Illogical neighbours

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I am living in a flat with neighbours in the floor below me. At 10.15 PM I was playing a game of ball with my dog in the living room. His paws were scabbling on the floor as he ran around. I was calling out to him happily. We were making noise. However, my neighbours below were making noise, too. I could hear them. They were still awake. So I thought it wouldn't matter.

I only did this for about 15 minutes. Then suddenly I receive a card through the door scrawled in angry writing saying "COULD YOU KEEP THE NOISE DOWN PLEASE THANKS ME FROM NUMBER"

I don't fully understand that cryptic message. Nonetheless, that is what it appears to say.

So, despite the fact that it was a Saturday night and it was still before 11PM (there are laws saying that you should not make noise audible outside your property between the hours of 11PM and 8AM) I did as the angry note had asked, and stopped playing with my dog.

And what happened? Well, my noisy neighbours carried on with their screaming arguments for hours and hours.

They are still at it now: making so much noise that there is simply no point in me even trying to go to bed at all.

She screams and squeals, and he hollers the F word at her all night long, in a thundering voice. So what I do not understand is that, on the one occasion I make a tiny bit of noise, they post an angry letter through my door, yet they are making lots of noise themselves.

It just seems to make no sense.

The only possibility that ocurrs to me is that perhaps the note came from the people next door to me, who were being quiet. Because this cryptic note does not say who sent it, and only says "from number" but then does not state the number of the house, I have no way of knowing for sure that it was the loud, foul-mouthed neighbours beneath me who were offended by my noise, and not the quieter ones next door. And I don't want to go round and ask, because they all seem like scary people who do drugs.




mod edit: at the OP's request, please read her subsequent updates in the thread before posting, as there have been recent developments in the situation. thank you

I'd suggest taking up tap dancing. If they are going to be such hypocrites, do it.

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It could be that it was a mistake and the note was meant for the noisy people downstairs. If that's not the case, then just give them an angry note asking them to stop yelling.

But the problem is that they all seem like violent, angry aggressive people. I do not want to aggravate the situation by tap dancing or sending them angry notes in return. It is a rather scary street I am living in at the moment. Last week I had to call the police because some neighbours a few doors down went out and argued with the people in the house below them in the middle of the night, and smashed the glass panel of their door in. It was a very nasty fight. I do not want anyone coming to beat me up or smash my door in. I just do not understand why people are so illogical.

Luckily their shouts and screams normally coincide with my insomnia, so it doesn't really matter that they make noise all night long. But their note (assuming it was from them) just seems to make no sense. It was written in such hasty writing and makes so little sense that either the person writing it was very angry, or was high on drugs or alcohol, or is barely literate.

Edit: the note was definitely for me, because it says "to number X" and states the number of my house. But then it says "from number" and does not complete the sentence.

The fact that they left no identification anywhere on the nastygram shows that they themselves are cowards; they probably have a well justified fear of losing their spot or going to jail. It could very well possibly be a child's prank, but nothing to rate getting yourself revved up about.

Regarding the neighbors' noise generation themselves, I remember seeing on Youtube a woman who recorded her neighbors' noise with the microphone right to the wall, then set the machine to play it all back through the wall again as she left for the day. I don't know what came of it but it was good to see someone doing something besides just putting up with it all. Part of me though wants to send a card that states simply: Really. Come on now, what kind of creep uses words like that, especially where other people can hear them?

At 9.50 PM the woman who lives below just came and banged on my door accompanied by a woman whose face was plastered in awful makeup and was wearing all sorts of gaudy sequinned clothes. The sequinned lady proceeded to inform me that she was staying at her sister's house below me for New Year and she had a small child who was trying to sleep so could I please stop the "banging."

I was at a loss to what "banging" she could be referring because at the time I was doing nothing save walk around my house and prepare some food.

I explained to her that I was not doing any "banging" that I was aware of, was not playing loud music, was not moving furniture around, etc, so the only thing she could be referring to was perhaps the sound of my feet walking. I said "I'll try to tiptoe around."

At the time I felt rather anxious and upset that these two angry people were standing there in a threatening way but now that they have gone away I feel rather indignant because the irony of all this is that since my original post the neighbours who claim I am doing this imaginary "banging" have not stopped their loud screaming and shouting of the eff word for hours on end.

As well as their bellowing and screaming arguments they often do lots of geniune "banging" and flouncing aronud the house while they are having their arguments. Also they often have their washing machine on in the early hours of the morning but I have never gone down to complain because the man who does all the bellowing shouting sounds like a very nasty piece of work so I do not want to make him angry with me in case he comes and punches me in the face or shouts eff words at me.

Anyway they went away and I then proceeded to continue to cook my food and did not deliberately "bang" anything but let's just say I noticed smugly that at times the microwave door shut with a "bang"and the pots and pans I was washing clashed together with a "bang," bwa ha ha! But I am not deliberately making any noise. I am just going about my daily activities.

I expect that tonight will be no different to any other night and their effing and blinding shouting and bellowing will continue into the early hours of the morning. I really do not understand their hipocrisy.

If they come back to complain about me making cooking noises again, I will either just not open the door, or will be tempted to open the door and explain to them that THEY are the anti-social ones who make serious noise, not me! But if I do that the nasty man might come and punch me in the face.

Maybe you could complain to your landlord. I'm not sure what good that would do.

I am now rather shaken up and am adding to this thread to keep a sort of "diary" of evidence of what's been going on.

At about 17:30, while I was doing some step aerobics (note: STEPPING, not JUMPING) the woman has just come and told me to keep the noise down because she is ill and has a child who is sleeping. I explained to her that the law says it's fine to make reasonable amounts of noise generated by everday activities in your property as long as it's not outside the hours of 8AM and 11PM. She ignores me and starts yelling at me about her sleeping child. I say: "if it's sleeping, what's the problem?" She said: "aye, well, it will wake up." I said: "clearly it hasn't." She then said the child was ill. I said "I thought it was you that was ill?" She said, "aye, the child's ill an' all." I then got a bit annoyed and said, look, I am a bit sick of you coming and complaining about me making noise at reasonable times of the day caused by everyday activities. I am not doing anything wrong and there is SOMEBODY (not sure if it's you or the neighbours next door) who have screaming arguments late into the night. Somebody pushed an anonymous note through my door. If it's you, you're being hypocrites coming and complaining." She said sulkily: "that's not me. But YOU are always making noise. I hear you walking." I said in disbelief: "walking? Well, yes. I can't levitate. I do have to walk. I don't have a floating machine. Sorry about that." She said:"but you do it loudly. You do it like this:" and then did an impression of somebody stamping very hard lifting up their feet. I said to her:"I assure you I do not do that. I am just walking normally. I will show you the slippers I use to walk in. Look. I am afraid they have hard soles, because I have dropped arches, and my feet would hurt if I wore softer ones. If you like, I can wear soft ones, but then my feet will hurt. But look. I'm not doing anything wrong walking and cooking and exercising in my home. I have to live here. I have to do daily activities that generate noise." She said "aye you are, and I'll phone the council on you if ye dinnae shut up, and I'll send my sister round on you." I tried to explain to her that the council would say I had done nothing wrong, but she backed away furiously with a contorted face, and yelled: "I dinnae give a f**k. Just shut the f**k up." Then she went back in her house.

Anyway the police are now on their way because I have now been threatened and verbally abused for the "crimes" of walking, cooking, and exercising by doing step aerobics at 17:30 PM, which I thought was totally insane, so I thought this had got out of hand, and I decided I had to call the police.

I am so annoyed at this woman. She is so unreasonable. I am only angry at the moment. But when my anger wears off I will feel more frightened. This is a very violent area. I hope she does not "send her sister round on me" to smash in my door the way someone else's door was smashed in on my street recently. I don't know who did the door smashing so I'm not implying her sister was involved, but when she threatened me it was not specified just what exactly her sister was going to do when she was "sent round on me." Talk to me? Hit me? Shout at me? Beat me up? I do not know. The sister is the loud sequinned lady who already came to shout at me at New Year. I think I will just not open my door to anyone. I hope she does not recruit a gang of tough men to come and kick the door down if I refuse to open it.

This is why I am SO fortunate not to share walls with people right now. I feel for you. I have seen and experienced this sort of unreasonable nastiness before and it is awful to have to feel trapped and uptight in your own home - just reasonable living. I wouldn't have a problem with someone talking to me nicely - saying, you know - I know it is early and this is an imposition, but would you mind just today to be extra quiet because of whatever exceptional circumstance. And - no problem. We can be neighborly. But this bizarre sense of entitlement people seem to have that comes out in such nasty ways. Oh, I don't know what to offer but my "I hear you" - it is awful. I don't have an idea off hand - if I do I will write back. I hope they just get tired off bugging you and turn their attentions somewhere else - I am sure, at some point, they will get distracted. You are just living in your own home and you have a right to do so. Good for you for calling in the police - the uniform can effectively solve that problem. They might grumble, but at least they know that you are not afraid to dial and I am sure they won't want the cops on their doorsteps. Their attention will turn eventually to other people to harass. Hopefully they move. Sheesh.

I know how you feel. In my previous apartment I had a neighbor complain (not directly to us) that we walked too loud yet they played loud music so loud our floor vibrated (during the day but they knew my mother worked at night and slept then) and had very loud arguments late at night.

In my current place the person downstairs complained to my mother. Well I don't care since there is nothing that can be done about it. I have to walk on my floor to get around my house. I go barefoot or wear soft soled shoes. I have a cat now and know they can get pretty noisy but you can't stop a cat from running around.

Dear Plodder, you are being used as a scapegoat for whoever makes any noise in your block it seems to me! This woman is crazy - she has no right to treat you like that does she expect you to sleep 24/7 and never make a sound?
Is it possible youi could move from this area - not sure if your circumstances allow this but if its so stressful it may be for the best.
If your cell phone has a recorder you can surreptitiously record her yelling and threatening you so you have extra evidence. But don't stress yourself unnecessarily. Some people are just complete unreasonable douchebags (to use an ugly cliche).
Maybe this woman has a drinking problem...

Anyway, I hope things get better for you.

Well the police have now been to speak to me and hear my side of things and then they went down to speak to the nieighbours. I'm aware the neighbours will probably be very angry that I called the police, and calling them probably only aggravated the situation, but what else could I do? I was receiving threats telling me someone would be "sent round" if I didn't stop walking.

I'm now rather worried that the outcome of this is that someone (or several someones) might come and beat me up. I kept explaining to the policeman that a vague threat had been issued to me, but he played it down and said it was "probably just something said in the heat of the moment." I don't think he seems to realise just how awful this neighbourhood is. Obviously I am going to have to keep walking on the floors of my house, which they class as "banging." The everyday noise that annoys them is going to carry on, and make them more angry with me. Also, they will now be really furious that I have called the police. When you call the police on people like that, they act all righteously indignant and their vile behaviour gets ten times worse. I know because I've had dealings with their kind before. They might come and try and break into my house, or they might attack me if they see me in the street. I've never been in a fight before. I don't know how to defend myself. There is a lock on the door obviously, but 3/4 of the door consists of a glass panel they could easily smash (as was done to a neighbour recently) so it's not an effective barrier. I only have a tiny dog to defend me. He is all bark and no bite, anyway. He would probably run away and hide. Oh, and the neighbours concerned have a huge wolf-like creature, and also a huge terrifying thing that looks like a muscle-ripped boxer. Not good. This is not America. I am not allowed to own a gun. I cannot defend myself. What can I do?

I will be moving from here in a few weeks so hopefully nothing will happen to me before then.

Thanks for all the replies. Yes I will be moving soon, thankfully. I am only in temporary accomodation and have been assigned a permanent apartment which I can move into soon. I don't mind the woman talking to me. Well, I do mind it, obviously, because she is so unreasonable and foul-mouthed, but I mean words don't hurt. What I do mind is the threat I have received. I am now worried that they're going to attack me with violence.

When I moved into this house there was a shoeprint on the door. It's still there. It frightens me. I now see what it probably means.

Clearly, the previous occupants will also have been "banging" (i.e. walking) just like I am, and maybe the previous occupants weren't as polite and reasonable as I was when they were asked not to walk. Maybe they shouted back. I assume things got nasty, and the neighbours below came and tried to come and kick down the door.

I cannot see that I have done anything to merit them kicking the door down on me, but you just never know. What scares me is this threat of girl-on-girl violence.

I have never fought anyone before. If a woman came and attacked me, I wouldn't know what to do except scream and try to shield myself. Or maybe my anger would kick in, and I would try and fight back. I don't know. I don't know if this woman would be coming round to just use her hands, or if she'd be bringing a knife to stab me or something. I will just not open the door but I do have to go out several times a day to walk my dog, and she could attack me in the street. The laws in the UK are so messed-up that if I fought back in self-defence, I would probably be charged with assault and given a jail sentence or a fine, and the attacker would just be handed yet another ASBO or a community service.

I wish I could do a crash course in self-defence by means of a cable attached to my brain, that would instantly turn me into a kick-ass fighting champion to rival Bruce Lee.

I require this skill to be imparted to my brain ASAP.

I am trying to formulate some sort of worse-case scenario plan. Maybe nothing will happen, but maybe it will. This area is not nice. Not nice at all. Drugs, violence, crime. The people here are nasty, so I am not just having irrational paranoia. There is a genuine risk they could come and try to hurt me.

I checked to see if the bolt on the bathroom door is working. It is. If I hear the front door being kicked in hopefully I will wake up in time to get up and lock myself in the bathroom and dial 999 before they manage to break down the front door. Once they have managed to kick down the front door (that's assuming they manage to do it - apparently they didn't manage it when the previous occupants were here) I will then probably have a matter of minutes - or seconds - before they kick through the flimsy bolt on the bathroom door. Given the typical response times for 999 calls, by the time the police come crawling along the violent people might have reached me.

This is not nice. My over-active imagination is not enjoying thinking about this. I don't have anything to use as a weapon or a shield. I have put a broom in the bathroom in the optimistic hope that I might summon up the courage to actually hit somebody with it. In reality I would probably freeze and scream.

Hopefully this will all turn out just fine, and it will just be another one of those times where Plodder worries needlessly and dramatises things on an epic scale. But I'm really not so sure.

How hard is it to kick down a door? Will they be able to do it? Maybe they won't. I hope not. But they could still get through the glass if they broke it. However, I suppose they might not risk climbing through jagged edges of glass.

I am not sure if the house in my street that recently had its glass door kicked in was actually entered by the offenders, or whether they merely vandalised the door, and then left. In any case, the occupants called one of their cronies and he came round in the night with a wooden board and a drill to board the door up. I know because I was a witness to that incident.

In my case, I do not have any seedy acquaintances from the criminal underworld to come round and help me to board up my door. If my door were vandalised, it would be left open all night.

I can't stop thinking about this. It really sucks. These people are vile. I wish I could just click my fingers and be living somewhere else. Somewhere where there were no people at all.