She Confronted Her Upstairs Neighbor About Her Son Being Loud, And Now Her Neighbor Hates Her
Several months ago, this 33-year-old woman had new neighbors move into the apartment above hers.
Her new neighbor, Sarah, 27, has a 4-year-old son named Teddy, who might be autistic, but they haven’t yet received an official diagnosis.
When Sarah and Teddy first moved in, Sarah asked her if they made too much noise, but she said that they didn’t. At the time, they weren’t bothering her, and she understood that she’d be able to hear people in the upstairs apartment no matter how careful they were.
The landlord had recently updated the apartments and removed carpets in all the rooms besides the bedrooms, so this meant that footsteps from the upstairs neighbors would be less muffled.
Because of this, Sarah told her that she could always text her if she and Teddy were making too much noise and disturbing her.
A few months after Sarah and Teddy moved in, Teddy would run around the apartment as early as 6 a.m., not stopping for several hours. This would, unfortunately, wake her up repeatedly while she was trying to sleep.
She decided to text Sarah and politely inform her about the situation, and Sarah was deeply apologetic. Luckily, their entire conversation was civil.
However, this past July, the noise from upstairs escalated.
Once again, from 6 a.m. onward, she would be startled awake six or seven times by Teddy running all over the apartment upstairs, and the noise was often loudest right above her bedroom. Usually, by 8 a.m., she’d just give up on trying to go back to sleep because it was just too loud.
evgeny_pylayev – stock.adobe.com- illustrative purposes only, not the actual child
Sometimes, Teddy would temporarily quiet down, but the noise would always pick back up again, lasting the entire day.
She has health problems and mental illnesses like bipolar disorder II, so the noise doesn’t help with coping with all of this because she often struggles with insomnia and hasn’t been able to find a medical professional who can prescribe a medication that would help lessen some of her symptoms.
Due to her health, she is unable to work, but she is currently enrolled in online college courses and will be graduating this year.
Also, Sarah and Teddy are so loud that she is able to hear them talking. She can hear what they say clearly, and she’s never heard Sarah tell Teddy to stop running around so much.
“I tried to reach out to her again, like she told me to. But this time, I was hit with multiple excuses,” she said.
Some of Sarah’s excuses included that quiet hours end at 7 a.m., Teddy isn’t at the apartment for the majority of the week (even though, in actuality, he’s with Sarah four days per week), it’s expected to be able to hear some noise from neighbors when you live in an apartment building, and she has already told Teddy not to jump around.
Also, Sarah told her that she shouldn’t expect that neighbors would be completely silent at all hours of the day. Then, Sarah added that, in her view, Teddy’s behavior seems to have improved since moving into the apartment. After that, Sarah insinuated that she should be more sensitive and understanding to her neighbors instead of just thinking about herself and how she doesn’t appreciate the noise.
Understandably frustrated that Sarah wasn’t taking any accountability anymore for the noise coming from her apartment, she told Sarah, “‘Quiet time has nothing to do with common courtesy when you live upstairs.'”
She went on to explain that she never said anything about wanting it to be quiet at all hours of the day, but she’d only been referencing Teddy’s noise early in the morning when she was trying to sleep. From there, she added that in her view, Teddy’s behavior appears to have worsened, telling Sarah that she may not be as aware of how bad it is because it doesn’t bother her.
When Sarah responded and told her that she needed to stop paying so much attention to the noise, she stopped texting her because she knew that with how irritated she was, the situation would only get worse.
“My next-door neighbors hear Teddy constantly, and they’re not even below them. Her next-door neighbors are getting kind of annoyed about how much running and thudding he’s making. People in the laundry room (behind my apartment) said they feel bad for me because when they’re back there, they can hear it and know the sound is worse for me,” she explained.
A few days ago, on a Monday, she again abruptly awoken several times, starting at 6 a.m. That day, her next-door neighbor was outside, and she went outside and was ranting to him about the noise, which he could hear from his apartment.
During her vent session with her neighbor, she told him about how she’s struggling to sleep enough and that she doesn’t know where to go from here because even though Sarah had told her when she first moved into the upstairs apartment that she could reach out if she or Teddy were too loud, Sarah made a bunch of excuses the last time she texted her about the noise.
By this point, she had attempted to drown out Teddy’s running the best she could. In her bedroom, she had two fans running at the same time, she ran her air purifier, and she would try falling asleep while playing videos on her phone.
Unfortunately, she can’t wear headphones while she sleeps because she has both her tragus pierced, so it would be painful to have headphones on overnight, and since she tosses and turns during the night, there aren’t any headphones that would really work for her.
Also, because she had generalized anxiety, the idea of wearing earplugs would be triggering and cause her to have overwhelming intrusive thoughts.
Apparently, Sarah overheard her talking to her neighbor about her. Even though she hadn’t said anything too harsh, Sarah still wasn’t thrilled with what she heard.
“Now she hates me and refuses to let her son talk to me. Which [is bad] because I know Teddy really likes me, and I’m good with kids, so I let him talk to me about anything and would sit outside with him while his mom finished getting ready, so he had something to do,” she shared.
Despite her neighbors making her feel like her opinions on the situation are valid, she still worries that she made a mistake somewhere along the way since Sarah is now so mad at her.
Do you think she was wrong for confronting Sarah about the noise?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
If true crime defines your free time, this is for you: join Chip Chick’s True Crime Tribe
Size Does Matter: How To Choose The Perfect Rug For Every Room In Your Home
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
More About:Relationships