What our upstairs neighbor might be doing

It's not easy, having your feet removed and replaced with anvils. But darn it, I'm going to find a way to get by. Now to practice my walking. No—JUMPING. That's the spirit, me!

If only the clog dancing studio hadn't burned to the ground. I suppose we'll have to use my living room. My neighbors will understand once they find out how much money our performance will raise for the third-world orphans.

MY BOOKCASE IS TRYING TO KILL ME NOT AGAIN OH BOOKCASE LEAVE ME BE OH GAAAAAH

This new therapist wants me to do trust falls all by myself, because if I can't trust myself, he says, who can I trust? He's the expert, I guess. I wish I could at least do them on my mattress. Or some pillows. Ow.

I AM GOING TO BAKE COOKIES FOR THE NEW NEIGHBORS! I AM SO EXCITED TO MEET THEM! I CAN'T STOP JUMPING! AND FALLING! AND LEAPING FROM THE TOPS OF THINGS!

You know, I think I'll hammer some sound-absorbing materials to my floors. So that I don't bother anyone else in the building. I know some people would say, wait until morning, get some rest. But there's no rest for the thoughtful. I'll hammer until 3 a.m. if I have to. Just hammer and hammer.

Comments

[Elizabeth_K]

Maybe Henry's newly made (soon!) friends will let ya'll sleep over, all of you, and enjoy what will surely be their quiet accommodations. Sorry re: neighbor ...

[bikerchick]

Oh, dear. I feel you. I really, really do. I lived in an older condo with clog-wearing, step-dancing neighbors who kept vampire hours, played stone fetch with their 12 rampaging Neopolitan Mastiffs, and who had an at-home concrete block manufacturing business in the spare bedroom. Oh yes and did I mention that they used their porch to dry salted fish?!? Hang in there.

[Mrs Embers]

HAHAHAHA! Oh, my dear... it's only funny to me because I know EXACTLY what you're talking about!

We used to call our upstairs neighbour "Clompie Stomperson"- I swear the woman's high-heels were stapled to her feet. Why else would she wear them at midnight?

[JR]

Dude, the bookcase scenario just killed me. I am dead.

[Bikini]

Stop! It's HAMMER TIME.

Couldn't resist

[hoskas]

Ah, the joys of cityliving.

[Krys72599]

Welcome back to apt living...

[Marinka]

I'm just doing what Fred Astaire did. Except backwards, so that I bump into everything, and in high heels!

This may be the best post that I've ever read.

[Jennie]

HAHAHA--sorry for yelling, but I now do everything at top volume in an effort to hear myself over our crazy neighbour lady. She hammers, but she never seems to MAKE anything. As far as we can tell, she hammers the wall exactly 13 times, several times a day. I think she's covering her walls with aluminium foil; my husband thinks she's just crazy.
My favourite time is when she hammers at 5am! It's just like an alarm clock! Only LOUDER and two hours early!
(ahem, sorry for the rant, apparently your post hit a nerve! :) )
love the website and the Tweets, btw.

[MomVee]

When I lived in Manhattan, I concluded that our upstairs neighbors had a petting zoo. Sometimes there was a sound of a recalcitrant llama being dragged across the living room. Sometimes there was the sound of the feed vending machine overturning and lots of hard pellet of animal feed skittering across the floor. And sometimes there was the sound of a llama falling over, dead.

When my parents were first married they lived under a stewardess who got up at 3 am every day and dropped four thousand wire hangers on the floor of her closet.

[Meredith]

Our upstairs neighbors are on a Pointer Sisters kick, lately. Luckily, no clog dancing to go along with it but it does sound as if they are sprinting from room to room most days.

[MidStreamMom]

Nothing to be done but become "The Rectifier" a la Tim Robbins in Noise. If "going medieval" isn't your style (and I wouldn't think it would be) perhaps a politely phrased note under their door could be your first salvo.

[Eric Hegwer]

And that was the moment we decided to buy a house. Just think of all the new content you would get - wait thats what I did!

[jdg]

this is exactly what the mafioso who used to live in a plywood shed in the garage under our apartment in san francisco used to speculate about in cantonese. . .

[Carrie]

I must admit that my husband and I once installed our own tile floor in a 2nd floor condo. Since the hubs didn't have vacation time to spare and we didn't get it done over the weekend, we had to work on it mornings before work and evenings.
Tapping the hammer on each tile. Tap tap tap tap tap.
Don't worry, karma paid me back when the guy upstairs from us got mad at the whole building and decided not only to aggressively walk (I didn't even know such was possible) and introduce us all to his favorite techno radio station.
We were begging the neighbors to call the cops. Instead, he defaulted on his association payments before we finished foreclosing, ended up selling his unit for nearly 100% profit.
Karma? Where are you?

[LPC]

Thank you so much for being funny.

[Danabug]

My husband & I ARE the upstairs neighbors & I'll bet the folks below us are visualizing the same scenarios about us. Neither of us are small people & we have a tendency to run into things on a regular basis (where did THAT bruise come from?). I've always felt sorry for the folks below...

[Under-employed girl]

Oh it's so nice to read your blog and the comments. I thought I was the only person who lived under someone with a dog the size of a horse that likes to bark and play fetch while she rearranges the furniture in her cement block combat boots.

[Debl]

Who knew there were so many people in the world who feel the need to rearrange heavy furniture every night before bed? They are legion.

[Poppy Buxom]

You have beautifully dramatized the only advantage single family dwellings retain for me after 11 years of living in the suburbs.

I am tired to death of yards and driveways and snow removal and having to fix up this damned fixer-upper.

But now I'm having painful flashbacks to living under the family with the adult musician sons who had a habit of returning home to live with their mother. And practicing all day long. Whereas now, the only noises I hear over my head are rain drops.

[Margaret]

Wow. I have a totally different experience. At the start of the divorce process 2.5 years ago I moved in to the downstairs level of a duplex of some good friends and every tap, skip, heel, murmur, bang, laugh, and snort was a comfort to me. I. am. not. alone. There. are. happy. people. in. the. world. I. will. not. float. away. Maybe it's because I love them, or maybe because I needed their souls above me, but I cherished the auditory evidence of their daily life and still do. I count myself lucky. And now I'm another happy noise making soul in the world.

[MotherhoodTheUltimateSurvivor]

Ha ha ha (that's laughing with you, not at you). I lived in a building where I swear, the neighbour above us would fill a jar with marbles and the dump it on the ceramic tiles - over and over and over - especially after midnight. To this day I still have no idea what it was.

You should do a blog where people write in about their worst neighbours experience.

[Sue]

Hilarious. Do you think you notice it more now that you've lived in a house and are back to apartment life? Were you just used to it before?

We rented a first floor apartment once, and it sounded like children were constantly being murdered upstairs. Turned out it was their cats. It was extremely creepy.

[Sheila]

Oh, apartment living. I've spent years in apartments and I do not miss it. It seemed like each and every one of our upstairs neighbors had kids who liked to jump off furniture (actually knocked our pictures off the walls), loved to play music at all times as loud as possible, and then had sex all night on squeaky beds. And they all wore tap shoes, too. I love not sharing walls/floors/ceilings!

[Dana]

Feet replaced by anvils! Trust falls with no pillow! I'm dying. Remember Woody Allen's line in _Manhattan_ about his upstairs neighbor who always sounded like he was "strangling a parrot"?

[Jennifer Suarez]

This was one of my major motivations for buying a house. The neighbors spent the entire day (and night!) doing the same thing. I was convinced they were practicing their marching, tap dancing, or perhaps some wind sprints.

Either way I almost tore off all their legs. Problem solved.

[Nothing But Bonfires]

The price we pay for having people apparently move pianos and practice their Riverdance steps in the apartment above us at 2am is having NO-ONE BELOW US, thank god. Because two people sweatily stomping around to the 30-Day Shred last night---jumping jacks! skipping! now more jumping jacks!---must have made a hell of a racket.

Hey, maybe THAT'S what they're doing. Take them a basket of cookies to derail their efforts.

[abbyjane]

We used to imagine our upstairs neighbor was rolling two melons together really really fast in an effort to make a "super melon"! I wonder if it worked.

[Karen]

As an apartment dweller, I love playing "sound detective." The noise doesn't really bother me -- I see it as free entertainment. As someone said in an earlier comment, I like knowing I'm not alone.

[Melinda]

(Hi, I am newly following your blog...love it by the way.)

I totally understand your pain. When we were in an apartment our next door neighbors had kids that, I swear, were able to run ON THE WALLS! Yes, it sounded like the laws of gravity only slightly applied to those children as they ran circles around the room on the walls. Ugh!

Good luck to you. May I suggest ear plugs.

[Deanna]

My old upstairs neighbors were apparently weightlifters. You know, the kind who drop their weights to the floor from arm's length. I was never sure that was exactly what they were doing, but it sure did sound like it.

[Lee]

I hear you sister. Our neighbors have a spotlight on the side of their house that faces our bedroom windows. Due to their generosity, we are able to read in bed without turning on our lights and listen to them fight outside.The other nightthe light was off and my husband and I, for a brief moment,actually hoped they were dead. Then we repented for our evil ways and went back to reading by their G-D light!

[Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com]

This sounds like our (FORMER) upstairs neighbor. Except I think he purchased a small elephant and they jumped around together in all the unholy hours of night.

[BonnieBelle]

I'm so glad we aren't in a second floor apartment anymore. We managed to find a complex of duplexes, so no one above us. We just share a kitchen wall. Can't imagine what you could do, accept possibly satisfy your curiosity and go introduce yourself. At least you could find out of they're herding elephants up there or possibly five or six kids.

[Jan]

The best thing about being a renter, as opposed to an owner, is situations like this -- worst case scenario is you pay to break your lease and you can move.

I lived for 10 months in a place that assured me, when I inquired, that the walls and ceilings were all firewalls, therefore close to soundproof. LIARS. Big fat LIARS. The walls were apparently paper, and the floors and ceilings cardboard. My downstairs neighbor installed surround sound with speakers on his ceilings... so my floors. My upstairs neighbor turned out to be a cheerleading coach (not making that up) for a local college, who had practices at 3AM (not making that up either)in his place. The neighbors next door, with whom I shared a bedroom wall, regularly had loud nasty arguments followed up by equally loud nasty makeup sex.

After 10 months, I broke my lease and left for a duplex. So there is a way out.

[suburbancorrespondent]

Ah - the joys of urban living...

[kym b]

well, they sound fun

[Shnerfle]

Other possibilities:
- You live beneath the cast of STOMP!
- They aren't people, but really the Dufflepuds from Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis.
- Their mutant spider collection got loose and is hiding in various corners of the apartment. Whenever one is spotted...WHAM!!! They must be destroyed.
- "She's a maniac, maniac on the floor! And she's dancing like she's never danced before!"

[Pretty Lush]

I almost spit Diet Coke at: That's the spirit, me!

[Sarah]

Lol. OMG I just about peed reading this. hilarious.

[die Frau]

My old boyfriend had a DOWNSTAIRS neighbor who often engaged in vigorous sex with his numerous girlfriends. I know they were numerous because each girl sounded different as they made their lusty voyages together.

I feel terrible for all you apartment dwellers, but I have to say, the imaginations on you people make me so happy and smiley. Who knew so many loud-noise possibilities existed? I truly, TRULY would love to use some of these to explain to my students just how many ways exist to explain what is virtually the same thing.

And I do hope karma stomps the stompers.

[Susan]

We had this problem with some neighbors once upon a time. It turns out the guy only had one leg and had to hop around all over the place ALL THE TIME. He said his crutches made him feel like "a cripple." We thought they'd opened a bowling alley or something. Awful, you've got my sympathy!

[madge]

I think Henry needs a pogo stick.

[Chris]

Oh my gosh, so, so funny. My kids are staring at me like I'm nuts I'm laughing so hard.

[Katy]

The entire coffeehouse now thinks I'm insane for giggling at my laptop, so I had to share. I once lived below a mother who was turning tricks while her kids were at school, and was gone when the kids were there. They loved to hold Saturday morning track meets... knocked the pictures off of my walls. I was 22 at the time, so they got lots of mad hungover banging on the front door from me. Later I shared a bedroom wall with a hispanic family. Mami y Papi thoroughly enjoyed their loud Latin lovemaking! Makes me wonder about the poor kids- they were in the same size apt I was in, which only had one bedroom and a small office area just outside the bedroom door.

I do not apologize for owning a beagle. His howling is melodic compared to other noisiness.

[alexis]

hilarious!

[momma2731]

Water Buffalo. That's what lives above us. I'm sure that they are very nice but, none the less, still water buffalo.

Also, we are on the ground floor, right next to the door/ intercom. I've often wondered why people need to YELL whole conversations over the intercom. Seriously, just let your equally loud friend in and talk to their face!!

[meganlynae]

Hysterical. I think though, to my shame, that I've been that sort of neighbor. As such, I can offer the following possible scenario: a group of post-college students practicing a dance that involves rhythmic floor slapping. For a talent show, which meant that it needed to be perfect, and as such practiced over and over for days. Either that or somebody bought an elephant and didn't tell the super.

[Beth in SF]

We kept hearing this really loud, really awful, and very startling sound coming from our upstairs neighbors right over our bathroom. We recently found out they have this loose doorknob, the really old, really heavy kind, that keeps falling off. Like, at least once a day. But, have they any intention of fixing it? Noooo...

[Ami]

But hey this is why the burbs suck so much and city life is superior. Suck it up.