8 ms·

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and pro

> Heck, my upstairs neighbor complained about my music on the weekend during the day without introducing themselves and not diplomatically. Tangential (and probably just a perennial old guy complaint), but it seems like people have forgotten how to do this. If you have an issue with something your neighbor is doing, then go talk to them. Don't leave an aggressive note. Don't let it boil over until you're so upset you can't talk to them rationally. Living next to other human beings is a negotiation. You can't make a set of rules that cover every possible scenario and then ask police to enforce them. Just go talk to people!

donatj 6y ago
Honestly I think the loss of humans just talking to others is the primary cause of most of our modern problems.
- LanceH 6y ago
  Probably from too much experience that they need to expect to be in a fight, so they adopt an aggressive posture from the start.
  - burntoutfire 6y ago
    That's me. If I know that neighbor is doing something unreasonable, like leaving his garbage bags in the common hallway or listening music too loudly, I suspect he's just an antisocial asshole and the conversation will be rough at best.
    - dionidium 6y ago
      Whenever I think that I remember that I've been the recipient of snarky notes about this or that and while it's possible I'm an irredeemable reprobate, I'd prefer rather to think that like most people I'm sometimes not as considerate as I might be and open to polite feedback.
- buffet_overflow 6y ago
  I can't help but wonder if a large part of this is the advice of "pick your battles, don't engage with others you disagree with, you're just wasting your energy" and similar being applied far too broadly.
  - failwhaleshark 6y ago
    In a marriage, picking your battles is probably good advice. But being too picky about battles, in general, seems like passivity that tends to lead to resentment and explosive drama.
    - Thrymr 6y ago
      There is picking your battles, and then there is avoiding all forms of conflict completely. The latter can just lead to battles down the road that could have been mildly uncomfortable situations at an earlier stage.
- valeness 6y ago
  What makes you think that there has been a recent loss of "humans just talking"? Seems like a fairly subjective position to take when I, as a younger person, feel incredibly connected to a lot of society via online communication. I have also however, never had a good experience knocking on neighbors doors. If someone is being incredibly inconsiderate, like say blasting music at 1am, then why would they be more considerate if I knocked on their door? A fully grown adult living in an apartment complex should be able to know that sound travels, they have already made the decision to be inconsiderate. Are they supposed to change their mind because I appeal to them face to face?
- stjohnswarts 6y ago
  It's not. Most of our problems are caused by wealth inequality, racism, and amoral politicians.
xapata 6y ago
Unfortunately, the risk of retaliation may be too high. While the likelihood may be low, the magnitude of the consequence is great.
- whatshisface 6y ago
  The sooner you do it, and the more joviality you can approach it with, the less mad they will be. Hence the parent's admonition to not "[...] let it boil over until you're so upset you can't talk to them rationally."
  - xapata 6y ago
    I'm referring to the irrational, perhaps insane neighbor, not someone who behaves normally.
- pdabbadabba 6y ago
  It seems like this comment is based on either an incorrect image of how this conversation ought to go, or a problematic prior about how inclined one's neighbor might be to violent retaliation. In most cases, I'd suggest mitigating this risk through your style of interaction, not your initial choice about how to interact at all. GP was just suggesting a normal human interaction. If "retaliation" is a risk after your initial overture to a neighbor, you have done it very wrong.
  - xapata 6y ago
    Maybe a bad prior, but one that arose from personal experience. If you haven't had to spend the night wondering whether your neighbor was going to barge in and murder you, waiting for the moving truck to arrive in the morning ... Well, I suppose you might not share my priors. On the other hand, I'm not sure what could have been done to prevent it. My neighbor's list of grievances was largely imaginary. His tales of how he wanted to kill his pets seemed earnest enough to make his personal threats equally disturbing.
  - treis 6y ago
    The asshole blaring music and doing burnouts is very unlikely to respond positively to a suggestion they stop doing that. If they were reasonable people and considerate of others they wouldn't be doing that in the first place. I suspect that if you polled the long term residents of the area they would have similar negative perceptions of the car club. It's just that they don't have the power to effect change or don't have the attitude that they can effect change.
wl 6y ago
The risk of a confrontation escalating makes dealing with such things myself a very unattractive option, especially if it's a stranger. I've had a simple, polite request to turn down the thumping music at 1 AM end with me blocking punches, retreating to my unit, and calling the cops. Better to leave it to people who do such things professionally.
- patcon 6y ago
  > Better to leave it to people who do such things professionally. I empathize, esp if you're of the generation (like me) where we've grown accustom to distance in time and space via async messaging. Having said that, I would respectfully push back: negotiating everyday conflicts of life with others (who are most often strangers) is NOT something we should allow to be overly professionalized. Yes, it's true that some extroverts find this easier, and that's a privilege we don't all have. But we can't pass this to landlords and tenant associations and governments to do, while we stay at a fully-intermediated distance. We need to learn and grow in how we relate to one another, ESPECIALLY now that the distance of the internet is working against us and causing our social muscles to atrophe. Anyhow, I'm not trying to be argumentative -- I almost feel like I'm pleading here. It will be really bad if we "specialize" in this way. Losing our ability to navigate everyday conflicts with one another, and deferring it to higher powers, that's the worst sort of "vendor lock-in" I could ever imagine for a society. Fwiw, I am a collectivist who values institutions, so I don't share this from a hyper-individualist perspective that distrusts these actors <3
  - failwhaleshark 6y ago
    I agree. I think it's good to ask a neighbor if they seem the type to be amenable to it, otherwise better ask them if they've seen a cat wandering around. I had a neighbor who was an out-of-work hot-head who shouted at everyone and had his own posse of low-lifes. The guy BBQed right next to the wooden fence (in violation of fire codes) using absurd amounts of lighter fluid and charcoal that seeped into my unit directly above. I tried asking them to move it but they just ignored me. I tried a second time and then him and his posse surrounded me, mean mugged me, and tried to start a fight. I asked the property management to do something, they tried, and they took out their bad experiences on me passive-aggressively. I finally got out of there because it was a horrible situation.
bluntfang 6y ago
One thing to consider, since this post is about Texas...visiting your neighbors with a complaint in a strong castle doctrine state can be intimidating.
Taylor_OD 6y ago
This is a really raw theory but it seems to me like many people don't have conflict day to day in their lives. Yet they see outrage in the news and on the internet all day every day. This trains people to think that any difficult situation will become a big conflict. Which leads to shitty behavior that actually causes conflict instead of talking like humans. I never chock up to malice what I can perceive as ignorance. My neighbors who are being loud probably don't know they are being loud (to me) because they have never been in my apartment hearing them.
- failwhaleshark 6y ago
  Yes! Invite them over and figure out what volumes are acceptable. If they're not aholes, they'll probably be okay with it. Get them a beer or coffee even.
failwhaleshark 6y ago
I agree. Jumping to the nuclear option or being passive-aggressive/aggressive-aggressive isn't neighborly. It could be a loss of reasonable perspective, they're depressed/angsty/acting out, controlling, or don't understand how to negotiate. Wouldn't a better option be to introduce ourselves and invited to go to their place to see how loud it is and calibrate so it doesn't bother them for the day and also the night?
rhines 6y ago
What I've found is that people who aren't being respectful are rarely the kind of people to curb their behaviour after a nice chat. I had a neighbour that would incessantly play loud music (in a building where noise was prohibited in the lease), and I politely explained that it was easily heard and disruptive, and asked if they'd please turn it down or use headphones. They said sorry and agreed to, but then didn't make any changes. Next time I knocked they didn't come to the door, and another day I heard them yelling about how they choked some guy out and wanted to kill them - so all my future complaints just went to the landlord till eventually the tenant was evicted for harbouring a criminal. With that said, I still agree that it's worth just talking to them as the first action, in case they are just a nice normal person who doesn't realize how poor the soundproofing is.

donatj 6y ago

Honestly I think the loss of humans just talking to others is the primary cause of most of our modern problems.

LanceH 6y ago
Probably from too much experience that they need to expect to be in a fight, so they adopt an aggressive posture from the start.
- burntoutfire 6y ago
  That's me. If I know that neighbor is doing something unreasonable, like leaving his garbage bags in the common hallway or listening music too loudly, I suspect he's just an antisocial asshole and the conversation will be rough at best.
  - dionidium 6y ago
    Whenever I think that I remember that I've been the recipient of snarky notes about this or that and while it's possible I'm an irredeemable reprobate, I'd prefer rather to think that like most people I'm sometimes not as considerate as I might be and open to polite feedback.
buffet_overflow 6y ago
I can't help but wonder if a large part of this is the advice of "pick your battles, don't engage with others you disagree with, you're just wasting your energy" and similar being applied far too broadly.
- failwhaleshark 6y ago
  In a marriage, picking your battles is probably good advice. But being too picky about battles, in general, seems like passivity that tends to lead to resentment and explosive drama.
  - Thrymr 6y ago
    There is picking your battles, and then there is avoiding all forms of conflict completely. The latter can just lead to battles down the road that could have been mildly uncomfortable situations at an earlier stage.
valeness 6y ago
What makes you think that there has been a recent loss of "humans just talking"? Seems like a fairly subjective position to take when I, as a younger person, feel incredibly connected to a lot of society via online communication. I have also however, never had a good experience knocking on neighbors doors. If someone is being incredibly inconsiderate, like say blasting music at 1am, then why would they be more considerate if I knocked on their door? A fully grown adult living in an apartment complex should be able to know that sound travels, they have already made the decision to be inconsiderate. Are they supposed to change their mind because I appeal to them face to face?
stjohnswarts 6y ago
It's not. Most of our problems are caused by wealth inequality, racism, and amoral politicians.

xapata 6y ago

Unfortunately, the risk of retaliation may be too high. While the likelihood may be low, the magnitude of the consequence is great.

whatshisface 6y ago
The sooner you do it, and the more joviality you can approach it with, the less mad they will be. Hence the parent's admonition to not "[...] let it boil over until you're so upset you can't talk to them rationally."
- xapata 6y ago
  I'm referring to the irrational, perhaps insane neighbor, not someone who behaves normally.
pdabbadabba 6y ago
It seems like this comment is based on either an incorrect image of how this conversation ought to go, or a problematic prior about how inclined one's neighbor might be to violent retaliation. In most cases, I'd suggest mitigating this risk through your style of interaction, not your initial choice about how to interact at all. GP was just suggesting a normal human interaction. If "retaliation" is a risk after your initial overture to a neighbor, you have done it very wrong.
- xapata 6y ago
  Maybe a bad prior, but one that arose from personal experience. If you haven't had to spend the night wondering whether your neighbor was going to barge in and murder you, waiting for the moving truck to arrive in the morning ... Well, I suppose you might not share my priors. On the other hand, I'm not sure what could have been done to prevent it. My neighbor's list of grievances was largely imaginary. His tales of how he wanted to kill his pets seemed earnest enough to make his personal threats equally disturbing.
- treis 6y ago
  The asshole blaring music and doing burnouts is very unlikely to respond positively to a suggestion they stop doing that. If they were reasonable people and considerate of others they wouldn't be doing that in the first place. I suspect that if you polled the long term residents of the area they would have similar negative perceptions of the car club. It's just that they don't have the power to effect change or don't have the attitude that they can effect change.

wl 6y ago

The risk of a confrontation escalating makes dealing with such things myself a very unattractive option, especially if it's a stranger. I've had a simple, polite request to turn down the thumping music at 1 AM end with me blocking punches, retreating to my unit, and calling the cops. Better to leave it to people who do such things professionally.

patcon 6y ago
> Better to leave it to people who do such things professionally. I empathize, esp if you're of the generation (like me) where we've grown accustom to distance in time and space via async messaging. Having said that, I would respectfully push back: negotiating everyday conflicts of life with others (who are most often strangers) is NOT something we should allow to be overly professionalized. Yes, it's true that some extroverts find this easier, and that's a privilege we don't all have. But we can't pass this to landlords and tenant associations and governments to do, while we stay at a fully-intermediated distance. We need to learn and grow in how we relate to one another, ESPECIALLY now that the distance of the internet is working against us and causing our social muscles to atrophe. Anyhow, I'm not trying to be argumentative -- I almost feel like I'm pleading here. It will be really bad if we "specialize" in this way. Losing our ability to navigate everyday conflicts with one another, and deferring it to higher powers, that's the worst sort of "vendor lock-in" I could ever imagine for a society. Fwiw, I am a collectivist who values institutions, so I don't share this from a hyper-individualist perspective that distrusts these actors <3
- failwhaleshark 6y ago
  I agree. I think it's good to ask a neighbor if they seem the type to be amenable to it, otherwise better ask them if they've seen a cat wandering around. I had a neighbor who was an out-of-work hot-head who shouted at everyone and had his own posse of low-lifes. The guy BBQed right next to the wooden fence (in violation of fire codes) using absurd amounts of lighter fluid and charcoal that seeped into my unit directly above. I tried asking them to move it but they just ignored me. I tried a second time and then him and his posse surrounded me, mean mugged me, and tried to start a fight. I asked the property management to do something, they tried, and they took out their bad experiences on me passive-aggressively. I finally got out of there because it was a horrible situation.

bluntfang 6y ago

One thing to consider, since this post is about Texas...visiting your neighbors with a complaint in a strong castle doctrine state can be intimidating.

Taylor_OD 6y ago

This is a really raw theory but it seems to me like many people don't have conflict day to day in their lives. Yet they see outrage in the news and on the internet all day every day. This trains people to think that any difficult situation will become a big conflict. Which leads to shitty behavior that actually causes conflict instead of talking like humans. I never chock up to malice what I can perceive as ignorance. My neighbors who are being loud probably don't know they are being loud (to me) because they have never been in my apartment hearing them.

failwhaleshark 6y ago
Yes! Invite them over and figure out what volumes are acceptable. If they're not aholes, they'll probably be okay with it. Get them a beer or coffee even.

failwhaleshark 6y ago

I agree. Jumping to the nuclear option or being passive-aggressive/aggressive-aggressive isn't neighborly. It could be a loss of reasonable perspective, they're depressed/angsty/acting out, controlling, or don't understand how to negotiate. Wouldn't a better option be to introduce ourselves and invited to go to their place to see how loud it is and calibrate so it doesn't bother them for the day and also the night?

rhines 6y ago

What I've found is that people who aren't being respectful are rarely the kind of people to curb their behaviour after a nice chat. I had a neighbour that would incessantly play loud music (in a building where noise was prohibited in the lease), and I politely explained that it was easily heard and disruptive, and asked if they'd please turn it down or use headphones. They said sorry and agreed to, but then didn't make any changes. Next time I knocked they didn't come to the door, and another day I heard them yelling about how they choked some guy out and wanted to kill them - so all my future complaints just went to the landlord till eventually the tenant was evicted for harbouring a criminal. With that said, I still agree that it's worth just talking to them as the first action, in case they are just a nice normal person who doesn't realize how poor the soundproofing is.