Dealing With Noisy Neighbors: A Practical Guide

Throughout my adult apartment-renting life, I've lived next to noisy neighbors about half of the time. I'm actually relatively tolerant of incidental noise - walking, garbage disposals, etc. But fucking parties, goddamn. I can't stand them. Really loud parties are pretty much the best way to tell your neighbors, "Fuck you, I don't care that we live in a society, I only care about doing what I want." I always thought that when you're having a really loud party, it's customary to invite everyone around you in your apartment complex. Now, they're not supposed to actually come to the party, but it sort of defuses the anger.

If you search online for some advice on how to deal with them, the first step is invariably "Go over and politely tell them that they're noisy" or some similar variant. This is TERRIBLE advice, outside of some specific circumstances. If it's something that the person genuinely doesn't know they're doing, it might work. For example, I never knew how noisy it was to roll a rolling chair across the floor. It literally sounds like someone is bowling if you're in the apartment underneath it. If it's something like that, the person might be receptive.

Otherwise, the problem is, with something like a party, people KNOW they're being loud. They just don't give a shit. So when you point it out to them, they always react defensively. I mean, the night before my LSAT, the guy next door was blasting music and I knocked on his door and politely asked him to turn it down just this one night because I had my LSAT in the morning. And you know what the fucker said? "I hear noise from your room sometimes too." WTF? What does that have to do with anything?

The other important reason I would never knock on the offender's door is that now they can put a face on their complainant, whether it's you or not. You will now get blamed for EVERYTHING. Imagine you go over one day and ask them to keep the noise down. Then next week, the neighbor on the other side calls a noise complaint into the cops, or leaves a flaming bag of shit in front of their door. Guess whose tires are getting slashed? That's right, yours! I needn't mention that if you want to leave your own bag of shit, they'll know it was you.