Awkward apartment situations (with special bonus Life In Hell material, sort of)

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

My downstairs neighbor is actually someone I think I went to high school with, though I forget the exact significance of what classes he was in and/or whether he was one of those guys who always gave me shit. I think he's mad at me because my toilet flooded once and the water seeped through his ceiling, plus I asked him to turn the bass down on his music when I was trying to get to sleep on a work night once. By "asked", actually, I mean "stomped on the floor", since I didn't want to get dressed and actually walk downstairs.

Apparently Matt Groening had the same problem. Transcribed awkwardly from a "Life In Hell" comic:

"I used to draw this cartoon in a dinky third-floor apartment in Hollywood (Will I be drawing these damn rabbits forever?). When I moved in, the other tenants warned me that the building was haunted by the ghost of Mary Pickford. “She’s real, man.” “If you scoff she’ll get ya.” When she was a young, struggling actress, the story went, Pickford had lived in the apartment directly below mine. Whoever lived there now had the loudest record player I’d ever heard in my life. I’d lie in bed at 2 A.M., listening to the music that vibrated my bed. It got annoying after awhile. Being the nonconfrontational type that I am, I just turned up my own music. But the ghost responded by turning up hers. So I pushed my speakers face-down on the floor, put on some bass-heavy reggae, and skanked in pride. The ghost was not intimidated. She merely cranked up her own music. This went on for weeks. Finally one night I flipped out. I couldn’t stand listening to “Take Me Down To Funkytown” one more time, even if I was the one who was playing it. I grabbed a cinder block from my bookshelf, raised it above my head, and dropped it rather harshly on the floor. The music below suddenly went off. All was quiet, too quiet. Suddenly I heard ferocious pounding on my door. “What the Hell are you doing in there??” The ghost’s voice was surprisingly husky. “The light fixture in my ceiling just crashed on the floor!!!” I just cringed, listening to the heavy breathing in the hall. Eventually, the breathing went away. And the ghost of Mary Pickford never bothered me again."

I do not have any cinderblocks.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 26 April 2003 16:58 (twenty-two years ago)

there's always the vienna sausage routine

― jess (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 26 April 2003 17:02 (twenty-two years ago)

Explain.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 26 April 2003 17:08 (twenty-two years ago)

this is usually good for use against shitty landlords when you get kicked/move out (i.e. you do it inside your own apartment.) i assume it can be used against evil neighbors too tho.

1. wait until he leaves for work one day (also good to make sure your landlord or super isn't around.)
2. find exposed part of outerwall. (better innerwall, but i assume you don't have access to inside his aparment.)
3. punch hole in wall. (this depends on what kind of walls they are, of coruse,)
4. spoon feed in 1 can of vienna sausages
5. spackle and re-patch wall.
6. sit back and wait for the fun as sausages begin to decompose.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 26 April 2003 17:12 (twenty-two years ago)

He just plays his music loud on occasions, he doesn't shit in my mailbox or anything.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Saturday, 26 April 2003 17:20 (twenty-two years ago)

alright, well, put that one in your file for later use then.

when i was living in nyc our bastard children downstairs neighbors played the same eminem song and the same dancehall song over and over and over at top (bass) volume. so one day i went out for some groceries and left - ala mr. groening - a merzbow record on at top volume with the speakers aimed at the floor. that seemed to do it.

― jess (dubplatestyle), Saturday, 26 April 2003 17:33 (twenty-two years ago)

yeah, my downstairs neighbours (who I will be leaving in four days for new downstairs neighbours) always play their shitty music real loud and constantly smoke dope which comes right into my suite. I don't care that they smoke dope all the time, but I don't like the fact that my apt and a lot my shit is starting to smell like dope.

anyway, one time I went out for a few hours and left my GF's Judy Garland disc on full vol and on repeat with speakers pointed down. They didn't get the message though.

― Horace Mann (Horace Mann), Sunday, 27 April 2003 00:58 (twenty-two years ago)

The downstairs neighbor in my first apartment was a complete basshead. Normally not much of a problem, since the whole building in general was one of those great places where everyone had an unofficial license to be loud. Over the year there, though, he got unbearable- furniture-shaking bass on early Sunday mornings, that sort of thing. The clincher was one Saturday night when he must have left a record on the turntable and gone out...and didn't come home...and the record skipped all the way until Sunday noon.

As his punishment, the next time he played music too loud, I retaliated with Techno Animal's "Demonoid" with bass maxed out and speakers pointed down at intolerable volume. I won.

Apparently this also happens in a film as well.

― r. geary (rgeary), Sunday, 27 April 2003 02:24 (twenty-two years ago)

I guess I was the aggressor here, but when I was living in Japan, my downstairs neighbor was overly sensitive abut any amount of noise I made. Since I'm somewhat antisocial and never threw any parties, the extent of my transgressions was listening to my stereo at any noticeable volume. So, one day, after my supervisor (acting as intermediary) had phoned me to tell me that my neighbor thought I was being too loud again, I decided to take action.

Instead of music, I went out and rented some random, unpleasant-looking porn tape, came home, connected my television to the amp/audio setup, turned up it loud, and went out for a couple of hours. After that, I was unaware of any further complaints, and the at that point minimal interaction I had with other tenants in my apartment complex dwindled to nil.

― JS Williams (js williams), Sunday, 27 April 2003 07:42 (twenty-two years ago)

play the first minute 'galaxy' by iancu dumitrescu. no one will mess with you ever again.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Sunday, 27 April 2003 19:09 (twenty-two years ago)

A few years ago, I had a neighbor who complained when I played Belle and Sebastian's Tigermilk at 10 PM on a weeknight.

― Ernest P. (ernestp), Monday, 28 April 2003 03:31 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a neighbour who called the cops if I walked across the room past 11.

― slutsky (slutsky), Monday, 28 April 2003 03:33 (twenty-two years ago)

I had a neighbour who would stand outside his apartment and cry and scream at the top of his voice every time he got dumped. This happened on a twice-monthly basis.

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Monday, 28 April 2003 03:35 (twenty-two years ago)

i stayed at a friends place in vancouver for a while and her upstairs neighbour would crank his music all the time. she hated it but i thought it was the finniest thing ever. he would sing along (badly) at the top of his lungs - and really how could i be mad when i would wake-up laughing my ass off at him every other day.

it was polka. i'm not kidding. polka all the time.

she would retaliate by cranking noise records randomly – weather he'd been polka-ing-out or not. he never complained.

― dyson (dyson), Monday, 28 April 2003 05:53 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

So I'm walking down my block on the way home from work today and I've got my Wu Wear shirt on (stop laughing) and this neighbor was walking the other way, namely towards me, and when he saw me he furrowed his brow and looked off to the side like he caught me with my dick hanging out. It was pretty weird.

(I'm sure I looked pretty herbish, though, what with my headphones matting down my hair and this goofy-looking '70s poly-stuff overshirt that appears to be made out of the same plastic they use to make astroturf.)

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Thursday, 29 May 2003 22:50 (twenty-two years ago)

My neighbors get and stay crunk on a regular basis. The sweetest revenge is Crowbar at full volume--their records are mixed really bass-heavy but also distorted. It's brutal and carries through walls very well.

Merzbow I've found doesn't do the trick because a lot of its power comes from high frequencies that get absorbed by the walls.

― adam (adam), Thursday, 29 May 2003 23:52 (twenty-two years ago)

mmm..crunk

― electric sound of jim (electricsound), Thursday, 29 May 2003 23:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Ha! On the way to work yesterday I saw a late-model Taurus with a "CRUNK" license plate being driven by some suburban-looking blonde girl. Maybe her name was "Cindy Runk".

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Friday, 30 May 2003 00:52 (twenty-two years ago)

one month passes...

I'm sure I looked pretty herbish, though,

What is 'herbish'. Is it just 'stupid' or has it got something to do with the herb. Also, do you pronounce the 'h'?

― N. (nickdastoor), Sunday, 27 July 2003 11:08 (twenty-two years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.