Jason Rickard In three religions Judaism, Christianity and Islam, we are asked to respect our neighbors, but what happens when your new neighbor turns out to be the biggest nuisance to arrive in your neighborhood? Parties till late every night, music on full, when your trying to have a nap after a hard days work and unbearable shouting and screaming coming from the house next door. Do you break the rules and turn against your neighbor? Or do you ask your neighbor nicely to quit all the noise they make?
We both can agree on one thing, noisy neighbors are a nuisance. They could turn out to be your worst nightmare and biggest pain if unchallenged. You will have night after night of no sleep. So leaving your noisy neighbors alone is not an option. You have got to become proactive to prevent your health and life from going down the tube, because of someone else.
Your first task as a neighbor with good manners is to simply go over to your noisy neighbor’s house and ask politely if they can bring down the level of noise, and explain that they are disturbing the neighborhood. If your neighbor is polite enough they will comply with your request, but if the noise level remains unchanged and or increases, then you have a really irritating neighbor who enjoys doing just that, annoying you and the neighborhood with their ignorance.
If the above didn’t work, then you are going to have to call the landlord of your neighbors house and, inform them about the behavior of the current occupants. Your landlord may be hesitant to react, so collecting evidence before hand would be a great idea. Keep your video camera ready in this case, and make sure the time and date is on display. This is to show the landlord at what times your neighbor becomes a noisy nuisance.
If your landlord does not do much but just talk to your neighbors, which is most often the case, then get a letter prepared for evicting your neighbor. This letter works best when signed by many other neighbors in your neighborhood who also can’t put up with the disturbance. Send the letter to the landlord and to your troublesome neighbor. This letter has a very strong effect and works almost every time. However if for some reason it doesn’t and the disturbance continues, then as a final resort call in the police while the noise coming from your neighbor is at its peak.
Calling the police several times on this troublesome neighbor will solve your problems. They will either be asked to move or, you will notice that you can once again enjoy a good nights sleep.
Highly naive. Many people have resorted to the strongest remedy suggested here — calling the cops — with dismal results.
The landlord won't do anything because their nieces, cops haven't bothered to waste their time!
Well that's some great advice! Except, what if the neighbors ARE the landlords? How can they be evicted then? And we don't have any kind of neighborhood committee as far as I know.
Calling police never works. They shut up for a half an hour, then right back at it again.
I have done all of the above. None worked. Police are good for nothing! I used to live in ParkMerced apartment complex. That was my worst experience in my entire life. I had two choices at the time when this nightmare was happening to me. Go to mental hospital or jail. One night, after many months of no sleep and eating because I was so stressed, have found myself on the floor above me with a hammer on my hand when talking with this neighbor which was hammering nails at 12:00 midnight. I went to ParkMerced office about 24 dozen times, they said they will warn them – but it continued. I called EAP (employee assistance program) to get referral for a lawyer, they told me that nothing I could do… I cannot fight a big corporation like ParkMerced. I was lucky to be able to buy a house – otherwise my life will be wasted. You don't know how it was not to have sleep. Fall asleep at 4 AM, and wake up at 6 AM, almost every night. I used to drag my bed in kitchen to sleep. I lost about 15 pounds, and I was not a huge person – my face shrunk and my cheek bones stuck out.
What a load of rubbish! Housing dont do anything nor do the police and its always the innocent ones who end up getting arrested cus of the lying decieving bastards, my 10 year old was spat on and although its an offence of common assault the police wont arrest them, too much paperwork.
The cops won't help. It's just a domestic.
Talking nicely to neighbors doesn't work – they laugh at you and even put their music up louder, plus they will do it more everyday just to piss you off. In the case of neighbors blasting hip-hop music, good luck in getting them to listen – they are the worst ones to be inconsiderate and they have that 'gangsta' mentality. The police don't do a thing to stop it. Usually there is more going on at such a neighbor's house, drug activity and/or guns. They usually already have a record so they don't care about following rules.
The only best way to deal with them is to hire someone to steal their equipment or dynamite.
I have lived in a condo I own for the last 6-plus years. Back in January, a new family moved in with their 2 little kids (probably 8 and younger).
Since the first day they moved in — they are renting from another owner — I have heard nothing but their loud music at all hours of the day and night. Weekends, weekdays, 7:00PM, 5:30AM — it doesn't matter.
I've tried talking to the neighbors, leaving the neighbors letters, filing complaints with my condo association — finally escalating to repeatedly calling the police. I've tried everything I was supposed to do, in the order I was supposed to do it. Be nice first, police as a last resort.
Let me tell you, from my experiences with this situation, nothing has worked. All the condo association could do was send letters to the owner, "intending" to fine; the police finally told me they really couldn't do anything and to call the association instead. It's just one big, annoying, disruptive, emotionally-turbulent circle. A big joke. I'm paying a monthly fee to an association that can do nothing to protect me from what I'm supposed to be protected against.
It doesn't matter if you rent or own — if you're living in an apartment or condo — this sort of thing can happen. (I never thought it would, but it did.) The more I fought the situation and the more I called the police, the worse things became with the noise and the attitude. After hearing the neighbor make threats loudly outside my bedroom window, I realized for my health and sanity it might just be the time to put my condo up for sale.
I'm a firm believer that things happen for a reason. While it's difficult to feel forced out of your own place — especially when you're a homeowner — this might be just the trigger to get you to a better place. (At least, that's how I'm trying to look at it.) Do what you can, because you sure as hell can't control what your neighbors do, even by calling the police or filing complaints. If that's worked for anyone, consider yourself lucky!
I like the previous comment of using dynamite … I never thought of that …
Police don't really do much. Neighbor's father-in-law owns the house because his daughter lives in too. He could care less cause he right behind daughter house in his own house, and has access to her his daughter and her three children, his grandchildren.
The noisy neighbor's are my upstairs neighbor's kids. Unfortunately, speaking to them over the years hasn't worked, nor speaking to the landlord. Calling the police doesn't work either because their response time is ridiculous. (8 to 10 hours) By this time it is daytime and the kids have gone to school. They allow the kids to jump up and down on the floor, jump from furniture, race back and forth through the apartment above me stomping their feet, and always after 10PM into the wee hours of the morning. I am a dialysis patient and need my rest which is impossible with this going on. I cannot move because this apartment is affordable and is on the ground floor which accommodates my needs as a chronically ill and disabled person. Talking to them does not work as they say they cannot control their young children. What alternatives do I have?
I live in a semi-large apartment building where we don't know most of our neighbours first off. The ones that live above me are not friendly in the least, tried that talking idea… nope. They have a kid about 5 or 7 years old who does nothing bur run back and forth, stomping heavy footed, throws heavy on (wooden) floors. I know kids got to play but come on. Tried tapping at my ceiling, letting them know it's getting too much again. Now she just stamps right back. For certain reasons I cannot move. All day, and shouldn't they be in school or something. But that's their business.
If you have rude neighbors with loud children who are also rude and not controlled or parented well, do what they do when they want to sleep. Play loud music when it is time for the kids to go to bed. If the parents are ill equipped to handle or attempt to control their own brats, they won’t care if you ask nicely that they do so. Some are so uneducated and were not raised well that all they know is to have kids and let them annoy the world around them without caring at all. I play VERY loud music when the kids are outside my windows having their daily screaming contests. My next move is to find very loud music with very lewd lyrics. I am sure that won’t work either but the new neighbors who are churchy might care once they listen to the music. After that, I am going to play offensive racist ranting like Foxs News for them to hear since they are all Hispanic. I don’t even think that will work. You can’t fix rude, uneducated people who were raised to yell as a parenting skill and which the kids pick up. Sadly, that is all they know (other than overpopulating and littering.) And I’m a Democrat! Not a racist Republicon. I just don’t like rude, loud neighbors or their rude, loud mass quantities of offspring.