Talk about the lemonade from the lemon!!
My partner, Eve, is a fan of trance/electronica music. I find it quite energizing for tasks that are more physical than mental. So, when we were moving into our apartment in January of 2007, she put on a CD. Immediately the daughter in the apartment below us complained about the bass beat. We ended up turning the bass all the way down and set the speakers on floor cushions. She still wasn't happy, even though I couldn't hear it in their living room over my heartbeat, so we just turned it off.Over the next several months she complained from time to time about us keeping her awake. Once we were watching the first Lord of the Rings movie on Eve's laptop in our office which is above her bedroom. We were using good speakers, but geez, they were just 2 feet from us and we don't need to feel the sound. There were other instances, as well. Then one Saturday evening in September the police came knocking at our door. She was complaining about our trance music. "Gee, officer, we haven't been playing any music tonight. We don't own a TV, and the computers have been off all evening." The windows were open and the officer had not heard anything as he approached our apartment, so he determined it wasn't coming from us.The next afternoon we went grocery shopping, got home, put up the groceries, fixed a real quick supper, and had just sat down to eat when another pair of police officers scared the crap out of us by almost beating the door in (cop was geared for a fight, it was in his eyes and body language). Again, the windows were open, no music coming from them. They were conviced it wasn't us. A few minutes after I went back in I heard voices. Went out onto the balconey and there the neighbor was, saying she could still hear it right then. I spoke up and said if it was from us, then they'd be able to hear it through the open windows, but it was dead quiet out there except for her. We wrote a letter and talked to the apartment manager about this, but I don't know if they ever did anything at that time.About a month and a half ago one of the apartment maintenance people visited about 11:30 at night. She was complaining about our trance music. Again, our apartment and the entire area were quiet. After he left, we went to her apartment and offered to help her figure out where the noise was. She seemed quite agreeable and we thought we left on a good note.This past Saturday night she knocked on our door and told us she could hear our trance music. As always, it was quiet inside and out. I offered to let her in so we could see if she could hear anything from our apartment and she started screaming at me at the top of her lungs, calling me a psychopathic liar, a drug addict, and a retard. Her mother (a sweet, sweet lady) came out and coaxed her to their apartment, but she turned around at her doorstep and lit into me again. I went inside and heard her continue for a couple more minutes.Since she was borderline violent and had never done this before, I called the police on her. They came out, talked to us, talked to them, and told us they couldn't determine who was telling the truth, but felt we had done nothing wrong.We had another talk with the apartment manager, said we were fed up with this fixated harrassment, and told him we expected something to be done about it or the next time we were filing whatever charges against her we could and if she ended up in jail, so be it.So, next weekend we move into another apartment. This one is on the ground floor, has no apartment above it, is larger, and has covered parking right at the front door. All for the same price we pay now. We even are getting a rent-free month to help us cover the moving costs. I checked with the power company and the power bills for it over the past year have averaged much less than ours. My guess is because it doesn't have a stairwell that funnels all the cooled air down to a leaky door.I would love to be a fly on the wall and see the look on her face once we are gone and she hears whatever it is she's been hearing that she calls our trance music. OK, I know that's not nice, but......
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