Columns Dec 2, 2015 at 4:00 am

House-Cooling

Steven Weissman

Comments

1
Waaaaaa, no one likes me or my loud hipster friends outside smoking and drinking late even on a Saturday. What? Some people may actually have to work on a Sunday? Who works on a Sunday? Who could work on a Sunday? Could be a waiter or some other low-class, working class citizen that doesnt repect my needs to party with my friends. (I cant wait to see how this one ends on Judge Judy). #selfishnarcissisticlivesmatter
2
@1: The issue here is not the noise of the party. It's that the annoyed person left a nasty note and tore up the dinner party invitation instead of going down to the apartment while the party was happening to ask for the noise to be turned down a notch. There was a perfectly civil solution to this problem, but the neighbor chose the nasty route. We can't blame people for annoying us if they aren't aware they're annoying us.
3
Your neighbor's an a-hole and pathetic. Not much you can do about it, beside keeping it down after 11. Otherwise, be glad you got to know what your neighbor is like without having to actually get to know them.
4
Gotta say I'm with @1 here. Who stocks the grocery store on the weekend? or opens the coffee shop? For years years that was me waking up at 5am to unlock the coffee shop on Sunday morning. Would you, anon, be ok with a party until 1:30am on a Wednesday night? Would that seem like the once in a while thing you should have to gracefully put up with? too bad they tore up your invite, but now you're writing in to the stranger about it... so....
5
That sounds pretty meanspirited to do to someone that just moved into your building. Maybe they are really stressed right now in their life?

I would try to make friends with the other people in the building. If they are friendly people, I would share this story with them. If they all think you're the asshole, then you're in the wrong building (possibly wrong neighborhood). Keep a low profile and move when the lease is up.

If everyone thinks this neighbor is the asshole, then just smirk at them whenever you see them and if they talk rudely to you ask "you know that nobody here likes you, right?"

That's what I would do. Good luck!
6
You people are pathetic. There is a law about keeping the noise down after a certain time I believe it is 10pm. This asshole is lucky it wasn't me, because I would have just called the cops on him, then the neighbor and all of his hipster friends could party down at the king county hilton.
7
The only thing worse than a passive aggressive note left on your door or car is a passive aggressive comment column.
8
@4 So then all you'd have to do is go knock on their door and tell them you need to sleep and they'd go, "oh shit, I had no idea, sorry!" and problem solved. @2 Has it correct here.

@6 Calling the cops would still be better than what they actually did. Again if SOMEONE had alerted them, even the cops, then at least they'd know they were bothering someone and turn it down.

@7 Is also correct. I hope Anon confronts them in person. "Hey, got your note. Is there a reason you need to be so rude? I had no idea we were bothering you, a quick knock on the door and you could've gotten a lot more sleep."
9
Nasty neighbour got the invite. They *knew* there was going to be a shindig. Even if they didn't want to attend, if they had to get up early the next morning or even just wanted a relatively quiet night, they could have requested that the hosts keep it down *before* the festivities even started. To wait until the next day, to post a stupidly passive-aggressive "anonymous" note and an overtly-aggressive gesture of ill will all over the new resident's car is really crass and idiotic. This is a nasty, stupid individual, and thank goodness they've outed themselves so that you can avoid them from now on.
10
The last time i politely knocked on a neighbors door and asked them to keep it down I was threatened with physical violence.
11
#10, Yeah, I was going to say, knocking and simply asking has never worked for me. People can be so self-righteous and defensive about their rights to disturb you.

I've gotten a whiny "I'll see what I can do...." which lead to no change, until the next time I asked and he responded by simply not answering the door and turning his amp up even louder (this guy had monday night experimental noise band practice in his apartment that started at 10pm).

I've also gotten a sarcastic, "I just want to warn you that I'll be using the vacuum, so it might be loud for a few minutes," the day after I asked a neighbor to turn the bass down on his surround sound which had been causing my living room to vibrate for hours every day for a week. And yet he's still using surround sound and it's still driving me crazy. In a polite society this approach should work, but that's not exactly the society we live in.

12
@6 so your passive-aggressive ass would have the cops ask them to turn the noise down (and that's all that would come of it) because you don't have the balls to do it yourself. _That's_ pathetic.
13
haha @6 and @1 why is anon a hipster? People have been having apartment parties for way longer than that word has been around (no reference). It seems that hipster has come to describe anything that the user disagrees with. For example, "If our neighbor would have just knocked on the door and asked us to be quite, we would have tuned the music down. Instead he passively aggressively called the cops. Fucking hipster."
14
anon is correct. fuck them even if they have to work the next morning and don't have the balls to speak up WHEN EXPRESSLY INVITED TO DO SO.

socializing is essential to human existence.
15
Um yeah, you had an all night party, that's what the "a.m." after the "1:30" means. They could have handled it better but were probably cranky from being kept up all night.
17
@1 Trollolololololol
No matter how you slice it the people who left the note handled it about as badly as they could. Passive aggressive and spiteful with the torn up invitation scattered on the roof of the car guarantee's animosity in the future, all of it over a housewarming party. Ultimately, by not addressing it the night of the party with a friendly "Hi, sorry I could not attend - I have work in the morning, but could you keep the volume down a bit? Thank you" they forfeit the right to consider themselves the wounded party.
18
@6 might want to revisit the noise ordinance. Be happy you're not my neighbor, I own, and am friendly with the police :D
19
This is why the world is run by families with a mortgage and children, not childless renters. You people can't even organize a party among five households without burning bridges between people who haven't so much as spoken once.
20
This is why I will never understand condo ownership. All the hassle and risk of owning; shared walls just like your old apartment. Sounds like the couple in Unit B has transitioned from shouting to make-up sex, the lady upstairs apparently wears her high heels while doing the dishes and Junior in Unit D has just discovered the new Macklemore track, which he has on repeat. He's really enjoying that new sub-woofer he got for xmas last year.
21
If only there was a device your could put in your ears to cancel out unwanted noise and it was affordable for a low cost from your local drug store...
22
So you folks just expect someone who's woken up in the middle of the night to get dressed, wander down to your apartment, suffer any abuse and bullshit you might throw at them, suffer any future retaliation later rather than write a fucking note? Maybe they were sick, maybe they had to go to work early in the morning, maybe they hadn't slept all fucking week, who the fuck are you to judge others at 1:30am?

Grow the fuck up shithead and have some fucking respect for your neighbors.
23
@21 Yes, and risk missing your alarm the next morning? Sounds fucking brilliant.
24
I am at work at 0400 every Saturday and Sunday. Having a party, not even next door, loud enough to keep me up going until 0130 would piss me off too.
25
Typical Seattle: Bitter, self-important people with too much time on their hands, afraid that someone might be having fun. Luckily, I've never been one of those high-strung types who are kept awake by noise - and I used to work at 6am Wednesday-Sunday while living just off 17th in the U district.
26
Did you sign a lease? Did it have a "quiet hours" clause?
27
So glad most of you aren't my neighbors...

Granted, we only have the OP's word that things went down as they described, but for the sake of argument (!) let's see if I have this straight: new move-ins invite the entire building (including those who wrote the PA note), to a housewarming party on a Saturday evening that breaks up at 1:30 a.m. The next morning, the OP finds a snitty note complaining about the noise AND their torn-to-pieces invitation on their car.

Aside from the sheer passive-aggressiveness of the response, it seems like a poor way to begin a relationship with people who are probably going to be your neighbors for quite some time. They just moved in for crying out loud - aren't they allowed at least one strike? It would have taken them just as much effort to walk down two flights and knock on the door, introduce themselves and mention that "last night was a bit loud" or similar, as it did to surreptitiously leave a note on their car. Or better yet, they could have RSVP'd to the original invitation with a "regrets, but we have to be up early for work on Sunday morning", thus cluing their new neighbors into the fact they don't stay up late on the weekends. Chances are, that would have been all that was required. Instead, they chose the path of lease resistance, but the one that basically ensures at least two of their neighbors will most likely never be inclined to make an effort to be civil to them in the future.

Yes, I get it: some people don't keep regular M-F 9-5 hours, but you know what? Most people DO. While there's something to be said for making reasonable accommodations for neighbors who keep non-normal schedules, it helps tremendously if said neighbors let one KNOW about this BEFORE you decide to ream them for not being sensitive to your needs.

We're not mind-readers, people.
28
No.

If you can't schedule your "all growed-up" housewarming party at civil hours of 7-11pm and then go to a bar if you're not finished celebrating, where loud music and shouting conversation over the music are permitted, then you don't know how to live in a city.

City apartments are not fraternity houses. You should move to a bungalow in the burbs or farmhouse out in the country.

The excuse that "It's only a one-time thing" is irrelevant. In the city, there's always someone having a "one-time thing", which means if late-night house parties are tolerated, they become a "regular thing". The advance notice "invitation" makes not a single bit of difference, unless it's accompanied by a phone number and the promise to pull the plug if it gets annoying. The “invitation” is the true passive-aggressive move.

I occasionally have to make the trip to the kiddies' parties that last sometimes until 4am, to the adjoining apartments in my bathrobe and slippers. I tell them it's time to end the party, or go to an after-hours club if you're not done. Once, they turned down the music and sent their friends on their way (just as the cops arrived from another neighbor's call). Other times I get the bullshit "We're only trying to have a good time" answer, as the room-full of tweens continue to sing-along to '80s scream-singing diva anthems (with all the windows open to vent the cigarette smoke and ensure the racket is projected, amplified, out the front and back of the building), and hearing-impaired douches on the back balcony shouting dude-talk to each other. Sometimes they try to keep it down, but after a few minutes the alcohol gets the better of them. Sometimes they get belligerent. Once my girlfriend was assaulted at the door. I prefer to let them know in person rather than calling the police straight away. But I'm usually fantasizing about surprising them with molotov cocktails.

It's never the same people, mind you. It's always some new group moving into their dream city apartment after school.

To review: You want to housewarm your new apartment? Unless you live in an unpopulated area, or an abandoned industrial site, plan on drinks starting at 6 or 7, or better yet, do a weekend barbecue party, and move to a bar after 10:30. If you're a raucous bunch, make plans for an after-hours club. If you want to behave like wild animals or zany students, go back to campus. Otherwise, your neighbors will hate you and you might end up meeting the local police force sooner than you'd like.

City Life: the rules are stricter here.
29
Wow, @28, you are exactly the kind of narcissistic, uptight, repressed, passive-aggressive asshole that nobody ever wants to live next to, and I'm sure grateful that I don't.

Here's a clue for you-- City life: there's ALWAYS noise. That's life in the big city, you weenie. The OP's *did* follow the rules-- they gave advance notice, let their neighbors know where to go if they wanted to (a) join in, or (b) take proactive measures to let them know of any concerns. That's as much courtesy as you can reasonably expect, and a lot more than you get from a lot of neighbors. And apparently a lot more than you can spare.

All you poor stress-oholics out there who are so incredibly annoyed that there are people around you who might be enjoying life in ways that you don't know how to-- you have an actual *choice* to differentiate between what you can *hear* and what you choose to *listen to*.

When I was a teen, I moved in with my divorced dad for a year. He lived a little way out in the country, but the train tracks quite literally ran through his backyard. Every morning at 4:00 am or so, a freighter came through, going into town with its horn blaring, and the house vibrating from the train rattling down the track. First week, it blew me out of bed with my heart pounding every time. The next week and after, It never woke me again and I barely heard it in my sleep.

I'm in my 50's now; I get up at 5am every weekday to go to work, I live in a triplex and I have noisy upstairs neighbors. They're noisy because it's a family with three pre-teen boys, and the first week I lived here I thought they were running a Luchador school upstairs.

I considered, briefly, going up to talk to them about the noise early on, but then I discovered what the source was and realized that every time I went up, Dad would yell at the kids, the kids would keep quiet for as long as they could remember to (probably about 15 minutes max) and then, lather, rinse, repeat. So I ignored it. And you know what? After a few weeks, it's just background noise. I hear it, but I don't listen to it. It's not that hard a trick, it's a *decision* You just have to make it. Earplugs can help too.

There's no excuse for assholes who throw a heavy metal kegger under or over your head every friday or saturday night--and act like jerks when you talk to them about it. I'd be calling the cops too, and the landlords. But short of that, if you can't handle life in the big city and like @28, want to try and make up imaginary rules, then move out or invest in soundproofing. You're just not cut out for being a neighbor to anybody. Try to enjoy your miserable life somewhere where other people don't have to be around *you*.
30
If you want to throw house parties, buy a house.
31
@30 : Now the "let them eat cake" demographic has been heard from. Thank you, Marie Antoinette.
32
Thank you, @29. I don't even throw parties, and some of these egocentric complaints annoy me. Cities are pretty much understood to be noisy. There's traffic. Alarms and sirens. Neighbors fighting. Neighbors fucking. Children jumping on furniture. Crack heads squawking for no apparent reason. Sure, if the neighbor was having a truly, blatantly inconsiderate party with blaring music and tons of people shouting over it, I could see being annoyed. Adults who party should know to follow what rules exist (on paper, not in their neighbor's head), and should take reasonable precautions to avoid noise complaints. But knowing how touchy some people can be, it's possible there was no music or shouting. I used to live on the same block as a bar and a couple event venues, and the sounds of drunk people walking by and using their outside voices could be annoying. But there was nothing illegal about it, and I sucked it up because I recognized that noise is the price you pay for living in a city. Life is noisy, and the world doesn't revolve around anyone's personal preferences for additional quiet beyond what is specified in noise ordinances. If you are the one who can't stand noise, you are the one who needs to move to the quiet countryside, or maybe the outer reaches of suburban sprawl.

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