Some days when I got up too early because of our noisy and constipated neighbors upstairs, I can feel the beginnings of a mild migraine setting in. It’s bearable, not the kind that puts you out for days, but it’s not an ordinary headache either. Sometimes, a little sleep seems to ease the fatigue, other times, it’s like a fog across my brain for most of the day.
The principle cause seems to be our neighbor upstairs who exercises noisily (thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud) early each morning only until she goes to the bathroom (we hear the noise of the flushing and the door!).
It took me ages to work where the noise coming from, who was causing it, and only recently did I figure out the pattern of behavior. Neither of us are sure exactly what kind of exercising she is doing, but we think she is skipping with a rope.
The weird thing is: first, she only seems to exercise when the weather is great; second, she NEVER seems to exercise outside EVEN when the weather is suitable!; and third, she ALWAYS stops after going to the bathroom – I guess she’s too exhausted by that point!
We’ve complained to the local community on several occasions, including me banging on her door at 6:30am when she used to start!, but we couldn’t get anyone to help us pursue this further. Worse, the neighbor heard us complaining to the security guard, and came down and berated us. Totally rude.
She also denied that she was doing any exercise… and I guess it’s possible it’s not her – but then why would she even bother! Sometimes people get really angry defending themselves when everyone knows they are in the wrong.
And yet, they seem incapable of grasping the fact that they are just making themselves look even worse. After all, if you really didn’t do it, you wouldn’t make a fuss, would you? You’d just say, I’m sorry I don’t think it’s me… have you considered…?
Really, neighbors need to be neighborly, so you would think they would sympathize.
Personally, I think that the problem lies with the sound transference between floors. The only way you can have a quite night is to buy the apartment upstairs from you as well OR live on the top floor.
We’re considering what options we have. But my friend, Tim, assures me that people doing exercise indoors in apartment buildings isn’t unique to my community. He suffered with a basketball player throwing a ball against a wall INSIDE the house.
Why would anyone exercise inside, except if it’s pissing down? In our area, the weather is decent 80% of the time, if not more. No excuse: unless you’re seriously constipated and can’t rush home fast enough.