How do you deal with a neighbor who won't shut the hell up?

Do you have a video camera? I’d record him and then tell him I was going to post it on the web. With name and address. Don’t know how legal that wold be.
I had a couple different noisy neighbors. One was so bad I ended up takng valium for a week and moving out. With the other I cannot begin to tell you how bad it was and I was pregnant and in the navy, and had to be at work at oh dark hundred hours. I finally bought a Marsona white noise machine. I would set it for surf, seagulls and buoys. It was a lifesaver. I’ve been thinking about getting another actually, since I lost that one in a move. I just googled them and you can get the one I had for about $115 – $135.

Best Choice – move
Second Choice – call the police

First record it, then go to the cops.

I’m suffering my neighbor’s inane phone conversation from outside my door right now. The apartment doors on this building have almost no sound insulation. It doesn’t bother me that much, but if it did I’d probably just make it known that I could hear everything she says clearly if I cared to listen by having a few phone conversations outside as well or something. It might make her feel less free to be as loud as she wants to be. Don’t know what you can do about your situation. Anyone who behaves like that probably doesn’t care much about what others think. It’s a shame he doesn’t have an isolated or at least insulated place he’s comfortable going to sing his horrible songs. Try embarrassing him a little. Let him know that he’s not alone and free to do what he wants. A lot of people get into solitary states where they lose all consideration for others. Try breaking that comfort zone.

Throw on your coat, go outside, and ask him why he’s outside singing. Ask if he could please sing during the day because he’s very loud and it scares you when he wakes you up.

The odds are the guy is not well.

Here’s a couple of ideas:
Get the other neighbors that are also bothered to sign a petition and give it to the man, stating that if he doesn’t stop, he will be recorded and the tape will be taken to the police.

You (or someone braver than you if you don’t like to make waves) could write a letter to the man explaining that you (or whomever) has difficulty sleeping/gets migraines/has a baby that needs to sleep/has a husband who needs quiet to work/an ill elderly family member etc. and give this to the man and hope that he has some kind of empathy.

Talk to a lawyer specializing in rental problems and ask their advice on how to proceed legally. I’m guessing that it ultimately rests on the shoulders of the apartment owners or their agent.

In the meantime, get yourself a good CD of rainstorms like this and put your headphones on when you are working at the computer or going to sleep at night.

First I will keep record of the horrid sound and take it to the office to file my complaint. But moving out, I’m not going to break my lease unless somebody gives me the money to do so.
@BarnacleBill I have tried and he has noise canceling headphones on, at least that’s what they look like.

@Trillian a co-worker and I once ‘invented’ a white noise program for the inner city. We even had a name for it: Ghet-tones.

You could set it for
– screeching tires
– empty beer bottles being dumped from a trash can into an empty dumpster behind a bar after closing time
– police / fire / ambulance siren
– catfight / hooker tussle
– dogs barking incessantly at passing cars
– traffic jam, horns, swearing noises
– random vandalism, car alarms, broken windows, forced doors down the hall
– nearby drug busts and random gunfire
– passing drunks singing to each other, breaking into lethargic fistfights and ending with loud wailing
– or any combination of those sounds played in ‘shuffle’ mode

Made for when you visit out in the country, go on vacation to a quiet resort, travel on business, etc. and miss the sounds of ‘home in the city’.

@shego A lease is a two way document, and I’d be willing to bet the landlord has already broken the lease by not providing you with suitable accommodations. They have a responsibility to uphold their end of the lease as well. Look up landlord/tenant rights for your location.

@YARNLADY you have to have money to move so it is out of the question
It was a quiet complex until the idiot moved in

@CyanoticWasp Wow.I have no idea what to say to that. It’s on the one hand, impressive and inventive. On the other hand, I don’t know that I’d be able to relax to something like that. What do you hve in the way of wind, rain and native American pipes?

Can you pelt him with marbles?
Picket sign – “SHUT THE F- UP. YOU SOUND LIKE A CAT IN HEAT”

Be loud at him. Get yourself a loud heavy CD. You then turn that thing full blast and fight back. If he won’t listen to just you or your complaints then it is simply war!

buy him a harmonica…nice and quiet and melancholy.
Buy yourself some earplugs and a fan.
When I lived in a noisy neighborhood (by a fire station) I kept a fan going all night, year around. Worked like a charm.

@BarnacleBill I love that word; pelt. Pelt him and pummell him!

@Trillian that sounds like the name of a great British Pub: The Pelt and Pummell.

So there you go, @shego take this dude down to the Pelt and Pummell for a few belts and then steal his keys so he can’t find his way home.

Well he filed a complaint on me today, or maybe it was mom but anyways I told the office manager I will treat them the way he treats me. So my first order if business was to do my exercise routin. I decided paying to go to a gym is just too damn expensive. So I started out with jumping jacks at 6 when he started his sound of death.
Then I played some DDR2 and some of those steps are hard to hit but I hope they like their symphonic of loud thuds cause that’s what their going to hear until it stops.
And for anybody who says I’m doing it wrong, I’m sure my point will get across real fast because the war has started!!!!
P.S. The front office already knows what I’m up too. :)

Interesting that he cannot see that he is disruptive…

Here’s another idea. Find someone, a friend or a relative that has a baby. Record that baby screaming and crying. Loop it and then put a portable CD player or some type of amplifier outside of his window (secretly, late at night) and just let ‘er rip.

So im not the only person who made a complaint against the person. All complainants got called to the office today and were told that next time we need to get ahold of the county police, so they can witness the horrible sound for themselves. The management also told us that that is the last step before the eviction process can begin. Yay!!!

Well, not long after my last post. I was able to get the police out here to hear the horrible sound. They then filed the report with, with the complex, stating that the noise was indeed loud, and obnoxious, and it broke the apartment noise ordinance laws. So as of January 13, 2011, the singing offender was evicted.

Hurray! We love happy endings.

Yahoo! Glad to hear that sometimes problems with neighbors can actually be fixed!

Thank you for the update, I love hearing good news.