Dear Woman Upstairs,
Hi there! We’ve met once—I greeted you outside when you were coming home and I was leaving. I didn’t stay to talk to you for too long, mostly because I wasn’t sure how long I could be nice to you without COMPLETELY LOSING IT about the volume at which you live your life. The funny thing about apartments is that the people below you can actually hear just about everything that you do. And I do mean everything. Maybe you weren’t aware of it…but man, you should be.
I’ll start this off with a compliment: I too enjoy the musical stylings of Miley Cyrus’ epic hit, “Party In The USA”. Our main difference is that I enjoy them at normal hours, like when I’m driving home from work or out at a bar. I do not enjoy them at 5:00 am, which is when you start playing Miley…over, and over, and over. Typically, at that obscene hour I enjoy the sweet, sweet blessed sound of silence. You do, however, make it easier for me to go to the gym, because it’s better than LAYING IN BED LISTENING TO MILEY. So, my body reluctantly thanks you.
I’ve also enjoyed learning about the variety of steel-toed footwear available for toddlers. What? You don’t know what I mean? I guess I’m just assuming that your child must be wearing some sort of heavy apparatus on his feet because THERE IS NO WAY A NORMAL TWO-YEAR OLD MAKES THAT MUCH FREAKING NOISE. I know we all love to sleep in—believe me, I wish that living below you made that possible!—but strapping bricks to your kid’s feet and letting him frolic is really not cool. At least not for us.
You mentioned that you only have your kid half of the week, and boy, is he lucky. He might grow up with some definite daddy issues, because let’s just say that I see/hear/experience quite a variety of suitors in and outta that joint. I’m impressed! You’re definitely a hottie. Oh, and if the Miley, the baby, and the men weren’t enough, I was beyond THRILLED to see that you’ve gotten a PUPPY. Remember how those aren’t allowed in our building? Oh, no? Well, don’t you worry your pretty little head about it…I’ll make SURE the office reminds you.
Hope this note finds you well!
Much love,
Downstairs
25 Comments so far
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Brilliant post, love it! I really hope she gets the memo, too.
And why is it exactly that people just have no respect for their neighbours. I particularly hate when they just slam doors no matter how loud it reverberates… and that’s just my housemates.
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By Jen on 02.18.10 2:40 am | Permalink
LOL pleeeease tell me you slip this note under her door. Pleaaaaaaaaseeee?
So disturbed at 5 am Miley btw :p
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By Andhari on 02.18.10 4:32 am | Permalink
It’s not that often that I can hear the upstairs neighbors in my apartment, but last night, I heard pretty much everything. The stomping around, dropping things a million times, going to the bathroom a million and a half times…(don’t worry, I can only hear the toilet flushing). Of course, this all happens on the night I have to force myself to bed early because of a 5am wakeup.
At least I don’t have to wake up to Miley everyday. Thank goodness for the small things, right?
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By Angela on 02.18.10 5:13 am | Permalink
I’ll pay you five dollars to punch her.
Five CANADIAN dollars.
Mm?
Mmmmm?
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By Ben on 02.18.10 5:38 am | Permalink
This cracks me up! I too once had an obnoxious person living above me, but luckily they didn’t have a kid with steel toed boots on! For your mental well-being, I hope that puppy gets her evicted!
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By Lindsey on 02.18.10 5:52 am | Permalink
OH MY GOSH I can totally empathise!! I used to live below a woman just like that with a toddler who insisted on running across the hardwoods ALL DAY AND NIGHT, until after 11pm, bash bash bash and when we went up and asked her to… quieten down, because we were trying to sleep, she got totally snarky and said “what, do you want me to STRAP HIM TO A CHAIR? He’s a TODDLER, he RUNS” and slammed the door. I didn’t stay too long there!!
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By Emily Jane on 02.18.10 6:49 am | Permalink
BAHAHAHAHA!! i’ve wanted to write so many of these too! i used to live in old old apartments in a historic area and everything was hard wood floors… no carpeting anywhere, even on the stairs. and the girls upstairs wore heels. all day. NEVER took them off! i felt like i knew exactly what they were doing since i could follow them around just by sound. it made me want to wear noise reducing headphones 24hrs a day!
good luck with the new puppy drama… why do i have a feeling you’ll be adding “please pick up after your dog so i can stop stepping in it on my way to the door” very soon?
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By notsojenny on 02.18.10 7:26 am | Permalink
Spot on, this is. I’m a veteran of far too many apartment noise spats. So would you ever actually deliver this… or was it just a cathartic bit of prose?
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By Keenie Beanie on 02.18.10 7:38 am | Permalink
I too have noisy neighbors, upstairs from me are a female couple with thier 2 cats and 2 dogs. I also have thin floors, so if I don’t turn on a fan at night to “drown” out the noise I get to hear when they get up to use the restroom and exactly how long they pee. Ah the joys of apartment living, can’t wait to own my own place!
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By HookdnTX on 02.18.10 7:49 am | Permalink
We all seem to have one of those noise neighbors…. I can totally relate. I really hope she gets the memo. Some people are seriously so inconsiderate, it’s baffling.
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By san on 02.18.10 8:35 am | Permalink
I used to be on the Board of my previous condo association. With 50+ units in that building, we heard all kinds of complaints. The thing about community living is we all have to compromise. Your neighbor should try to keep normal hours with her noise. On the other hand, you have to realize that your normal hours aren’t necessarily everyone else’s; some noise is going to take place when you’re sleeping. And not living on the top floor makes it hard to avoid.
We used to laugh off some of the extreme complainers (not your type, of course) and perpetrators by saying, “Some people just aren’t cut out for community living.”
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By Nilsa @ SoMi Speaks on 02.18.10 10:10 am | Permalink
Lol, good luck with all that! Wonderfully written note.
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By Ari on 02.18.10 10:12 am | Permalink
Sometimes I wish I could have been the inconsiderate upstairs neighbor. Instead I was the oversensitive one. In my condo I took extra care to be quiet, which friends and family mocked me for mercilessly. I didn’t want to be the annoying upstairs neighbor. And now I live in my own, detached two story house and I STILL find myself doing things more quietly so as not to bother… and then I remember and I stomp my feet the whole way =)
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By Erin on 02.18.10 10:19 am | Permalink
Living in NYC I pretty much have given up on: solitude, silence, sleeping-in, and let’s not forget, avoiding the irreversible damage of hearing other people, ahem, well, you know.
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By Rebecca @ Diary of a Virgin Novelist on 02.18.10 11:29 am | Permalink
Most building have a rule that 80% of hardwood floors must be covered with rugs. If you have that much noise, it must be hardwood upstairs. Check your rental agreement and call up the leasing office if you want them to enforce it… It’s not the type of thing they bother enforcing it unless they hear complaints.
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By Beach Bum on 02.18.10 12:40 pm | Permalink
How awful! It’s more awful for me because I fear I am that upstairs neighbour (minus the toddler, Miley and multitude of suitors). I live above an elderly man and we try to be as quiet as possible, but I was raised in a household where stomping was the ideal method of transportation; it’s in my blood.
But on behalf of your pain and suffering, I am currently pledging to work harder at being light-footed and tender-hearted.
(FYI-the last bit about the tender-heart isn’t really related to your post, I just thought it sounded good.)
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By ClaireSuzanne on 02.18.10 1:53 pm | Permalink
Haha, I empathise with this!
One lazy Sunday I was disturbed to realise the people above me were having sex!!! Loudly.
It ruined my day somewhat. When I don’t have a sex life, why should they be rubbing THEIRS In my face???
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By Paula on 02.18.10 2:05 pm | Permalink
If all goes as planned, I will NEVER have an upstairs neighbor again.
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By Melissa on 02.18.10 5:49 pm | Permalink
Omg I feel this way about my downtstairs neighbors! and they just got a puppy that at this very moment is crying! and yup our land lady doesnt allow pets either! I could have totally written this letter minus the many suitors! =D Hope she gets it!
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By Nicole on 02.18.10 6:14 pm | Permalink
I love this post – brilliant!!! I hope karma comes back and bites her right in the ass… twice!
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By Lizzie on 02.18.10 6:43 pm | Permalink
I’ve had some horrible luck with apartments in the past, but I feel like I’ve really lucked out with this one. The person upstairs is pretty quiet usually, and there isn’t anyone below me which helps with my fear of being unintentionally obnoxious.
Oddly, the one thing that really does seem to carry down the pipes from upstairs is sex noises. And crying.
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By Anna on 02.18.10 7:15 pm | Permalink
Oh Lord. I’m that type of neighbor.
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By Mrs. Priss on 02.18.10 8:19 pm | Permalink
Nothing can be worse than going to the gym at 5 a.m. Miley must be REALLY bad. So sorry
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By A Super Girl on 02.18.10 8:23 pm | Permalink
As I read that third paragraph, I could only imagine a little faun like creature from The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. A little two year old with the legs of a goat that doesn’t have shoes, as we know them, but instead has steel horse shoe items attached. Lucky you!
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By Angel on 02.18.10 8:46 pm | Permalink
This makes me glad that I live in a house! I still live at home and really want to move out into an apartment, but now I realize I’m not in any hurry.
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By Miranda on 02.18.10 8:53 pm | Permalink
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