I have awful upstairs neighbors. Clomp clomp clomp, all night long. They woke me up at 1am last night when something heavy hit the floor, bounced, and rolled. This happens all the time.
Weirdly enough, they’re also like that in the daytime! Maybe they just have three big dogs, and leave medicine balls laying around. (Maybe they are three big dogs, in a trenchcoat–although how could three dogs afford a Bay Area rent, big or not?)
On Thursday, they were clomping around while I worked from home. At one point something crashed onto their floor. Samwise and I pulled the same face (yes, I was already taking pictures of him at the time):
I seriously don’t know what the deal is with these people. Maybe I should give the three-dogs-in-a-trenchcoat hypothesis some more consideration.
Open thread, because it’s needed!
HumboldtBlue
Stevie Ray Vaughan aint sick of your shit.
These masters of movement rhythm and time didn’t even toot a horn.
Seriously, SRV was something else.
I saw a turn of phrase on a soccer thread from a German commenter about a wonderfully deft feat of skill — “it put the goose on my skin.”
SRV does that to me.
HumboldtBlue
Pfffttt! Tap-tap-tippy-tip!
Is the mic on?
Boussinesque
Your three-dog hypothesis reminds me of Vincent Adultman from BoJack Horseman (which I haven’t been able to watch since November 2016 because there’s only so much bleakness I can take at a time).
Yutsano
Samwise is bovvered. Something must die.
Major Major Major Major
@HumboldtBlue: Don’t tap the microphones, it damages them.
Anne Laurie
We had an apartment under people just like that, many years ago — our theory (which we used to talk each other out of ringing their doorbell and doing… something unwise) was that they were attempting to dribble bowling balls.
The late-night mysterious noises stopped after a particularly noisy evening when the ‘dribbling’ reached a peak… followed by ten minutes of panicked shouting & half an hour of toilet-flushing.
Apart from wondering if someone had tried to flush their bowling ball, we never did find out what became of that crew. (And, yes, this being the 80s, I did keep an eye on the local paper for news of drug busts… )
HumboldtBlue
I got sheer commenter genius stuffed up in moderation.
Anne Laurie
@HumboldtBlue: Maybe there’s a two-link limit for YouTube clips?
Ninedragonspot
The dogs are IT specialists who telecommute, because, as is well known, nobody on the internet knows you’re a dog.
HumboldtBlue
Caint even edit.
Like it’s 2009 and I’m still typing in shit like to format text on a TBogg thread.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
Is that a baby Dalek menacing Samwise?
HumboldtBlue
@Anne Laurie:
Huh? Who knew?
Major Major Major Major
@Anne Laurie: Well of course there wasn’t a bust–all that toilet-flushing worked!
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Can’t really think of what else could be shaped like that.
LesGS
When my dad was stationed in Athens back when I was a teen, we lived in a two level apartment, us on the bottom floor, a lovely Austrian family with two elementary school aged kids on the top. Beautiful white marble floors. Every morning, the lovely Austrian family would get up at 6, put on their wooden soled house-shoes and go clippity-clopping over our heads until they all galloped out their front door at 7. Fortunately, they slept in on the weekends.
Major Major Major Major
@LesGS: oh that sounds rough.
NotMax
Mom has one of those “is this thing on?” ultra quiet dishwashers and refuses to run it after 8 p.m. in the evening or before 10 a.m. in the morning because she’s worried about disturbing the people downstairs.
Blue mouser
That is one majestic cat
Jay
So, mayo on hamburgers,……..
Pogonip
I like gray cats.
I also like my house, and sympathize with people stuck in apartments with noisy neighbors. I was one of you for many years.
burnspbesq
You don’t really know how thin your walls are until your kid’s fiancé comes to visit.
burnspbesq
@Jay:
Habanero Chile mayo. Might be an acceptable compromise.
Jay
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.insideedition.com/paw-order-hog-wild-suspect-turns-tables-cop-police-chase-46430%3famp
Major Major Major Major
@burnspbesq: Or you can just do like every fancy restaurant and rebrand it as ‘aioli.’
@Jay: Hmm, maybe the upstairs neighbors have a pig.
Jay
@burnspbesq:
There’s a small stand of Horror at Cave On Foods right now. They lure you in with Garlic Aolie, then comes Digionaisse, the Hamburgeraisse, then Baconaisse, then Hickery Smoked Backnaisse, then Applewood Smoked Pepper Baconaisse,
Shouldn’t they save that for Halloween?
Major Major Major Major
@Jay: Halloween season started an hour and a half ago.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Lb6Fa3O49LI
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Tuesday is 50% off on leftover Labor Day candy!
:)
satby
@NotMax: your mother is a peach.
Jay
BTW, for the “olds”, grunge ain’t punk.
Grunge was invented in 1984,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dD0xeHKAPOA
In Canada,
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kdEExeQ8D8U
Eric Schrader
Years ago, my roommates and I concluded our upstairs neighbors were holding giant tortoise races. It was three only logical explanation for the very slow thump …… thump …….. thump
Groucho49
A few years ago, I had something similar. Not really loud, but, almost every night, for a half hour or more, there would this creek-pause-creek-pause-creek. Like, maybe, someone in front of a mirror, shifting to checking out angles, or, I had a bunch of theories, maybe sorting socks from the bed to the drawers, or, whatever. But, it went on and on. And, on. What could anyone do for 30-60 minutes, at 2 or 3 in the morning, that would, basically amount to–take a step to the left, pause, take a step to the right, pause…repeat two hundred times?
Tis a mystery.
Jay
@Major Major Major Major:
Morris dancers?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i9SSOWORzw4
Eric Schrader
@Pogonip: I bought a top floor unit.
Eric S.
I used an old email and gave 2 in moderation. Mistakes happen when you’ve been up 20+ hours. I’m on my Munich layover en route to Paris. I dozed a little on the flight over but no good sleep.
satby
@Eric S.: have a enjoyable trip after you get some sleep. I’m never able to sleep on planes either.
Eric S.
@satby: Thanks! I’m quite excited. I’m spending a week in Paris and then a week bicycle riding through Bordeaux.
Usually I sleep okay. Not great, but okay. I was near the lav and the line was constant.
RedDirtGirl
I had a young couple living above me and at one point they seemed to be having frequent bouts of intimate encounters. I was perplexed by how rhythmic it was, with little, to no, variation in speed, tempo, etc. eventually I figured out that, in fact, one of them was just jumping rope.
OzarkHillbilly
@RedDirtGirl:
Thanx for that. I so rarely get to start my day with a laugh any more.
lowtechcyclist
My wife and I made the jump from apartment living to homeownership when I was 39. That was 25 years ago.
There are PITA aspects of being a homeowner, but the fact that the next house is 60 feet away, rather than the next apartment being directly over our heads/under our feet/on the other side of that wall, more than outweighs all the downsides.
Groucho48
Advertisement
I, unexpectedly, had to babysit my grandkids tonight. Mostly, it went well, but the two year old was having a terrible two evening. Loud and whiny. Parents know what I’m talking about. So, after trying a few things, unsuccessfully, I fired up YouTube on my phone. She loves TouTube stuff. 10 little babies jumping on a bed. Bubble Guppies highlights, and so on. They didn’t work.
So, reaching back, a few years ago, I had given one of my grand-nieces a kid’s version of classic old folk tunes sung by Elizabeth Mitchell. The way it worked is that if you bought the CD on Amazon and you were a Prime member, you could also download a digital version. So, I did. I actually play it regularly as she has a nice voice and the arrangements of the classic old tunes are nicely done.
Anyway, I fired up the album, and the mellowness got to her and she settled. I asked the 14 year old to get her sheet and covered her and she soon fell asleep on my lap. Life really doesnt get any better.
Anyway, this was the tune that got the job done. I recommend her albums to anyone who has young kids or who just likes old folk tunes done well and simply. The “You Are My Sunshine” album, especially.
satby
@RedDirtGirl: ???
Well, I’m off to the market. Big Notre Dame -Michigan State game today, so it will be either a madhouse or dead, depending on how late the game starts.
Groucho48
Looks like I can’t edit or link the video. Anyway…Froggy goes A’Courtin. Elizabeth Mitchell. A good remedy in these dark times.
https://youtu.be/0XIT_xMHKJI
raven
@satby: 6:30 your time and all those icky white people will be there.
OzarkHillbilly
@Groucho48: Doc Watson did a great Froggy goes A’Courtin.
NotMax
Is it too pathetic to admit that flipping over the page of the wall calendar* has become one of the highlights of my month?
*Receive a free one each year from one the alma maters. Big to-do some years back amongst the amluni/ae when the insititution opted to do away with the attached length of string by which to hang it.
NotMax
@NotMax
alumni
(No edit.)
Groucho48
@OzarkHillbilly:
Love Doc Watson, but, his version is a bit too fast for me.
Dorothy A. Winsor
The people upstairs all practise ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I would love the people upstairs wondrous
If instead of above us, they just lived under us.
Ogden Nash
MattF
On unusual noises from upstairs neighbors:
1) My sister and BIL had an upstairs neighbor who wore shoes with click-click-click heels early in the morning.
2) Back in the early 80’s I had an unusual siege of upstairs noisiness– loud music, then ‘rumble rumble rumble CRASH‘… loud music, ‘rumble rumble rumble CRASH‘. They were practicing roller disco.
cope
Not to be a jerk about it (OK, I’m being a jerk) but when I was an apartment dweller lo so many decades ago, if there were disturbing noises, odors or traffic patterns in an adjoining unit, I made a point of asking the suspect tenant if there were any problems or if there was anything I could to help or even if they could tell me when the issue might be resolved. Who knows, maybe what they are doing is something fun and they will invite you to join them.
debbie
Are you in NYC yet? I remember there were noise laws (ie, tenants must be quiet between 11pm and 7am) when I lived there.
dimmsdale
Oh boy, Major3, do I hear ya. My upstairs neighbors are infrequently home; when they are it’s “Mr & Mrs Thunderthud have come to visit.” Sometimes they bring their kid (hurried little quick footsteps thumping down one length of the apartment and back) or their dog (ditto, but with a bouncing ball thrown in). Sometimes they let the apartment to Air B&B’ers, who of course are always from Out There Somewhere and don’t understand that big-city tenement floors are tympanic (if they so much as drop an aspirin on the floor, I hear it; voices or anything else above the floor itself, not so much).
When the apartment next door was slated to be gutted out, I somehow found out when the architect was coming to do plans; I have a tenor sax, and I know how to play it badly, and loud. So I did, the whole time he was there. Fortunately they saw fit to install sound deadening during the renovation, so I always get along fine with my next-door neighbors.
I keep Mr. and Mrs. Thunderthud somewhat in line by practicing saxophone altissimo when I think they’re getting a bit careless upstairs; somehow we have developed a nice equilibrium over the years.
Possibly you could hire a not-too-proficient music student to practice in your space when you’re not around? Just as a reminder to your upstairs neighbors about how thin the floors are?
RobNYNY
Most apartment leases I have seen require a certain portion of the floor to be covered by rugs. Perhaps you could check your lease and ask the landlord to enforce the rule.
dimmsdale
It’s an odd sort of dance, living with neighbors in close proximity mere feet on the other side of a partition. In a way, it’s a little like how the US Government ran before the age of Newt Gingrich; observing custom, following precedent, and avoiding the ‘nuclear option’ when possible. (In the case of apartment living, of course, the nuclear option would mean citing noise ordinances and/or lease stipulations as to carpet requirements, in the course of some sort of ‘line in the sand’ confrontation with the neighbor. You kind of want to avoid that, if at all possible–leaving it at ‘THEY get to make some unacceptable level of noise, now and then; and I get to make some unacceptable noise, now and then, and somehow it all works out.’
Ruckus
@dimmsdale:
Most of my noise complaints come from my roommate.
But one day we had new neighbors who wanted to play music rather, what’s it called, LOUD. But I won, I have big studio monitors and the power to drive them. It took about 10 sec to get the message across, just ramp it up till it’s obvious.
dimmsdale
@Ruckus: Exactly!!! Same principle!! “Neighbor, I am a mild-mannered person, but I CAN practice rock & roll sax at 2AM, if needs be!”
Tracy
Upstairs neighbors performance art:
Tracy
Oops, invisible link: https://youtu.be/4IRB0sxw-YU
@Tracy: @Tracy: