Have you ever been a bad neighbour?

I did have an awful time when I lived in my last apartment. Some bloody Young People moved in upstairs, and one Bank Holiday weekend they decided to have a party. The music went on, very loudly, until 7.30am on the Sunday, at which stage I had to get up to drive Bloke to work. Having had NO sleep, I told them to turn their fucking noise off and go to bed. They grumblingly agreed, but then turned it on again about 9am. They never apologised, and they left their beer cans lying around in the public spaces for days afterwards. I hated them so much from that moment on, that I swear if one of them had needed a lift to the hospital or something, I would have laughed at them and said no. So I don't think you're a bad person, Rumpy.

It would have been fine had I waited until she was a bit further down the stairs before turning drunkenly to my flatmate and going "she was quite hot, wasn't she? We should have invited her in." I don't think I was popular after that one.

Compared to some of my old neighbours, I don't think we've been too bad.

Last summer, the flat upstairs from me had a big party on a weeknight, so when I got up for work the next morning I turned my stereo up as loud as it would go and played the talky bit at the beginning of Express Yourself by NWA over and over. You know, the bit about telling people WHAT TIME IT IS. Then I played Nine to Five by Dolly Parton, just to drum the message home.

Except the next morning it turned out to be someone from the landlord's office, cause it was leaking water down into the apartment below.

(They didn't find any leaks in our apartment luckily, but I felt a bit guilty anyway.)

I started a thread about a person who lives there now, he would have a bunch of his friends back at the weekend week after week. One weekend, we didn't complain to see how long it would go on for. Eventually I cracked at three in the morning, and went and banged on his door and told him to turn it the fuck down. A few weeks of this later, I wound up getting a bit physical with him, and he hasn't done it since. he apologised, and said he'd been a selfish cunt! I get on OK with him now.

Now, we're getting the same thing with the people on the other side. They get back at 12.30 am, on a friday or a saturday, and crank up the music, waking us up. It's filthy loud. Last friday night I went and banged on the door. They ignored it, so I had to just about hammer the door off its hinges. They came to the door, fucking obnoxious and confrontational. They denied it was them the previous week (it was, I checked) and they blamed the guy from the previous paragraph! He was coming home at the time, and heard what they said, so he came round and had a go at them as well. You can probably imagine how much I'm looking forward to this weekend.

This time 'round, if they keep it up, I'm going to attempt to use official means. I have incident/log numbers for the last 2 weeks. If they crank it up this week, I'm just phoning the police, and letting them deal with it. Then I'll phone environmental health, and if they keep it up, I'll complain to their landlords.

At times like this, I fucking hate the human race, selfish shits.

Sorry to hijack your thread for venting, rumpy.

"are you expecting anyone?"
"No, are you?"

Cue eerie soundtrack!

Ah ha! Well then, I would have had no problem getting in to your party then. Has anyone ever tried this? "I'm really sorry about the noise. Look, you seem like a cool person. Why don't you go home and get a glass and come back and join us?"

I think that was part of the problem with the neighbours above us. I hated their party because it was exactly the kind of party I would have loved when I was younger and liked to get wrecked and stay up all night dancing and listening to loud music. It made me feel so old.

I could be a bad neighbour now, for all I know. But how bad can you be when you're always in bed by eleven? I don't mow my lawn. Maybe that annoys my neighbours.

Our current neighbours are really noisy and young, and I'd be a lot more annoyed if our flat didn't have the decent soundproofing that drowns out most of it. She has been known to drunkenly run around the building screeching and she came out in the common hall at 1 am on a work night to have a blazing row down her mobile. He is a tool who talks too loud, is a corporate wanker of some sort and plays crappy dance music. And this morning there was a really ugly old man slipper sitting outside their door. Just the one.

Our previous flat had awful soundproofing, so we had Stompy and Stompette upstairs, who communicated only by potato sack races. And next door, we had Lisa Simpson on sax until the wee hours. That was waaaay worse.

I don't think I've ever been a bad neighbour - I try to be good at the basics, like not slamming doors or playing music too loud/too late. It amazes me how many people can't seem to manage that.

(Tigermilk, particularly)

I only play loud music late in the afternoon, then Kev comes in and turns it down (what's wrong with Erasure?)

I read a really funny article in the paper, some woman in Scotland somewhere broke into her neighbours flat and dragged her out of bed screaming that she was shagging her husband. Then she proceeded to go next door to another womans flat, barged in and proceeded to tear the place apart looking for him. Needless to say her husband wasn't shagging anyone else, and she got dragged into court.

So no, I ain't that bad. Apart from the Erasure and the squeaking.

I reported her to the RSPCC after which things calmed down. It would have been obvious to her that I was the person who reported her. I felt too guilty to meet her eye after that. It's possible she hadn't done anything extreme enough to deserve the shameful embarrassment of being reported to the RSPCC, in which case I did a terrible thing to her, but I don't think I had much choice.