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Sometimes I hear the people next door... and then I'm like oh shit, have they been hearing all the yelling in our house this whole time? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 4 months ago by to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world
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[–] 21 points 4 months ago (8 children)

I started making more noise after my neighbors clearly did not realize that the quiet they enjoyed from my apartment was out of deliberate consideration on my part, and not a mutual experience. I started with normal sounds like coughing or laughing or playing some music, but after that didn't work, I started to make noises they would be embarrassed to ask me about. It somewhat worked at reducing their noise levels. I knew they heard me because they stopped making eye contact. But they were also awful people so that was fine with me.

Thankfully they moved and I now have a quiet neighbor who gets to enjoy my silence. Occasionally they'll get a little noise from me to remind them that the wall between my bedroom and their main room is very thin, but I haven't had to escalate it like with the last people, for which I am grateful. My other neighbors are a very quiet elderly couple and I love them, but our shared wall is substantially thicker, which is partly why I love them.

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  • [–] 13 points 4 months ago* (5 children)

    I would never interpret an uptick in noise from my neighbors as a message. I’m autistic and very unperceptive in this dimension so it may well just be me, but I think I’d start worrying about someone if they told me they thought that their neighbor coughing or laughing more audibly than usual was an attempt at communication.

    Even the other sounds… maybe you got a new sex toy or developed an embarrassing medical condition. I’d just assume you’re doing your thing, not trying to weird me out.

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  • [–] 9 points 4 months ago (2 children)

    The message was just "you can hear me" which I hoped would then logically translate to "therefore I can also hear you". The normal kinds of sound just didn't get the message across for some reason so I added the awkward element - it allowed for longer sound duration than briefly coughing or laughing, and made it more difficult to ignore. I'm pretty sure they thought I was just doing my thing.

    It's definitely a very oblique and passive aggressive approach to the problem, but it worked well enough that I didn't have to go for something more confrontational, which would have been the next step.

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  • [–] 1 point 4 months ago* (1 child)

    I would get that message, but I’d probably assume that if you’re living in a shared building, you’re cool with sounds of other people doing their thing, have coping mechanisms, or will speak to me/write me a note (could even be anonymous).

    Now I just hope my neighbors are and have always been assertive/aggressive enough to spell it out. Except for the upstairs adult neighbors who rollerbladed back and forth on their tile floor for a couple hours a week to build proficiency. I do hope they were constantly annoyed.

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  • [–] 3 points 4 months ago

    They were the only neighbors I've ever had to do this with after many years of apartment living. I am fine with normal sounds, but their noise far exceeded normal constantly, and I have an expectation that shared living needs to come with a level of consideration for others. I know it wasn't just my problem either, there were multiple complaints made to the property managers by other apartments, to no effect.

    I chose this approach intentionally to avoid confrontation with obviously aggressive and unreasonable people. They had a reputation for regularly screaming obscenities at each other and anyone else who displeased them. Knowing the exact content of all their arguments, I knew that normal human interaction was likely to direct their aggressive behavior towards me, which would not achieve my goal of sleeping at night.

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  • [–] 2 points 4 months ago (1 child)

    I think you've overcomplicated the situation. The goal of making more noise is to have your neighbor understand that wall thickness is symmetrical. After that either they will STFU or they won't.

    Whether they realize that communication was intended is beside the point. If you wanted to communicate with them openly you could do that through property management. Or by knocking on their door. But if they're giant assholes then maybe that wouldn't work.

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