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On the second floor of an apartment building, I’m wide awake wondering what could possibly be happening on the floor above me. Short bursts of stomping, what seem to be sprints, and maybe even people slamming doors shut.
It’s close to 1:30 a.m. and sleep is proving elusive. Are the people above me just doing this for shits and merry giggles? They have to be fucking with me, but this happens with such frequency that I can’t imagine that the goal of this exercise is to mess with my brain and precious sleep schedule.
I need my sleep. I prefer nine hours on a weeknight, although I can settle for eight if push comes to shove. On this night, I’m now looking at six measly hours if I’m lucky.
The worst part about it is that the noise isn’t even the thing that is keeping me up anymore. Yes, that’s certainly a factor, but the main reason I can’t close my eyes and drift away is because I need to know what the hell is going on up there. In this moment, I want to know what exactly is happening on the floor above me more than I want to know who shot JFK or if the U.S. government has made contact with aliens.
What could these people possibly be doing at 1:30 a.m. in the wee hours of Thursday morning? It’s a school night, for Christ’s sake. Maybe they have bar jobs, but in this apartment building, I just can’t see it.
Perhaps they’re working weird hours at a hospital nearby as residents, but again, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. The people that I know who are doctors or are on their way to becoming doctors don’t play rugby in their living room on an idle Wednesday night/Thursday morning in December.
There is no course of action for behavior like this in your apartment building/complex. If you have a doorman, you can go complain to him, but in my case, no such doorman exists. I could march my ass upstairs after throwing a bathrobe on and knock on their door, but that would make me feel not only like a Scrooge, but a hypocrite as well.
I’m sure there have been times where I have been stomping around, making all sorts of noise on a Friday or Saturday night, screaming bloody murder and blasting music from my hand-me-down Bose speakers. This, by the way, would only make me sort of a hypocrite, for making an egregious amount of noise on a weekend night is far different from doing it on a weeknight when people have work the next day.
I could take a broom handle and start hitting the top of my ceiling with the handle, but that would require getting out of bed, turning the lights on, and putting me farther away than I had been previously of actually getting to sleep. And that’s not even to mention the fact that this would be admitting defeat. I keep thinking to myself that if I just let this go on, it will stop soon.
If I continue laying here, scoffing and laughing sarcastically at my ceiling, that this bullshit will come to an end. It doesn’t stop for quite some time, though, and when it finally dies down there continues to be a voice in the back of my head that tells me to open my eyes just to make sure that everything is finally quiet on the northernmost front.
The noise eventually dies down about an hour or so after the stomping began, but I had an uneasy few hours of rest following WrestleMania 34. My descent into madness has begun, and I fear that I may be too far gone. .
Image via Unsplash
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jduda@grandex.co
There’s two bedroom units available in my building. Looking to cut rent, John.
Do it for the ‘tent, boys.
cuttin’ rent & slangin ‘tent
Who gets 9 hours on a weeknight?
At this point in my life, my body is incapable of giving me 9 straight hours of sleep. Probably payback from when I used to sleep for 13-14 hours when I was a sloth 15 year old. I’d settle for 7 straight hours.
Same. I think I get 6-7 hours a night and I’m just used to it at this point.
My upstairs neighbors cook the gnarliest food and run fucking sprints at all hours of the day in their apartment and up and down the stairs. I do not understand what’s happening.
My last neighbors would play instruments for hours everyday, so my roommate egged their place, when he got home from the bars, on three separate occasions. They told the landlord and tried to fight us. It was funny.
My upstairs neighbor plays the same Billy Currington song on repeat for 3 hours every Saturday morning so loud I can hear the words. Fucking hate that guy.
I feel your pain, Duda. My upstairs neighbors last year sounded like they were rolling bowling balls around and listening to noise music at random hours of the day.
Loud fans are lifesavers. Do yourself a favor and flex on them with some white noise
Unfortch I am that noisy neighbor. Gotta jam bro.
Duda is the definition of a beta cuck.
Why don’t you be a normal person and talk to your neighbor so you can avoid this in the future
Aside from that, I feel like if anyone deserves this it’s you.
Came here to say this (the first part of your comment, not the second part), but then remembered it’s Duda.
I tolerated some of the noise at my previous place because the people I lived with were college students. My current building I’m lucky if they habla ingles. Live with it or call the cops. There’s no real “talking to anyone.”
Is there anything about your life that doesn’t suck?
Yeah, lots of things. I have a wonderful wife, a great family, lots of friends, a nice older used car to get around in, I go to church, and I dabble in volunteering from time to time.
My job kind of sucks but otherwise I’m pretty happy. I’ve had a pretty shit year, but other than that I’m not as bad as I come across online.
Pretty sure that was rhetorical, chief.
OK, pal.
I don’t get the hate at this point. Everyone here just downvoting and talking shit needs to take it elsewhere. My man Dave is here trying not to be insufferable and y’all keep shitting on him. Bunch of assholes if you ask me. Dave, keep doing you. You don’t strike me as the type of fellow to let what a bunch of losers on the internet say get to you anyway.