Anyone else have trouble with noisy neighbors?

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My late father supported me until I was in my late twenties, then he had a stroke. My late mother collected medical and school records from my childhood and got me set up with Social Security Disability and with subsidized housing. My first few years of living on my own were in apartments, and they were hell.

Little sounds like a neighbor's television barely heard through the wall apparently bother me a lot more than most other people, and bigger sounds like loud music or barking dogs drives me nuts. My neighbors and apartment managers hated me because I complained so much. I read the lease where it said you're not supposed to play music or television loud enough to bother your neighbor. My problem is that if I can hear it, it's too loud.

Another problem was gangstas or gangsta wannabes in the parking lot with loud rap music on their car stereos. Earplugs don't block low frequency bass sounds, and those frequencies travel great distances and go right through walls. You feel them more than hear them. For me, rap music is like being hit in the head with a sledgehammer repeatedly. More than once I went out to confront the people in these cars, and it is a miracle that I was never beat up or even killed. I couldn't not complain though. To me it was a matter of survival to stop them from hurting me, or at least let them know they were hurting me. At that time I did not know I had Asperger's. I have been officially diagnosed more than once since then.

I make a point now to let any prospective landlord know ahead of time that peace and quiet is required, not an option for me. I also know that apartments are probably not good places for me to live, so I look for houses or duplexes. It's hard to find any I qualify for with my subsidized housing. I was assured by the real estate agency that the duplex where I live now would be okay, but I have had troubles with the neighbor several times since moving in last May. The problem is that when the neighbor plays his music loud, it means he already had a bad day so it's not a good idea to ask him to turn it down. I have to complain because it hurts me. I will not sit by and let somebody hurt me like that without at least letting them know they are hurting me.

This neighbor is a violent nut who starts yelling, cursing, and threatening bodily harm to me, saying the police can't stop him and he's not afraid of the police. He is scary. Today I sent an email about this to my personal agent of the regional brokerage that I was recently set up with by the Developmental Disability office. I[m hoping she will talk to the landlord on my behalf sometime the next few days. I may have to be relocated for my safety.

Does anyone else have issues with noisy neighbors, and if so, how do you handle it?

My neighbors can be noisy but I generally don't care.

Lawn mowers and leaf blowers drive me crazy.

Even when one has hypersensitivity issues, one must be reasonable. Your neighbors have a right to engage in activities that are noisy to the general population, usually between the hours of 8am and 10pm, and in activities that are not excessively noisy to the general population, thereafter.

You can always ask them to turn down the TV but they should not have to give up watching TV in their own home when they are watching it at a reasonable volume because you can hear it through the wall.

Perhaps you should try to get housing where your neighbors aren't so close.

My neighbour often has her television on loud enough for me to hear and be able to tell what it is that she is watching. I wouldn't mind, but this happens a few nights a week, from about 11pm until about 3am. I can hear it through my wall and it is very difficult for me to ignore in order to get to sleep. I've lived here for about 9 years now, and my parents tell me that they used to complain to our neighbour for the first couple of years but her defence was always that she is deaf, so they've given up now. It drives me insaaaane.

I'd love to live miles away from the nearest neighbor, or maybe on the moon.

There's a hallway between the two halves of this duplex that should absorb most of the sound from the neighbor's stereo. I tried to explain to him that if he were to turn his stereo down just a little on his end it would make a big difference where I live because of the way sound works. There's no talking to him though. He instantly starts yelling and screaming and threatening to kill me or use a baseball bat on my car.

I hope to hear back from my personal agent at the Regional Brokerage today about this issue. Maybe if she talks to the landlord something can be done about this problem. It would probably be best if I relocate, and maybe the Brokerage can help with that. If not, I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future because my income is WAY below poverty level and I also don't have a working car.

I lived in a fourplex once, and I had a crazymaker neighbor who let her kids run on my roof that I pay for. At first when it started, we tried to be nice about it, but that did not work. Finally mom went over their and said...see this roof that is my roof that I pay for...see that over there...that is your roof that you pay for...if your kids have to run on the roof..do it on yours not mine. Then this crazy making woman worked at the only pharmacy for 60 miles and would take it out on us when we picked our meds by lying about our medication saying that it was going to be filled when it was not going to be filled because of insurance problems. On more than one occasion, she said that it did not go through insurance when it did, after we found out by calling them.
We everntually moved cause that town was getting too claustrophobic.
The area we live in now has a guy with a big 1/2 yon truck that is so loud and his house is right across the street from mine so he ends up shining his lights in the bedroom window when he comes in at night...plus that thing is loud. Then there is this guy with a motercycle that revs it up I guess for fun, but it is loud.

I agree... I want to live so far from neighbors that I can only hear the calls on nature at night.

I have neighbors with a loud jakebrake sounding muffler or a jakebrake, not sure which on a mini van. It's very noisy when they drive it down the street. I have had loud neighbors in the past but am surrounded by some mellow ones now, which I appreciate. I worry when anyone moves away because I don't know who will be moving in next.

Inconsiderate a**holes slamming doors all day.

when i gave birth to my son, i was a single mom living in a not very posh neighbourhood. downstairs from me lived a drug dealer, who loved to party until 5 am , all windows and doors open, people in and out of the house, basically dancing in the street to the music inside. see how loud it was. I'm not normally a violent person, but i was pumped full with hormones, my 5 days old son couldn't sleep and I couldn't sleep and i was exhausted. I guess the combo of hormones and sleep deprivation drove me insane. I went down and knocked on his door, barefoot and wearing shorts and a shirt, in december one night at 3 am, and screamed my head off at him and his junkie friends.I threatened to kill them if they didn't stop. I said things like " i just gave birth you &$$%^& ! !! " classy. they watched me with their mouths half open, all of them, then a girl said "dude, she just had a baby... we're really not cool man...."or something. the guy stopped the music, i swear. i must have appeared crazier than they did .....next day he gave me a teddy bear for my son and told me that if he ever put the music too loud again to just scream out the window.
That's a true story. But i wouldn't recommend doing that to a guy i guess. especially if you're not angry enough to appear insane.
can't you make an anonymous complaint? if you never complained to them they won't know it comes from you....

I had the same problem with the gangsta's rattling my desk (literally) with their deafening car stereos. So I moved to Amish country in a house set back 500 feet from the road with a forest in between as a sound barrier, all Amish neighbors, and the nearest neighbor being about 800 feet (243 meters) away. Solved the problem! Unfortunately it's the only way I know to solve the problem.

I live in what is concisdered a rural area little noise because the area is so open. The only close noise outside is a train which I don't mind i like them. People next to use are quiet, I think we are the noisey ones, for the fact around october we start working on sandrails and ATVs with grinders going, air compressor going, welder going, music playing but we always quiet down by 10PM that is the max for the state law for sound. Before were we lived before we moved my step dad was making a flat bed trailer out of a boat trailer he talked to the people and they said were we come from if there is no noise then there is something wrong.

I hate confrontations and am afraid to be complaining all the time to my landlord.

The men below us play their music too loud and lately it has been starting to piss me off. Must be those hormones, argh. I feel like barging downstairs and pounding on their door screaming at them but I don't know what kind of men they are, for all I know they can have anger issues and go smashing my car. But yet the person next door who plays his TV too loud, I can't even hear it in my apartment but I can out in the hall so obviously the people below me play their music louder. Now I am wishing the landlord will just evict them. I just deal with it. I might complain about them again when I see my landlord next time. God I wonder if other neighbors complain about them, maybe if she gets enough complaints, she might evict them. I even wonder if she actually talks to them than leaving a note on their door. I have seen notes being left on their door taped. All I know is they can just take it and toss it without even reading it.

Oh yeah I can hear my next door neighbor's TV in the bathroom but no biggie because I can only hear it in there.

Wow ediself you had guts to do that, you were very lucky they didn't go smashing your car and stuff or doing other things, you just never know how crazy people are.

LOL. I read the title of this thread 10 times before I saw that it was noisy not nosy neighbors.

I used to live next to someone who I suspected to be a drug dealer. They had like 3 or 4 scruffy-looking people illegally squatting in there. They would leave the TV on all night, and I could hear it through my bedroom wall in my apartment. It was torture to me. Earplugs didn't work. They also would smoke all the time, even though it was forbidden in our complex, so our entire floor smelled like an ashtray. I got so angry at them one night that I kicked a hole in the wall, exposing the sheetrock.

Well, eventually, that person moved out (the end was quite climactic, with fistfights and looting), and I thought it would be better. The man who moved in was clean and only smoked outside. But the problem was that he snored. I don't think it was that loud, but it felt that way to me. I am the type of person who bolts out of bed at the alarm, and my circadian clock is very finely tuned. So I can hear this guy's snoring at 4-5 am every morning, and it totally messes me up. I feel bad, because obviously he can't control it, but it is really killing me because I'm tired at work. And I don't like confrontation, so I never go to the person or the landlord about these matters unless it's truly getting out of hand.

I lived in what most people in the same complex described as the "ghetto" in Oak Cliff, which is right next to Dallas, in Texas. It was loud. A guy was shot in the apartment across the hall from me, and my neighbors were constantly screaming and yelling. I found it somewhat soothing. Especially at night. It was half a decade ago before my sensory issues had worsened.

I currently live in a really wealthy, NICE part of Austin, Texas. Our apartment is ridiculously expensive for Austin, and I was assured when I moved in that maintaining a peaceful, quiet community was priority.

Within a month of moving in, a band moved in to the apartment below us. The pools are right off of our balcony, and the neighbors below have a patio facing the pools. The band shot off fire works on the weekend of the 4th of July, over the pool. They constantly had pool parties when it was warm enough. They practice day and night, and they have parties during which they play music so loudly I can identify the lyrics being sung in the songs. I've called noise complaint after noise complaint, my boyfriend has repeatedly spoken to them about the noise, the neighbors above us have called noise complaints thinking the music is coming from my apartment, and they always manage to turn the volume down for about 20 minutes and then start banging things into the ceiling before turning it right back up again.

I feel helpless to do anything about it. The manager insists she has spoken to them but there is not much else to be done because of the difficult process involved in kicking people out.

AND the people who live directly above us... several times, when I've been carrying laundry to the laundry room, see me leave, and open the door to my apartment and go in, and as if they've forgotten my boyfriend lives with me, they are always shocked to see him in my apartment and have twice called the police on him saying he is an intruder. These crazy nuts do not know me or my boyfriend and we've had to make a habit of locking the door anytime either of us goes anywhere because these people repeatedly try to come into our apartment. We had the same problem with the girl next to us until she moved out.

I'm just lucky there was a shoddy step near the pools and I happened to fall through it and damage the ever living crap out of my spine, and as part of my settlement, my lawyer is negotiating the termination of my lease without negative consequences for me.

I'm going to be so careful about picking a new location to live in.

The next time I move, I think I will do that...great idea!! !