This is common sense and while I agree, in principle, I feel like 90% of noise complaints that get escalated have to do with two groups that don't follow common sense on the issue: power-hungry assholes who just want to control people and start shit, and genuinely disabled people whose noise tolerance is completely different than most people (hypersensitivity to sound, auditory hallucinations etc.).

My sister got harassed out of an apartment by an elderly lady downstairs (not sure which category she fit into) who would complain about literally any sound they made upstairs. Normal conversation, in the early evening, would prompt angry letters in their mailbox. She would write meticulous logs of all their "transgressions" (like, "1 AM, chair moved across floor") and threaten to send them to the police, talk shit to other neighbors trying to spark drama etc. I don't feel like there was really any way my sister could have fixed that situation by being "better", because she didn't do anything wrong. Life makes sounds sometimes, maybe even at inconvenient hours. Sometimes you gotta move a chair real quick at 1 AM. It is what it is. All she could have done was accept that her downstairs neighbor has extreme needs, and then work to live a completely silent life. She didn't, she moved out instead. Like most people would probably do.

I guess my point is that having simple "common sense" rules about this doesn't really work in a system where vulnerable/sensitive people live next door to neurotypical/non-sensitive people whose ordinary lives makes a baseline of noise. People like my sister's upstairs neighbor would probably need detached housing or a heavily insulated apartment, which I imagine a better society could probably provide to those who need it.

[–] Breath_Of_The_Snake@hexbear.net 14 points 5 months ago (2 children)

old people typically have poor hearing. Are you sure you aren’t simply being a good sibling and taking your sisters side?

[–] Egon@hexbear.net 6 points 5 months ago

On the other hand old people have nothing but time on their hands and they love to complain. See: German meme about oma being a garbage snitch/calling the cops on you after 10pm.

[–] WideningGyro@hexbear.net 4 points 5 months ago

My story is implausible because elderly people can't hear? That's certainly a take, given how the "angry old lady downstairs knocking on the roof with a broom" is a super common trope. This woman was in her 60s, they can generally hear just fine lol. If you literally believe people would never complain unless there was genuinely something to complain about, then you have been extremely privileged in your selection of neighbors. There are tons of unreasonable and shitty people out there. There are also people who have aforementioned hypersensitivity or other mental issues. These things cause people to disagree on what characterizes a normal level of noise. Negotiating this shit is part of what it means to live in close proximity to each other, and it's way harder in an atomized society where most people in the city don't know their neighbors.

I saw the letters she would dump in their mailbox, and they didn't look like the work of a healthy individual. I also happen to know that my sister and her husband was (and still are) very chill people who don't party, listen to loud music or have screaming matches shrug-outta-hecks which also wasn't what she complained about - it was literally things like "talking loudly" and "moving furniture" (half the time the complaints and "logs" were dated to times when they were both in bed). They noped the fuck out of there because there was no reasoning with this person, and they wanted to start a family. I can only imagine what would have happened if there was an infant in the mix too. Which is, incidentally, another source of noise that you sometimes have to put up with when you live in an apartment (my own downstairs neighbor had a baby with colic. It sucked, but that's life).

Like, I get that nothing is ever true on the internet etc. but for real, what the hell is implausible about this story?