On Noisy Neighbors

When you’re looking for a new apartment or house (hahaha! a millennial…buying property? In THIS economy??) there are tons of things you’ll be on the lookout for. How many bedrooms and bathrooms does a place have? Does it get natural light? How insanely complicated is the street parking? (I’ve lived in LA for almost 30 years and I still don’t know what a “Red Flag Day” is) But, unfortunately, there are several things that you really can’t know about until you live somewhere for a while. I’m here to complain about one of those things today: noisy neighbors!

I live in a fairly tiny one-bedroom apartment and I’m here pretty much all the time because of the… you know (*vaguely gestures around at everything*), and about six months ago, something horrible happened: I was cursed with true blue, upper echelon, top tier, bad neighbors. 

The people living in a neighboring lot (who had been pretty normal!) started throwing bass heavy, all night, rip roaring, parties. I use hyperbole in these essays as a comedic crutch all the time but I cannot exaggerate how unbelievable the amount of bass that crashes into my bedroom is. Not only that, but these maniacs start the music at like 3pm and have kept it going until nine in the morning on more than one occasion! Who has that kind of energy, let alone during a global pandemic!? 

With blaring car alarms, constant construction, and barking dogs, the world can feel incredibly loud and grating already. Your home is sometimes the only respite from all that chaos. And so, when that peace is shattered by a noisy neighbor, it’s pretty easy to flip your lid and go absolutely nuclear on your noisy neighbors. I feel like this ALL THE TIME NOW! My neighbors have transformed me into a crochety old man yelling at kids to get off my lawn and turn down that racket! But there’s a part of me that feels like maybe, just maybe, I deserve this…

 …Because (and this may come as a shock to some of you) I was once a dumb as hell college kid who was a shitty neighbor. We threw parties, we played music, we constantly lost footballs over fences. We were…not great. But, I promise you all I’ve seen the error of my ways. I’ve worked hard to become a quieter, more boring adult who doesn’t build make-shift skate ramps in his back yard in the middle of the night. 

Thankfully for my sanity, someone called the cops on my noisy neighbors not too long ago and since then their parties have gone from earthquake-level-shake-the-windows-bass to low-grade-throbbing-headache-bass which is a massive improvement. 

From this experience I just want to ask you all two things: first, if (when all this is over and we can hang out again) I’m ever having a party where you can hear the bass outside after 10pm, please, for the love of God, slap me. And secondly: tell me about the worst neighbors you’ve ever had!