"People think of neighborly noise as a nuisance, but we think of it as an artform"

[myrna minx]

Their ceiling is our stage, and we're dancin' across it!"

If you've ever lived in an apartment building, you've experienced the stompy, door slamming, hubcap throwing, change flinging noisy neighbors. The truth is revealed...Ha.

http://gothamist.com/2015/04/08/how_the_noise_gets_made.php

[Phentex]

1. They are joking but when I lived in a condo...

my roommate and I could not figure out what the noise was from upstairs. It DID sound like someone was bowling or rolling a chair across the floor. They kept crazy hours but were gone for long periods of time so it wasn't awful all the time.

[Skittles]

3. I had just picked up my cat when that dreaded "bowling ball" sound shook the ceiling

I got SHREDDED

[Skittles]

2. you would not think it was an artform if you worked 12 hour night shifts

no indeed

those are indeed the noises I hear........I have always heard about couch potatoes, and wondered why they NEVER live above me

[narnian60]

4. Amen to that.

[myrna minx]

12. It's maddening - especially the people who are heels walkers.

My one neighbor was a heel stomper who couldn't sit still -at all- so she briskly paced around the apartment with the manic and urgent speed of a hummingbird, but had the the booming stomping of Frankenstein's monster. She was this little thing too, but because the brunt of her weight was transmitted through her heels, it sounded like a booming bass that would startle my cat.

I had to buy headphones to try and drown it out because between her stomping, hubcap throwing, bowling ball rolling, furniture rearranging, and sacks of marbles she would fling around I couldn't sleep or watch a movie, because when she was home, it was constant. I cried tears of joy when she moved - only to have the stompy 2 move in. .

At least with stompy 2, there's no drunken screaming matches with the boyfriend.

[Skittles]

13. what exactly IS that noise that sounds like marbles?

[myrna minx]

14. That's why this video made me laugh so hard - because it answered all of my questions.

We've all been the "WTF are they doing?!" desperate and bleary eyed neighbor. Now one of the mysteries of life has been solved.

[Phentex]

15. I know!

Makes you wonder how many people thought the same thing.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? ARE THEY BOWLING?

[myrna minx]

16. Also - I've experienced the bucket of marbles the middle of the the night. WTF?? WTF??

I lived on the top floor of a building for years so I had no idea what people suffered through until I moved. I love my home, but not giant baby man learning to walk above me.

[Skittles]

20. a child in one of those baby-roller-learning-to-walk things

Last edited Sat Apr 11, 2015, 06:12 PM - Edit history (1)

it literally sounded like thunder

[NV Whino]

5. I invite you to spend a night at my house

When the frost is on the pumpkin, or daffodil in this case, and experience the wind machines in the vineyards. I haven't had a full night's sleep since the day before the eclipse.

It did, however, allow me to witness the eclipse.

[pinboy3niner]

6. I'm so quiet, the guy downstairs once told me...

...he wasn't sure if I was still alive.

[myrna minx]

17. You should start a workshop. I'd love for you to be a mentor for our loud neighbors.

[Skittles]

21. I got that too, pinboy3niner

I pointed out that I worked 12 hour night shifts, slept during the day and neither play music or cook - JAYSUS, aside from the occasional hollering at a misbehaving cat I make a darn good downstairs neighbor

[WinkyDink]

7. The very reason I have vowed to live in the smallest hut before sharing walls (floors, ceilings)

again.

[blogslut]

8. That is my life!

The small horse farm upstairs moved, thank goodness. The current above neighbor is relatively quiet, although, initially, it did sound as if a 200-pound toddler was up there, learning how to walk.

These days, the difficult sounds come from the neighbor next store who is legit, clinically something. Harmless but consistently yells at someone who isn't there.

[Taitertots]

9. Is your neighbor talking on the phone? Video games?

I'm just imagining a comic strip with a shot of a person talking about how their neighbor always screams about killing people. The next frame is a person with a video game controller screaming into a headset.

[blogslut]

10. Sadly, no.

[CTyankee]

11. We had a next door neighbor whose 18 year old daughter had very noisy

amorous encounters with her boyfriend...houses are close and it was summer and windows were open...it was pretty startling...we still laugh about it...

[steve2470]

18. I get to listen to my next door neighbor, um, "shagging"

[LiberalElite]

19. OH YES!

I've had noisy neighbors in NYC:

- the guy who always wore cowboy boots on a bare floor (by law it was supposed to be 80% covered with carpet) - it sounded like he rearranged the furniture every night for hours. clunk clunk drag and drop. Drag and drop. clunk clunk drag and drop.

-the ones downstairs who played the same %$**#(%* album every night - I got to know all the songs by their bass lines.

-the one who played heavy metal music so loud it filled the building - couldn't tell where it was coming from because it was EVERYWHERE.

-The one next door who tap danced with a group and practiced at home.

-the one who I shared a kitchen vent with who scared the hell out of me when he began singing with "ooooooooooh" - ing.

I lived on the top floor so at any one time the noise was coming from either one of two sides and below. Once they were all going at once and I thought I'd have to move - to a nice padded room in Bellevue LOL.

Right now living elsewhere everyone around me is quiet - except for the a**hole door slammers at the other end of the floor.

[Skittles]

22. right now the worst in my building is stinky Indian food

literally nauseating

[LiberalElite]

23. I had a similar problem but couldn't complain -

I lived in that building with the noisy neighbors for over 20 years. Most of the time I never smelled any food cooking. Then the last couple of years the apartment that I shared a kitchen vent with - was rented by a woman who cooked meat just about every day. I'm a vegetarian and that nauseated me. It was seriously unpleasant.

[DamnYankeeInHouston]

24. Thank you for scaring and depressing me.

I'm selling my house and buying a condo.
My worst noise was in an apartment as a student in Cambridge. A musician and a dancer lived upstairs. The musician wore wooden clogs and tapped to the beat. There were broom handle dents all over my ceiling.