Tips, tricks and tactics about soothing angry neighbors.

eh là bas ma

eh là bas ma

Well-known member
There are a lot of music players on this forum, so I am guessing this kind of issues happened to a lot of us. I mean this is obviously related to building stompboxes... somehow.

New neighbors knoking on your door, making demands, more or less angry at you, etc.

Let's say you did your best to be quiet, keeping all noises at minimum, playing with earphones, and all. Even the police wouldn't find anything wrong with you.

If they still come at you for no real reasons, maybe just to blow some steam, what would you do ?

I am experimenting this situation in an appartment where i pay the rent : tonight I've been insulted and got yelled at because I was on the phone, quietly speaking with a friend at 11 pm, at home.

I am currently thinking about smiling and presenting to the neighbor a plate full of cheap biscuits and some of those little individual orange juice packs with straws :

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"you came on my doorstep looking for a fight ? Let's relax and do something else...please, have a biscuit, the yellow ones are good"

I'll call this attempt : "Wall Of Kindness n°1".

I just want to do my best to be a good neighbor in both good and bad times, but I still need to work on my movements. I can see some of them are greatly disappointed with me.

I live in this poorly isolated building for 12 years, and I like it here, with a private garden and everything in the heart of my city. Only downside is that once every couple of years, someone new rent an appartment near mine, and I occasionally have to deal with someone expecting total silence day and night, despite the fact that the building is old (1930's), with wooden floors, etc.

It would be amazing to be able to rely on some kind of unstoppable tactics or methods, to manage any unreasonable neighbor. Something like chess opening techniques, but in real life ?


Every tips, tricks and experiences are welcome, I hope this thread will benefit other people in the same kind of predicament.
 
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I was going through the same problem with a next door neighbor at my apartment. They would make crazy complaints about hardly any noise from me, just TV and phone, and then play RAP at 125db at 3am. Multiple times *everyone* in the apartment called the police. The crazy neighbors went to jail for disturbing the peace, multiple times. (They worked till 3am in the morning, was part of the problem).

I borrowed money from my parents and bought a house. About 2 months later Carlos, the bad neighbor, STABBED AND DISEMBOWELED the man that moved into the apartment I was in. Last I heard Carlos was in prison.

Be very careful, this was THIRTY THREE YEARS AGO, and people are a lot crazier now....
 
I keep expecting problems with noise but they never seem to arise. I'm not in an apartment however, but in a small house in an older neighbourhood where the blocks are only 10m wide mostly. As I build lots of pedals and quite a few amplifiers I have been known to play quite loudly. I only ever play during daylight hours, between around 11.00am and 6.00pm. People from all over the neighbourhood know that there is "a musician" living in our house. Our neighbours are amazingly resilient - whenever I apologise they are positive that they actually enjoy it! I think they're crazy because a lot of the time I'm testing for sounds so not exactly playing songs. We've lived here for over thirty years now and I have never had one complaint.

I did however stay in a hotel in Rome once where you could just about hear the people in the next room getting changed. Having three women in the next room chatting away until 3.00am was incredibly annoying. Noise is weird. Some sounds are welcome, like when I used to hear the sound of waves crashing on the beach at night when I was a kid - and the beach was about a kilometre away. It was soothing. But our current neighbours' howling dogs are not.
 
I have no advice, but this reminds me of when me and my brother were teenagers...

Our mothers husband (at the time) would raise hell at us for playing guitar "too loud" in the middle of the night.... but we were playing electric guitars, unplugged. :rolleyes: :ROFLMAO:

Not some super resonant hollow body, I'm talking Strats and Ibanez solid bodies. :ROFLMAO:
 
My live-in neighbor (wife) has a medical disorder where she gets a headache every time I turn on my amps. :cautious:

The solution so far has been to play out in the garage when weather permits. I’m not worried about my neighbors because they *ahem* smoke in a state where *ahem* smoking is against the law. I keep my mouth shut and they keep theirs shut!
 
coltonius said:
I’m not worried about my neighbors because they *ahem* smoke in a state where *ahem* smoking is against the law. I keep my mouth shut and they keep theirs shut!
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That's a great tactic ! Holding sensitive information on our neighbors, to ensure the peace... I never thought of that.
 
Paradox916 said:
Yellow jacket pheromones in the air vents of their car.
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Channeling the anger toward an other target ?

I also thought about it. The landlord could be a nice choice for a diversionary maneuver, but I am afraid it's a lot easier for many people to be aggressive with their humble neighbors, than with their landlords, despite the fact that they are accountable for the lack of isolation. Probably some sort of survival instinct in big cities... going for the weakest prey.

Still worth trying everytime it's possible, though.
Probably more effective combined with the "enhanced cookies" technique.
 
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