RL Anger

Sockmonkey

My downstairs neighbor. Goddammit.

For a little bit of context: my husband and I live in a two-story, 50s era apartment building in SoCal. This means that there's not much in the way of insulation. The building also has hardwood floors. We've lived here for over 10 years and we're a generally quiet couple -- when we socialize, we go out rather than have people over (because it's harder to bounce early from a social situation when the social situation is gathered in your own space; GO AWAY). The complex overall is pretty chill; no one really parties, folks just keep to themselves. 12 units of introverts, apparently. We have all been living in peace and harmony for years.

Anyway.

A year ago or so, an older couple moved into the apartment below ours. They're in their 60s and, on the surface, they are very nice. But they do not seem to understand that with apartment living comes an expected tolerance of a reasonable level of noise; plus, she is a ridiculously light sleeper to the point where I think even our breathing bothers her. She, apparently, cannot wear earplugs because they hurt her ears. Our apartment layouts are exactly the same, right on top of each other; the bedroom that they use as their master is the bedroom we use as my office. These are some of the things we've done to accommodate this woman:

Move the litterbox from the office to the dining room (we don't actually dine in there, don't worry)
Put down rugs everywhere
Kick the cats out of the office by 9p
Stop using the office by 9p
Don't go into the office before 9a

We do it because we're decent neighbors and not a couple of dicks. But she still complains. About everything. 'I heard your cat jump down onto the floor at 10p and it woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep for the rest of the night.' and 'Your floor fan makes our entire apartment vibrate. I would appreciate it if you don't use it (on the hottest day of the summer. on a Saturday. in the middle of the afternoon when she wasn't even sleeping. even though our crappy wall-unit AC doesn't really work).' and 'I heard you in your office the other night (I had an illustration deadline and was QUIETLY DRAWING and taking great pains to NOT MOVE AROUND in my chair)so I was unable to get ANY sleep.' She and her husband have actually asked to come into our apartment so they can make 'recommendations' as to how we can further muffle the sound between our apartments; we have declined because fuck that noise at this point.

Also keep in mind: their bedroom faces the street. A street that routinely has cars racing up and down it noisily and homeless people periodically screaming at the sky because fuck the sky! But it's my drawing that is keeping her up. Okay, lady.

While I myself am a very heavy, sound sleeper, I am sympathetic to her situation. HOWEVER. I doubt this is a suddenly new condition soooo ... why on Earth, knowing that she apparently cannot sleep unless she is ensconced in a sound vacuum, would they elect to move into a first-floor apartment in an old building with hardfloor floors? This is HER problem, not mine.

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I'm half tempted for my husband and I to switch our bedroom so that it is right over their bedroom just to invite the inevitable complaint of 'I heard you guys having sex and it kept me up all night'.

TL;DR: My downstairs neighbor complains about every single little noise and I am sick of it.

Anyway. Happy Thanksgiving.

Auspice

I left the asshole professor of my last class into crackhead professor this month.

I've been in touch with the other guy I consider 'top of the class' with me and we're both just completely lost.

This guy has weird deadlines. The 'school week' usually ends on Sundays; this guy ends stuff on Fridays. We have 4 assignments due tomorrow. Yes, day after Thanksgiving.

This is a 'project & portfolio' class. You usually have one every few months. Every previous one I've had (this is the 5th) you take a previous story or script, revise it, while also working on some other project (a new story, one month it was a portfolio website, etc etc).

This month... fuck, I don't even know what's going on. We're... revising story, doing some 'webisode' script and... uhm... ten billion essays? Maybe? I can't make heads or tails of it. Neither can any of my classmates that I've reached out to. And emailing the professor has been barely helpful.

He barely explains things. Every assignment is worth 2-5% of our grade. One assignment, worth 5%, has 4 essays attached alone.

...this is a month-long class.

And some of this stuff is so vague it's just guess work and some of us emailing each other putting puzzle pieces together trying to figure out wtf he's talking about.

Thank god I have less than 6 months left until I graduate.

surreality

@sockmonkey I would threaten to take tap dancing lessons if she doesn't can her entitlement pronto. Perhaps decide I just had to learn the tuba late in life. Develop an unhealthy worship of dubstep. Learn the macarena. Just happen to have a tic that involves only being able to self-soothe after confrontations with neighbors that requires perfectly bouncing and catching a hi-bounce ball 300 times, despite always screwing up and having to start over on bounce 299...

...or put on porn with a glass to the floor to hear how much complaining is going on about me having sex whilst giggling madly.

I would definitely be complaining to the landlord about their complaining, though.

Tinuviel

@auspice But omg deadlines are so much more important in teh real world...

That's just horrid organisation on his part, and he's taking it out on his students. Stupid fucker.

ThatGuyThere

@sockmonkey
These situations are where I learn that I am really not a nice person. Last time I dealt with a similar situation I found out how much I could get away with without violating noise laws and took full advantage. Three days later the neighbor was suddenly reasonable.

Aria

I have no idea where this "weird shit with all women's shirt-sleeves ever" trend came from, but it'd be really great if we could just, like..... not. Yeeeeeeeeeeah.

surreality

@aria The double 'fuck that' is that I swear to fucking gods this trend surfaces specifically whenever the last 'staple' shirt in some you-always-need-it color wears out. Like, the generic black mock turtleneck, or whatnot. When the previous one dies? All that shall exist will be things made of so many straps and extraneous buckles or 'WHY?!' fishnet insets it'd give a Hot Topic mall goth pause.

Miss Demeanor

@aria I would be happy if so-called 'office blouses' didn't have such lowcut necklines that I feel like I should climb a pole. Since when did 'business casual' mean 'conservative stripper'?!?!

Also, fuck all these different sleeve lengths with the crazy cuffs. Regular cuffs or french cuffs, otherwise fuck off with that shit. And don't even get me started on how if I want a blouse that will fit my chest, it apparently means I should also have goddamn monkey arms that stretch out three feet. Apparently I am not allowed to be busty without being crazy tall and long-limbed.

Ganymede

@sockmonkey said in RL Anger:

TL;DR: My downstairs neighbor complains about every single little noise and I am sick of it.

How are they complaining? Are they sending letters? Are they coming up to your apartment?

If the former, ignore them. If the latter, tell them to fuck off.

I don't sympathize with them. People who think complaining to others directly will solve their problems are missing the obvious problem, which is themselves.

Misadventure

One of my friends had a hostile fellow move in downstairs, with the same story. Literally, they complained their refrigerator was too loud. Now, on one hand, they had brought in their own quiet one. On the other, its a goddamn apartment complex, if you need silence, don't live where you share a wall or a ceiling. My friend made attempts to be accommodating, the guy became threatening, the landlords invited the guy to move out.

Sockmonkey

@Ganymede They come to our door sometimes. Also, it's a small complex with a central courtyard -- when they see us around, they pull out the 'Oh hey, could you...' all sweet as can be. They wrap it all up in nice but it doesn't change the fact that their requests are unreasonable.

I struggle because I am working against a lifetime of conditioning to be nice and accommodating forever and always. Luckily, my husband is good at telling them NO. He's not mean about it; just super firm.

@Misadventure I doubt they will ever move. LA rental prices have gotten crazy and this complex is ridiculously cheap for the area it is in because it's owned by an old guy rather than a management company. I'm sure even if they were invited to move out, they wouldn't. But I will dream anyway.

Aria

@miss-demeanor said in RL Anger:

@aria I would be happy if so-called 'office blouses' didn't have such lowcut necklines that I feel like I should climb a pole. Since when did 'business casual' mean 'conservative stripper'?!?!

Also, fuck all these different sleeve lengths with the crazy cuffs. Regular cuffs or french cuffs, otherwise fuck off with that shit. And don't even get me started on how if I want a blouse that will fit my chest, it apparently means I should also have goddamn monkey arms that stretch out three feet. Apparently I am not allowed to be busty without being crazy tall and long-limbed.

Ahahaha. I'm 5'3", overweight, and have 38DDDs. The clothes that fit me: exactly none. Even from places where I've sent in my measurements to order custom-fit clothes, their seamstresses are somehow like, "No, that can't be right! I'm going to adjust this. Preferably right in the boobs so every shirt ever is stretched awkwardly across her chest and makes weird bunchy lines near her armpits! This season's look: fat and trashy."

Nah, bitch. That's exactly right. I realize the entire fashion industry is designed to make women not want to look like me, but no matter how many billions of advertising you pump out, I'm still here. Please send me what I ordered and stop fucking around.

Auspice

@aria

I've given up on ever, ever wearing button downs. I had one, once, from New York & Company. I don't know how they did it. It was some sort of voodoo magic, I swear.

Because I, too, am 5'3", overweight, and am currently in a 36HH.

It makes me really sad, too, because gdi I wanna wear flannel in the fall. (Stop laughing.)

Aria

@auspice

I wear my button downs buttoned up to my boobs, and then just unbuttoned from there up. With a tank top underneath. 'Cause there ain't no way some froofy little button and a few strands of thread are keeping the beasts at bay. Like... no, just no. That's a good way to send a button flying across the room mid-meeting. With my luck, I'd put someone's eye out.

Miss Demeanor

@aria The last place I worked, I tried doing that. And I was told it was 'unprofessional'. Hence my grr-ness over it. Thankfully, this new job I just accepted? Jeans, hoodies, steeltoes. I get to be COMFORTABLE again! And get paid more.

Auspice

I'm wearing yoga pants and a tank top at work today.

Which is good, considering I walked a mile and a half in 80'F to my bus today.

So glad we have a hella lax dress code. I'd die if I had to do my commute in some sort of business casual bullshit.

Sockmonkey

Ahahahahaha! So, an addendum to my downstairs neighbor rant:

Today, I got a FB message from my across the alley neighbor that my cat was on her back landing. He's an indoor cat, he wiggled out of a hole in one of our window screens that we hadn't noticed and took a flying leap off our second story window sill to have his Big Adventure that, judging from the picture she sent me, he immediately regretted.

ANYWAY.

I go over there, thank her and her husband profusely and get Disco into his cat carrier. Then we chit-chatted a little bit and they are like:

Them: By the way, is our AC better? [our apartments have wall units]
Me: ??
Them: We recently got it fixed. Your downstairs neighbor told us that it was making a really loud noise that was keeping her up.
Me: .....
Me: Listen, she complains about a lot of things.

And then we bonded over this woman's ridiculousness.

But DUDE! She is complaining about buildings outside of our complex! They have the second floor apartment in the next door building. There is an alley between our buildings that is wide enough for a truck to drive along. Their AC unit faces their dining room and is no where near this woman's bedroom. Ahahahahahaha!

Aria

@sockmonkey

My advice: "Ohh, wow! That's really unfortunate. Have you guys considered moving to a quieter neighborhood given all the problems you've had with so many different people around here?"

Sockmonkey

@Aria Oh, they will never move. We dropped some subtle hints in the beginning, before we got REALLY annoyed with them, that maybe an old creaky building wasn't the ideal place for them to live. And they pointed out that they couldn't afford to move to anywhere else in the neighborhood and still be close to their daughter and grandchildren. Rent prices have only gone up since then so ..

Passive-aggressively stomps around her apartment wearing boots

Aria

@sockmonkey Ohh, I didn't think they'd take your advice. I was thinking more like... that, accompanied by a sickeningly sweet fake smile, might make it clear that you're completely sick of their shit while also allowing you to not be overtly mean or confrontational.