Dealing with Neighbours

Hey Hey,

Seeing how it's been a little slow around here this weekend, I thought I'd see how everyone would respond to a question I posed a few hours ago to my girlfriend and my father...

We live in a 5-plex (of sorts)... It's an old house converted... We have the basement (1200sq feet of low ceilings)... There are two apartments on the main floor (600sq feet each) and two on 2nd floor... The person who has the apartment directly above our livingroom (I don't know them)... is learning guitar.... better yet, they've decided to learn on an electric guitar... the current riff they know (and they only know one or two) consists of about 15 notes and then repeats... We wake up to this, listen to it all day and go to sleep to it (apparently they have no job because they're always playing this God damn riff).... We've been tolerable of it... This morning however, they decided they needed some assitance keeping time and we woke to this absoluately amazing guitar player stomping their foot in time with their playing... (apparently a metronome that ticks is out of the question)... Also it seems they've brought home a new piece of music from their lessons... an actual song... (The power chords to My Sharona)... and they also brought home a friend.... who happens to have a djembe or bong's (hand drum of some sort).. Now I have a guitar and a drum (and several other instruments) but I don't play them... Occasionally the piano or electric guitar are played but using headphones... and if no headphones are used it's the acoustic guitar with no pick to minimize the noise... this person upstairs is continually turning their amp up as well.. with no regard for anyone else..

So as you can see, I've attached a poll.... I'm listing them in my order of preference in carrying them out...

The actual result was banging on the ceiling and playing my guitar with the amp pointed at their floor... However immediately after I stopped they started again.. only with less guitar and more drum/foot stomping... so now I may have to escalate this.... I've decided to see how AOers would handle it... given the options I've come up with.

Peace,
HT

Hi,
If this is going to be a long term problem, I think talking to the landlord (without threats) would be the best situation. Just thought of this. Wouldn't it be possible for them to get some kind of headphone setup for their amplifier so that they could practice, but they couldn't be heard by anyone else? Might be a good suggestion to make to the landlord to make to the guitar player.

preacher is nice...

I think the best way to settle this would be to talk to them... See what they do... The talk to their neighbors tell them you a nice way to help with the problem. One morning at a scheduled time you go in the hall way take you amp and as much equipment as you can and play the 18/12 overture. Or any other long piece you can think of that is really annoying. I suggest on a sunday morning. IF they don't have jobs. Then they will be drunk and probably hungover.

If possible talk to the Landlord. But, usually they don't do much.

The other more effective way would be to knock on their door talk to them. Take your quitar and rock out. Tell them if they chill it some you will teach them. And definiately play with them sometime.

As much as I totally understand the desire to go homicidal on them, I'm afraid I'd suggest something a little less dramatic and satisfying. Speaking to your landlord calmly and explaining the situation is intolerable is probably going to be the safest route for you and GF to go. There are reasons for this - if you're in a lease, you don't want to escalate the situation to a point where you may have to break the lease, either because of the unpleasantness with your upstairs neighbor, or because your landlord for some unforeseeable reason takes issue with your issue. If you do plan on moving to a different rental property at some point, you'll most likely need references. If you are not pleasant to your landlord, a reference may be hard to get. And if you go to jail for chopping your neighbor up with a sword, your new job may not look kindly upon it, and you won't have to worry about where you're going to be living, cause the homeless shelter will be the only option. :p

If it gets that bad, and if it's at night, you could call the police and report a noise disturbance. Most cities have some kind of noise curfew.

Why not go upstairs and have a jam session with the person, and maybe slip it into the conversation about the inappropriate hours of musical activitie's are effecting your personal enjoyement of the premises down stairs..

at least that way you get to let some tension out on the Guitar, and you can also solve the music of all hours in one fowl swoop.. :)

just a thought though if not just get a shot gun and kick down the door, and shoot the hippie up with a fwe slugs, and then put the body in a barrel of Acid and the rest will take care of itself. ;)

f2B

If TV sitcoms have taught me one thing, it's that by knocking on the ceiling with a broom all the problems will be resolved in a comical fashion :)

Your basic problem is a poorly executed property conversion, we have plenty of those over here. The solution is cork floor and ceiling tiles and a thick felt underlay and carpet upstairs.

You might suggest that to the landlord?...................it would cost money :eek: You should be able to get advice on locally available modern solutions here:

Fybon Industries Limited Toronto, ON Phone: 416-787-0191 ... Noise abatement materials,

Over here we have local (government) regulations regarding "noise polution", "noise abatement", "antisocial behaviour", and the like.

http://www.together.gov.uk/category.asp?c=172

http://www.findaproperty.com/story.aspx?storyid=5398

Please look at "Legal Measures 2" item #9 in the second link :D

This would be your Toronto contact on the subject, they will be able to clue you up on your local legislation and legal remedies:

http://ca.geocities.com/[email protected]/

Good Luck :)

Hey Hey Everyone,

I posted this solely because I had nothing better to do and it was annoying me at the time... I've decided to just get them back with more noise... and mention it to the landlords the next time their by...

I've only ever threatened a neighbour once... and it worked well they left us alone after that... I'm trying to avoid that here though :)

Peace,
HT

Why not write them some kind of note? you could GENTLEY threaten them with further action in the note,dont say anything homicidal in the note though lol

become friends with them. then give them horror stories of how you used to beat up people who trouble you.

In the spirit of knocking on the ceiling, I make thus suggestion:

When I lived in an apartment building, I learned that by performing pitch/pinch-harmonics around the 12th &13th frets on the B & G strings (when using high gain, distortion, bass) that the sound ressonates throughout the pipes in the surrounding apartments! It actually makes the pipes sing quite well, and is a GREAT deturant.

The people above me used to have two small boys that would stomp and play louder than the devil. When I couldn't take it anymore, I do harmonics until they'd stop and listen to the pipes and try and figure out what was going on. After about 2 weeks, I had conditioned them to stop playing every time I made the pipes sing!

A friend of had a neighbour who liked to play techno till 3 or 4 in the moring. Which if it was every couple of weekends would have been more or less ok. Unfortunatly it didn't stay like that. he started playing during the week not as late but till 1 or 2. Went by once or twice no luck so we stuck my speakers against what was the bedroom wall of his neighbour and started playing the Ride of the valkeries from 7h30 am the morning after he was out partying. Took about 3 tries for the other guy to get the message.

When they play it late one evning, just go up there and ask them to turn it down, politly, if they don't tell them that you are within your rights to contact the police. If that dosn't work, contact the police, get a statement, sent the statement to your landlord explaining their behaviour and tell him/her that action is required ASAP or things will happen. (ie, with hold rent or something....)

Quote:

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Originally posted here by Noia
When they play it late one evning, just go up there and ask them to turn it down, politly, if they don't tell them that you are within your rights to contact the police. If that dosn't work, contact the police, get a statement, sent the statement to your landlord explaining their behaviour and tell him/her that action is required ASAP or things will happen. (ie, with hold rent or something....)

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Actually witholding rent through the Tenancy's board is a good thing, (they will allow you to place the rent each month in an escrow account) that is basically a way for the rent to be paid but until the complaints have been heard and resolved to your satisfaction the landlord won't see it, so it is a real motivator whenever it's mentioned to them (Tenants Board and escrow), also the cop thing is useful for documenting it and allowing the landlord to justify firing their ass out onto the street.

Luck ;)

Dalek makes some very good points...here in Canada we have a useful Landlord Tenant Act and various supporting government/municipal services to enforce it..

Tape the noise for evidence...so they have some idea what you're putting up with...pay the local Housing Authority ( or whoever in your neck of the woods takes care of this ) your rent until the landlord resolves the problem to your satisfaction.

Eg ;)

Last time I had a pain in the butt neighbor when i was living in an apartment building I lived on the top floor and I waited until they had their door open one and I gather my arms and strapped them on like Rambo. I then walked very slowly down the stairs talking on my cell phone loudly to a buddy about going to the rang and perfecting my aim. As I walked up past his door I saw him look at me, double take, triple take and slowly close the door. He then peeked out the window and watched me load the car up... I never heard a peep from him again....

I didn't have any interaction with him at all... and I got to enjoy a day at the range.