Noisy Neighbor

I just received a call from an assistant in the apartment complex where I live. A few weeks ago, I was woken up by pounding and furniture being moved in the apartment below me at 5am on a Saturday. As the downstairs neighbor left, I yelled at him that he was violating the lease by making so much noise at such a time. His response was, “Welcome to my world.”

I was left without words, not only because he’d already left and I would have been left talking to myself. Also, I was trying to think of the last Saturday that I’d started at 5am by hanging pictures and moving furniture, and not one example came to mind.

My response, since actually speaking to my neighbor isn’t so much successful and causes a spike in my blood pressure, was to write a letter to the landlord asking if I was indeed correct in interpreting the “quiet enjoyment” section of the lease to mean that I shouldn’t have be woken up at 5am on a Saturday.

The landlord (or an office assistant most likely) read the letter and called the neighbor to tell him of my complaint. I asked her how the conversation went; she hesitated, and I had images of him yelling about my loud behavior that he hadn’t ever complained about (he really really hates my sewing machine!).

I understand that my neighbor most likely hears much of the noise that I make, but I feel that I’m fairly lazy and that during the quiet hours of after 10pm and before 9am, I’m not doing very much. And when I use my sewing machine or when I’m hanging pictures, etc., it is always during the day where, to put it bluntly, if he doesn’t like it, he can suck it.

But now I know that he knows I complained. Which is, I suppose, the point. That I’m not going to just let him bang around and wake me up without putting up a fight (granted, my fighting consists of letter writing, but that’s a type of fighting). And I did try and talk to him about it, but to no avail. What else was I to do? Ignore it, yes, that was probably an option. Try and talk to him again? Seems pointless.

I’m hyperaware of my own actions now. I don’t want to be the pot who called the kettle black (I’m tired, I can’t think beyond cliché at this exact moment in time!), so I find myself tiptoeing around my own apartment in the middle of the day. His being loud has resulted in me being quieter.