Terrible Neighbors. What do I do?

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I've lived in my apartment a year and a half and I've always been pretty happy here. But a couple months ago I got some new neighbors in the building across from me (maybe twenty feet away) and things have gone completely downhill. They like to have friends over and and throw loud outdoor parties that last until 2 in the morning. They yell rude things at me whenever I walk past. When I ordered a pizza they tried to tell the delivery boy it was theirs. My car got keyed a couple weeks ago and I'm 99% sure it was them or one of their friends. Yesterday a package I ordered said it was delivered but when I looked it wasn't on my doorstep. I think they might have stolen it. I've told my landlords all this and they don't give a crap because I don't have any real proof besides the fact this is exactly the kinds of things people like them do. I want to get out because I'm tired of being treated like this but my lease doesn't end until April. There's a $700 fine for breaking lease early. What do I do?

Can you afford the $700? If you can, it may be worth breaking the lease to avoid 8 more months of horridness....How much is your sanity worse? And how much would you be paying in extra therapy/stress/medicine, etc. to deal with what is going on with the neighbors. Breaking lease could potentially end up cheaper....

If not, another thing you could do (although would probably make it worse) is call cops on them everytime they make excessive noise during the night. Or video cams, etc. so landlord believes you and might let you leave earlier.

Sorry you're in this situation it really stinks when horrible neighbors move in and ruin a perfectly nice living situation.

Oh god what a nightmare; I feel for you, I really do. What they are doing is even illegal if it is indeed these people who have stolen your mail and keyed your car.

I second the idea of capturing their activities on video, with a time-stamp to prove the noisy party is out of the hours in your local noise ordinances -- look those up, too, to be sure of what is crossing the line and at what hour.

If you can gather evidence of the crummy things these people are doing, your landlord might consider letting you out of the lease or even evicting them. Most leases usually have a clause about not disturbing other tenants' reasonable expectation of peace and enjoyment of their home, and it seems like at least the noisy parties are violating that. You should be able to call the police on that.

Make a calm and formal complaint to your landlord, with evidence or at least a listed timeline of events.

Ugh I know how you feel. I recently moved into a nice detached house in a good upper middle class neighbourhood so I assumed that the neighbours would not be rude, inconsiderate a-holes since you need to actually work and meet with a banker to afford these places. The good news is that all but one are good. The bad news is the one directly behind me has loud parties until 5, 6 even 9am on the weekends. They even once set off firecrackers at 1am and one casing ended up on my front porch. I keep assuming someone else will call the cops but they kept doing it until recently (no party last weekend). What's worse is this house is owned by someone clearly very rich given the expensive backyard pool they have so they likely aren't just renters.

About a month ago, at around 2am I looked out the window to a 25 year old guy swearing his head off at the top of his lungs. Since that day, I have found numerous items on my back lawn, my garbage lids have gone missing twice, garbage regularly appears on my front lawn and other weird circumstances. I almost wish I could be back in an apartment because at least they can be evicted and usually people like that don't stay too long. I obviously don't know for sure it's him but who else could it be?

I laugh when I read articles about how wrong it is to call the cops about neighbourhood disputes and how you should try talking to them first. Given the horrible language, constant drunkenness and large amount of people they have over I say cops are the only rational choice. At the very least if you call the police you have evidence that your peace is being disrupted and the landlord is doing nothing about it. This of course is assuming that both buildings are owned by the same company.

I went to the landlord and told him about my missing package this morning. Apparently he takes stolen mail very seriously (about the only thing he takes seriously) and he knocked on their door and asked about it. They denied it of course and he left it alone but then an hour later I went outside and LO AND BEHOLD the missing package was there! Whatever. I'm just glad I have it now.

The thing about the noise is I don't know if I'm being unreasonable or not. They don't play music or do fireworks they just talk and sometimes play cornhole. They talk really loud (practically but not quite yelling) and laugh even louder. And I'm the only one who ever complains about it so I don't know maybe I'm just being oversensitive. I have a hard time blocking out sound like NTs can so maybe it's me. But that doesn't excuse them making fun of me and stealing my stuff.

I'm sure many of us here with sympathise with your situation. Neighbours from hell are one of the most stressful things in everyday life.

As your lease runs until next April, I wonder if it would be worth discussing the solution of subleasing your apartment to another tenant (one that he approves of) for the rest of your lease, even if your lease doesn't allow this specifically. Your landlord knows of the situation, and given what has happened, such a request would not be unreasonable, especially if you explain that because of the continual stress you are having problems sleeping and it is affecting your health (as I surmise may be happening).

Also as a party to the contract of the lease, if you both agree to mutually opt out, then the lease can be set aside.

I really feel for you as this situation severely affects anyone's well being, so I hope a workable compromise between you and the landlord can be agreed upon.