Upstairs Nightmares
December 2nd, 2006 at 5:42 pm (Thoughts)
I am so tired and my headache is so bad and I really don’t know what to do about it right now because the whole world is pounding and for once, it’s not in my head. I took the GRE English Literature test this morning which was pretty miserable in and of itself (they ask the stupidest questions, but I’m not going into that as it’s a whole different rant and I really don’t have the energy for it right now), and have been studying for it for a while, but particularly heavily this week, as you may imagine.
The test was downtown in a tiny lecture hall with tiny desks not even big enough for the test booklets at 8:30 this morning. Great. So Michael and I went to be early last night hoping to get a good nights sleep so that I would be reasonably well rested for the test. I actually fell asleep in fairly good time, which doesn’t always happen before tests. So far so good, right? Then, all of a sudden at about 1:30AM a very loud series of pounding started upstairs and woke me up from a nice deep sleep. It woke Michael up too, but he was less concerned about this as he falls asleep easily and I don’t. Michael stormed upstairs and asked them to stop (through the door since they did not open it when he knocked, I understand), which they did. I, however, did not ever really get back into a good sleep and pretty much dozed the rest of the night. This was just great for the morning.
So I took the test and it was ok, I just yawned a lot. Everyone else did too, since asking people to take tests like that in the morning is a bad idea. Fine. Test done, home again, home again, jiggidy, jig. Time for a well-earned nap, right? Wrong. I fell asleep for a nice nap, snuggled against my nice warm husband in my nice warm bed, and at about 2:30PM (an hour or so after I laid down) the upstairs neighbors decided it was about time to start making noise again. Enough noise, in fact, to shake the walls. They were pounding so hard everything rattled and yelling so loud I could make out nearly every word they said (almost all four-letter words that did not appear on the GRE English Literature Exam). My head is killing me! I can’t even fathom what they could be doing up there that would make so much noise on our ceiling! Dropping elephants from ten feet in the air, maybe?
Anyhow, I know this rant was unlikely to be particularly interesting to anyone, but it’s obviously annoying me right now. Any suggestions on what to do about said upstairs neighbors? I don’t think they mean to be so annoying, but they clearly don’t get it either. And I’m not sure I’ll have as much patience if they cause my headache to get so bad that I need to see a doctor. Perhaps I need to go talk to them sometime when they aren’t having a party or whatever they are doing and try to explain what it sounds like to us. Maybe they just don’t realize it (despite multiple complaints at this point)? I really don’t know. Like I said, I don’t want to be mean, but this is getting out of hand.
Scarybug said,
December 2, 2006 at 9:14 pm
Call in a noise complaint. That’s really all you can do. It helps if you’ve talked to the people about it once before. You just have to call in a complaint every time it happens for more than a minute or two.
Eva said,
December 3, 2006 at 9:31 pm
I agree with Scarybug. If these people are behaving like that in the middle of the night you probably don’t want to know what they’re doing and you definitely don’t want to chance that they are psycho and are fighting or something. If the cops come and talk to them often enough they will get the hint and be quiet or move.
Also, I hope your head feels better-ish soon!
Scarybug said,
December 4, 2006 at 9:13 am
I just meant a landlord noise complaint. Don’t involve the police unless the landlord refuses to do anything.
Viv said,
December 7, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Start with the landlord, then get the police involved. Make sure you document everything — dates and times of the noise, duration, volume as well as the dates, times and messages you left for the landlord. Send letters. Be a pain in their ass (which I know you know how to do). Maybe get a tape recording just to illustrate that it’s not just something small — but that they’re summoning a mount 10 feet up in the air and dropping it onto things.
And if anything, there’s always Pete Keller and Jeff dressed as jack-booted thugs to scare the living shit out of them.
K. said,
December 21, 2006 at 7:17 am
The GRE is a real b***h. Good luck to you!