because he didn't want our neighbor retalliating against us or our property.

I can relate to this sort of issue so well, and sorry you are experiencing it.
I ended up with noisy female students above me, and the ceiling/their floor is so thin that my light shakes when they just walk across the room.
They tend to often laugh and shriek loudly, and run about up there, come in late, and I had several meltdowns where I smashed things and screamed from the loss of sense of having my own quiet space.