Hey-- Sonia, sorry for the noise ruining your good sleep. Speaking as someone who lived in New York City apartments--and New Yorkers can be rougher perhaps than the Dutch--my advice is not to be vindictive. It can turn into more nastiness. Do you think you could just talk to them and explain your problems with sleeping. Or you can let it go and hope this is their one loud party a year, and try to talk with them if that doesn't turn out to be true. I sleep with nature sounds which I actually change with the weather-lately blizzard winds--and an an audiobook. There is a lot of banging of doors, so that really helps. And I also have a small air filter that gives me some additional white noise in addition to filtering the air. I live in a small senior apt. building in the country, but it's amazing how hard doors close. Anyway, I'm sure you know that getting really angry is pretty the worst thing to do to get yourself back to sleep. Hope they turn off the dreadful music soon and you get some more sleep. And me I'll be turning off the lights off soon--night owl.

Ann, it's true that I know that escalating things in anger doesn't work. I was hoping typing out my rant would make the angry words stop swirling on my head and tempt me to act on them.

Talking to them won't be much of an option. Most people here (myself included) will ignore the doorbell when not expecting visitors or a package. No one feels like opening for a stranger. And unfortunately I only know it was our side neighbours, and like with our building, that building is split up into 3 domiciles. Hard to work out who to blame. And no one here goes to meet and greet their neighbours when moving into a new place, so we haven't had contact.

Nothing here is as big as NYC, but we live in pretty much the roughest big city in this country. Loads and loads of crime, biggest national hub of organised crime. I was hoping that this neighbourhood would be okay, with its many babies in strollers. This was the 2nd time in 3 weeks of someone acting with calous disregard for others. It angers me, since I feel bad for the downstairs people if I drop even a pen late at night.

I know it could be a lot worse, but that doesn't help when you're snapped from good sleep ( more rare than a unicorn for me...) by disrespectful behaviour. The tired brain is an angry one. Well, mine clearly was....

Sleep well, annNY!

I'm so sorry Sonya. Our first house had a party house 2 doors down, and they felt the need to have their music going during all hours of the night. I do not put up with others rude behaviors. I called the cops every time about the disturbance, and complained and they knew it was me. I got to the point that I didn't care if they knew it was me. I couldn't live like that anymore. I hate other peoples music. I don't understand that rude behavior. I hope they don't make a habit of this. I hope you got some more sleep. Hugs

Sonya, I totally understand. The last apartment that I lived in was populated by people with no concept of community living. The people overhead thought it was perfectly OK to run on their treadmill at midnight. The pictures on my walls would be flapping. I talked to them nicely about rethinking their exercise schedule more than once. I finally went to the landlord and complained.

Some people just don't care/don't grasp community living. I'd be upset too. Unfortunately, you can plan on it happening again. Ann made some good suggestions. I hope that you were able to calm down and get some sleep. Hugs!

Wow, so rude of those people. I hope it doesn't happen again, or not so soon. Every place has its pluses and minuses and it takes months to get used to them. Talk about stress! Maybe you can have a casual conversation about the noise..."wow I got woken up at 5am to heavy metal" or something like that. Better not to start a war, but it is tempting.
Good sleep tonight.

The good thing about NYC was they had noise laws and noise police, so if worse came to worse I could have called them, but never did. There was an Irish bar across the street. I only called if it looked like someone was going to kill someone. Noise is such a pain when you have sleep problems. Sonya, you have destroyed my fantasies of more civilized Europe!

Theres always the taste of the ole medicine...like when they are sleeping at 9am from partying all night...u inadvertently workout to loud music ...then leave ...oh im bad. ..im very bad. I was so sick of t h next door slamming the outside door literally 30 times a day eith a toddler no less...ehen my dog started yelping and shakng everytime because the walls would rattle...in a condo spec apartment no less....and mybad heart couldnt take it anymore. ..next time...I slammed so hard the Windows rattled. I wss ticked...I had politely made comments but then there's. ..oh yea...if ur so freakin selfish and csnt get a clue...let's see how u like it! They have not slammed the door since a couple weeks ago now.
But...some people can get aggressive so u have tobe really careful. I usually call in to the anonymous call line to complain a couple times first. One time I let my dog jump all over s guy who used to talk in the hall at 1am to his family in India. He was right outside my door! The joys of apartment living ugh. I now live in a condo spec apartment on top floor with only one side neighbor....ahhhh. Hope u get some sleep.

I've rarely had this problem with anyone who wasn't *armed*, and I'm not much on taking a smart-a** mouth to a gunfight, soooo.... That said, my newest neighbors are two houses (attached) over, and their housewarming party effed up the whole da*n row of houses (gee, only 20 houses affected)... their guests parked everywhere illegal (blocking our road), loud, drunken, on all night, parked so dang bad that people who never cuss were cussing out the newbs.... Yeah....

I like the idea of vacuuming at a time convenient for you but not them. I'm the person who introduces herself if I share a wall with someone (or floor or ceiling, you get the idea) and ask if there's a best time or worst time for my running a vacuum or entertaining guests, etc., and usually they reciprocate. (E.g., a neighbor in an apartment worked nights, so I did the vacuuming by 8 AM, before she was home and asleep, and the othe rneighbors were at work or awake or gone to school...) To me, basic courtesy. Raised ona farm, I value privacy and silence and space, so it's just baffling to me when people think their noise isn't going to annoy someone else. Hey, I like music, but if you blast freaking opera and sing along at 10 PM, and I have to be up for work at 4 AM? Oh, I will knock on your door....

Soft rest to you:0-)

I can't believe people can be so incredibly rude to be blasting music at that hour of the morning. What the hell is wrong with them? As you said it is common courtesy.

I hope that they come to realize what asshats they are being and straighten up.

I am so sorry! Sleep is so hard to come by and to have interrupted like that is infuriating. hope that being able to rant in this forum with people that understand helps! Lack of sleep makes life so much harder! Good luck and happy sleeping!!

I have no issues calling the cops on people or talking to the rental office. I've had awesome neighbors and rude neighbors. When it was just my husband and I, I didn't make as much of a fuss, but as soon as my kids were born in became a mama bear not to be messed with. (Wireless doorbells, especially cheaper ones, usually only have a few frequencies they can use. If you just spend ten bucks or so to get one, you can probably find their frequency without anyone the wiser, hehehe)

Thank you all so much! I wanted to reply sooner, but maybe my emotions of the move caught up to me on a delay. Everything and sundry is making my brain melt down. In my world, "sanity" is only a nice word score for Scrabble at the moment. Not a lot of it going around for me.

Positive update on the neighbour story, though! --I think. There was a bit of a language barrier.

While I was convinced it was the side neighbours, it might have been my upstairs neighbours. On Valentine, I heard a knock on our inner apartment door that only the upstairs people can get to without ringing the doorbell. It was the lady from upstairs, offering two red roses, one for me and one for my partner. She said something about being sorry for having made noise, and something about being embarrassed, knowing people had been sleeping. Since I haven't had any other rude noise to complain about, I can only assume it was them. I was very, very pleasantly surprised!

Glad I didn't target the wrong people, haha (who had been playing music for hours that day during daylight hours, hence my suspicion).

Twin, I agree that I would merrily call the cops on them if this becomes a frequent occurrence. Then it's the questions if the cops would show up in time to hear the noise. Non-emergency calls like that can have hours of response time.

Fantod, yup, some people don't understand communal living. When in a new place I tend to end up on the other end of the spectrum and obsess a lot about maybe being too loud.

Shakota, it's definitely true that part of my outburst is the fact that it's a new place, and I'm scared of discovering some deal-breaker drawbacks. It took us so long to find this place as it is.

Ann, since the Dutch bought Manhatten and settled there a few centuries ago, maybe it's our genes that makes NYC people so gruff at times. ;)

jptexas, the joys of apartment living indeed. In our last place, our upstairs neighbours would get into screaming matches that lasted days. And of course they only had the time/inclination to do that between 11 and 2 at night. I knew a lot about their personal issues, simply because they screamed so loud I heard every word.

Leo, I introduce myself to my direct neighbours when I meet them by the doors, but I struggle to go over and start an introduction out of nowhere. I usually tell myself I will, but-- well... *locks the door instead* Blegh.

Bbmom, I can really get myself steaming, wondering over and over what exactly they are telling themselves to justify that behaviour. I never expected anyone to come apologize, because running something that loud, that late, and for over an hour, I figured would only be done by a very rude person.

Redflamingo, thank you very much! Yes, it did help me a lot in that moment to get the words out to someone, even just to a text box here on DS.

Callmeb84, when I read your comment about the doorbell and the frequencies, I had a moment of cackling evilly out loud. Thanks for the laugh.

Thank you all so much for your kind support and validation. :)

So happy to hear of this good resolution, Sonyacon. Moving and adjusting to the new everything is so tiring and stressful. Sending self-compassion your way. Happy Valentine's Day late, too.