Note: I’ve never had the “pleasure” of living on the bottom floor of an apartment. I’ve always been on the top floor. But as I’ve been recovering from my injuries, I’ve been staying some at Anil’s house. He happens to have very, very noisy neighbors. I started writing a mental letter to them in my head when their kids started running across the floor at the early hour of 7 a.m. (I was awake, but it is not a nice thing to hear even when one is alert!). This is probably something I cannot send them (it’s way too harsh), but I wanted to write it for anyone else who either lives on the bottom or the top floor of an apartment. I had no idea, until now, how much can be heard between the ceiling and the floor …
Running. Back and forth. From the front door to the back bedroom, back to the front door, back to the back bedroom. This is what I hear first thing in the morning. And all morning. And all afternoon. Lather, rinse and repeat.
Speaking of lather, rinse and repeat, I also know when your children are taking a bath. When the toilet flushes. When the shower is running. It feels a bit odd, to be honest, and I often stay out of the bathroom when I can hear you in yours, so that I can give you as much privacy as possible.
I know what time your children wake up, because that’s when the running starts. The screaming starts sometime after that (your kids and yours). The jumping on the bed is about the most horrific activity your children participate in. You probably have no idea the effect it has – not only can I hear the box springs squeaking, but the fan in the master bedroom starts shaking and the sliding glass door in the living room starts rattling. I sometimes wonder if you’re hiding an elephant in your apartment.
There are other noises, too. Furniture scrapes constantly along the floor. It’s as if you redecorate every single day. The vaccuum cleaner is louder than I would expect it to be. I know when your kids are eating because the running stops and the scraping along the dining room floor starts. I can only assume it is chairs being pulled out.
Of course, not all of these noises are preventable. The vaccuuming. The furniture moving. The chairs being pulled out. The bath times.
But the unpreventable noises and the preventable noises make for a very, very noisy atmosphere. So please, please do not scream at your children. It only makes you look bad, anyway. Please do not let them jump on the bed or run a marathon inside the living room. If they have that much energy, you should really take them outside to play. In fact, when I was a kid, running inside the house was a big NO. If I ever did it, I got banished outside. Immediately.
The other noises will be so much easier to handle if you can just stop the preventable ones. Please, my sleep and my concentration and my sanity beg you.
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Ok, does anyone have any ideas how to actually communicate this nicely to the folks who live upstairs from Anil? He has already contacted the dad, months ago, to inform him it was a problem. The dad said he’d stop it, but it hasn’t stopped. The added “bonus” here is Anil actually owns the apartment and is the family’s landlord. He’d like to keep the relationship somewhat intact so he doesn’t lose a tenant, and plus, he actually likes the dad and doesn’t want to have any negativity. For the record, the screaming is 100% the mom. Not the dad.