Hit 100 noise complaints with my upstairs neighbor in a single year

I live in a two-story apartment building in Austin and my upstairs neighbor has this obsession with rearranging furniture at 2 AM. I started keeping a log on my phone last January after I complained to the landlord and he said I needed proof. By December 31st I had exactly 101 entries recorded with dates and times. Most of them were between midnight and 4 AM with dragging sounds and heavy thuds. The landlord finally took it seriously when I showed him the spreadsheet and he said it was the most complaints he had ever seen from one tenant. I asked for a transfer to a top floor unit but they said none are available until May. Has anyone else had to document noise like this just to get management to act?

4 comments

4 Comments

king.andrew1mo ago

That dragging sound at 2 AM got me thinking about my old neighbor in San Antonio who used to practice tap dancing at 3 in the morning. I swear I thought I was losing it until I recorded him on my phone one night and played it for the property manager at 8 AM with my robe still on. He said "that's just him exercising" and I asked him if he'd like to come over for a 3 AM tap dance session himself. The guy moved out three months later after I started leaving polite notes on his door every single time, written on sticky notes shaped like feet.

wendy_jackson1mo ago

Crashed my laptop once trying to record weird noises at 3 AM, only to realize I'd been recording my own ceiling fan all along. The sticky note feet idea is genius though, might upgrade from my passive aggressive Post-its to something with a little more shape!

veram9925d ago

Ha! Oh man, that reminds me of my friend Carlos. He moved into this old apartment and kept hearing what sounded like someone shaking a box of marbles above his bedroom at like 1 AM every night. He was convinced the upstairs neighbor was running some kind of weird gambling operation. So he goes up there all brave one night ready to confront them and the guy opens the door holding a bag of ice. Turns out the old ice maker in the kitchen made this crazy rattle sound when it cycled and the sound was just vibrating through the floor. Carlos felt like such a dummy but he still left the neighbor a sticky note shaped like a dice just to lean into the joke.

stella_murray25d ago

Figured out half my "mysterious house noises" was just the fridge settling.