24 responses so far ↓

• 1 Gari N. Corp // Nov 11, 2008 at 10:17 am

  Put on some music by drone metal titans Sunn o))). That’ll settle this little fracas once and for all.

• 2 Bored with you // Nov 11, 2008 at 10:32 am

  Gosh – it would be great to live in Topeka or Muncie or whatever hole you crawled out of to come to my city and clog it up chasing whatever “Sex in the City” or “Friends” fantasy you were having while fumbling with a half-witted linebacker in your Dad’s car.

  Thank God he funded your presence here so you can grace us with your style and wit.

  Added bonus! A cliched Lou Reed reference!

  Who’s a clever little blogger? ooki dooki dooki wubba!

• 3 Bob // Nov 11, 2008 at 10:59 am

  Deserved for naming said child “Dorian”

• 4 Trilby // Nov 11, 2008 at 11:03 am

  I once had an upstairs neighbor whose little ones ran around overhead in HARD SHOES. When I suggested stocking feet, she reacted like that was child abuse. Parents!

• 5 Red Hook // Nov 11, 2008 at 11:25 am

  GL is completely wrong on this one, because I can tell you that if Dorian’s Mom carpets her apartment – which will kill the noise flat – her neighbor will absolutely without a doubt and zero question continue playing her music extremely loudly.

  I can tell you this as both someone who has been a landlord, tenant and parent. There is a certain percentage of people who think it is their entitlement to play music as loud as possible, regardless of how it goes into other apartments. In fact, I think that’s part of the reason they do it. They want the attention.

• 6 Will // Nov 11, 2008 at 11:29 am

  There is a law in New York that requires people in multi-unit dwellings to cover at least 80% of their floors with carpet and adequate padding if the neighbor below requests it. The resident below should invoke this law and insist that it be enforced. Many people work in newly constructed buildings (which tend to be much quieter vertically), or have lived or spent time in newly constructed residential buildings and are not entirely cognizant of the reasons this law was passed in the first place. Changes to the Building Code have allowed us to be less conscious of our surroundings. Further, hardwood floors – with minimal area rugs at best – have been a fashion trend for some time now, particularly amongst those who are just now getting around to having kids. Here’s what people who want to live in buildings with genuine pre-war charm and who do not believe in “suppressing” their child’s creative energy need to do (short of moving to a building with concrete floor-plates); GET SOME REAL CARPETING OR THICK RUGS WITH SOME REAL PADDING UNDERNEATH THEM. They might also consider distinguishing “indoor activities” from “outdoor activities” for their children but, I am always surprised at how many people consider this “mean” or “repressive.” In sum, be a good neighbor. Getting your home ready for children requires more than covering up outlets, placing valuables out of reach and securing cleaning solutions and medicines. Rather, it extends to taking steps to ensure that your decision to have children is not something for which you neighbor will pay a heavy price. Don’t like carpets? Too bad. You should have thought of that when you decided to have kids and live in an old apartment. Besides, I am sure you will be able to deal with it in the short run. The kids will be grown before you know it and you will get your valuables out of hiding and your hardwood floors back much sooner than you think (trust me on this one, I would have gladly put off having that perfect home I wanted if I could have traded it for more time with my daughter as a child).

• 7 A young person // Nov 11, 2008 at 1:35 pm

  “And in the weekend, we will control his running around the home before 9 am.”

  That is not a compromise….

• 8 Kevin Walsh // Nov 11, 2008 at 2:22 pm

  Metal Machine Music has actually won over some critics in recent years but at the time Lou Reed put it out as a total f!@# you to the label, who were expecting him to come up with hits like Sally Can’t Dance or Transformer every time.

  I still don’t know how he got away with it, since Neil Young’s label gave him headaches for actual music…

  http://www.forgotten-ny.com

  condensedpop.blogspot.com

• 9 If There Were 25 Hours In The Day… // Nov 11, 2008 at 2:49 pm

  […] Rock + Roll or Children: Which annoys you more in the morning? [Gowanus] […]

• 10 bill b. // Nov 11, 2008 at 4:32 pm

  its unforgivable that you would steal a post from another board and not protect the identity of the minor and allow your readers to even make fun. Get some real news already!

• 11 Bob Loblaw // Nov 11, 2008 at 6:52 pm

  I have 4 boys upstairs (one a toddler) plus a piano. Good thing we have a “mutual tolerance” agreement. Sound does have a tendency to travel downwards easier than upwards in my case. Since I’m a permalancer and work at home I can listen to Stern all day while the little monsters chase each other around.

• 12 mod squad // Nov 11, 2008 at 7:07 pm

  There is no law requiring carpeting on the floor in NYC. Some residential leases have that clause but there is no legal requirement.

• 13 Be Warned // Nov 11, 2008 at 7:32 pm

  I had this issue for YEARS. Tenant above (hardwood floors) and about 8 people living there in an extended family. Years earlier a toddler ran circuits in hard shoes through out the whole apt. A roommate of mine was a writer. The noise was hellish. We asked them kindly & repeatedly to stop, they did NOTHING. We all banged with plastic buckets on the ceiling in unison as hard as we possibly could, and they finally stopped.

  Fast forward 5 years. The toddler was now about 5-7 yrs old accompanied by a NEW toddler. Neither child lived there, they were the offspring of a brother or sister who lived elsewhere BUT kept their two children here all day long until they would pick them up at either early or late evening. Whatever adult was there didn’t supervise anything and the kids went crazy.
  It started with the toddler rolling around in a cart with 4 hard plastic casters that the toddler sits in and propels throughout the apartment with it’s feet…followed by the youngster running after with of course, hard shoes. Due to the large layout of the apartment, you would hear the noise coming from far off, getting closer, then above your head infinitely repeated. I asked my roommates at this time to help me combat it with our own banging when civil appeals for them to take off their children’s shoes or get carpets failed. M roommates brushed it off. Big mistake, I should have demanded their participation to solve the problem.
  I tried more negotiations witthe the tenant (who were not the children’s parents).They told me they were ‘allergic’ to carpets when I asked them to get them. I even offerd to buy the carpets: they refused. The landlord lived elsewhere and was a slumlord who could care less. Everyday from early in the morning, running w/ hard shoes. Some times another child was brought over besides the other two and all three would all stomp and chase each other all over the apartment. Sometimes they would climb to the top of the couch and jump off, plaster chips falling off my ceiling, lightbulbs flickering. They would roll hard balls across the floor, throw hard things onto the floor repeatedly, bounce balls, stomp, jump, run up and down the long 20 foot hallway passage leading into my room and back down the hallway over and over.
  Tenants were hostile, threatened me with violence, if I complained, and refused at all costs to do anything. After a while, I understood what Chinese Water Torture is about. Instead of waiting and watching a tiny bead of water form on the bottom of a gourd and slowly waiting for it to fall onto your forehead – your entire consciousness consumed by waiting for the single drop to fall – I waited for the running to start, the noise to come. I had been involuntarily conditioned. I lived always in a state of anticipation for the noise to come. In the end, I was sleeping with earplugs, with stereo speakers by my head to drown out the noise. I often lived with headphones on.

  Landlord did nothing, court with my landlord did nothing. I had to fight back by banging on the ceiling with a fury for years. So we ended up going to war. I would go upstairs and bang on their door and demand the noise to stop, I would bang on my ceiling in the daytime, I would bang in the middle of the night and wake them up. It became a war of attrition. I had lived here over a decade and had no interest in moving. Eventually the children grew older so they went to school, but then they came here after directly school until 11PM-1AM when they were picked up. The noise was similar. It was a stomping ground with no rules or restraints.

  You have no idea how much of a torture this is unless you have lived under it. My advice for anyone living under this: nip it in the bud. If they refuse to be reasonable and put padding and carpets, then contact the LL and demand it. If the tenants are unreasonable and the landlord will not help, you are dealing with first class a-holes so you will need to fight fire with overwhelming fire and send them a clear message to give them such a taste of their own medicine until they will think twice about disturbing you. If it goes on or months or years you will become sensitized to the point that that ANY similar noise you hear upstairs will irritate you and trigger your nervous system as you will been involuntarily conditioned to respond and recoil from the noise. Nip this in the bud.

• 14 Mamalamaramadingdong // Nov 11, 2008 at 7:33 pm

  The vitriol heaped upon this Park Slope Parent poster puzzles and saddens me. She asks a reasonable question in a reasonable way. Some of you had a good answer wrapped in unkindness: thick, well-padded carpeting. It’s true that sound travels downward and maybe the OP has no idea how loud it is to her downstairs neighbor. Her neighbor, on the other hand, most definitely understands that her music travels. I suspect — and your unpleasant posts suggest I’m right — that she does so deliberately. Kids wake up early; they gotta run; and sometimes in the winter they gotta run indoors. But the neighbor does not have to play her music loud. That’s why the universe gave us headphones. Wearing them while listening to loud music eliminates both her and her neighbor’s problem. Instead she acted in a childish and escalating way. Why is the hate not heaped upon her?

• 15 wetoo // Nov 11, 2008 at 7:36 pm

  Parents should install carpets when the person below is bothered by noise. It’s sociopathic to refuse to install carpets in those cases. We had a bad noise issue with a hyper kid running upstairs in our last place who kept on running indoors and jumping up and down and off furniture, well past the baby and toddler stage when he should have been told to stop. Also a case where a parent refused to put in a stitch of rugs or carpet even in the face of years of complaints. She said she didn’t know how to buy rugs. Then it was she didn’t want to clean rugs. I was shocked and thinking, you call yourself an adult? Children raising children. Finally she did start to discipline him more and the noise got better. But it was such a struggle and the board had to threaten to make her get rugs (the horror). Anyway, so I agree, remind the neighbor of the law about rugs and follow through on pursuing it with the board or landlord. Worked for us.

• 16 iheartbk // Nov 12, 2008 at 2:13 pm

  I think most of us here can relate to the downstairs neighbor which is why we are not unkind to her. I also think that this is just another symptom of being a Park Slope Parent… it’s a sense of entitlement. Their kids are entitled to make as much noise as they want wherever they want, whether they are at home, in a restaurant, grocery store or bar!

• 17 D // Nov 12, 2008 at 5:17 pm

  I totally agree with Iheartbk! These kids are way out of control. Children should be seen and not heard!

• 18 culprit // Nov 13, 2008 at 10:03 am

  Ditto! Park Slope Parents need to move to Jersey!

  Although my personal solution is to ALWAYS live on the top floor)

• 19 Antonia M // Jan 2, 2009 at 3:57 am

  Too many people are seriously bothered by this problem (myself included) for all of us to be out here struggling with it alone. Unless you’ve lucked out with a landlord or neighbor who desires to be cooperative, there’s really no help for you. It’s unreasonable to expect the victim to flee their home or sit and suffer while the offender channels Godzilla. As Be Warned pointed out, chronic disruptive noise can have serious psychological and physiological effects.

  If there isn’t a carpet law, maybe there should be one. Is there a way for noise sufferers to unite to back each other up with this kind of situation and also work together to get some legislation we can use?

• 20 AntoniaM // Jan 5, 2009 at 8:28 pm

  Woohoo! Finally, I found a lawyer. There is indeed a legal requirement for carpeting if there’s a complaint from below. Has nothing to do with what’s in your lease. I just think most landlords expect most people to just “grin” and bear it and not push the issue. Well, I am pushing.

• 21 Max // Feb 25, 2009 at 2:26 pm

  This is Answering to comment #5. Look im 20 yrs old I love to listen to music as loud as possible, no not because I want attention, but because im young and I want to listen to music as loud as my speakers can get. I’m sure you were our age at one point and you wanted to be wild and unpredictable =].. Than again people have changed. But anyways, as I recall NY law states that from 11am to 11pm I believe I can play music in my house as loud as I want. If my neighbors do come and ask me to make it lower sure I’m not a rude person I will lower it.. But till that day comes I will blast music until my speakers pop!! 🙂

• 22 empathy // Feb 28, 2009 at 3:05 am

  Where is the empathy for the parent? Our place is carpeted and it apparently doesn’t make a difference as our neighbor hit her ceiling this evening. My son does not get out of hand jumping off furniture, but I am not willing to stop his desire to be active. I cannot help the occasional thud that occurs when he falls accidentally or throws something he is not supposed to before I can grab it or has a tantrum.

  If we as apartment dwellers do not realize that with this type of living comes noise like these, then move to a duplex or a single dwelling unit. And for the parent, if there is carpet and your kid is fairly well behaved but this stresses you, then transfer to a 1st floor unit. Or for the music player…if you are playing it to annoy a loud upstairs neighbor, move to an upstairs unit! Otherwise, grow up and get over it. You don’t get to choose your neighbors and you just need to deal with it. Treat everyone with respect and try to see it from their shoes. No wonder this world is the way it is with comments like above!

• 23 Mike // Apr 27, 2009 at 6:14 am

  All my life I’ve always detested loud, blasting music. So just assuming that “all” young people like loud, blaring music rightly isn’t so. People who find it necessary to blast their ugly music are, in fact, immature, rude and sometimes dangerous people (the hip hop crowd in particular.) Some may deem that type of behavior as passive aggressive, though “passive aggressive” behavior can erupt into a life threatening situation. Would you really want to confront some unsavory looking man and ask him to please lower his booming rap music? I don’t think so. The best policy is let the police handle the noise complaint. They have the necessary protection, we don’t. Personal confrontations most often yield to a negative conclusion. Anyone who is going to be that arrogant and willingly blast offensive music, or any kind of music for that matter, is surely not a well adjusted, kindly soul. FOR YOUR SAFETY: PLEASE LET THE POLICE HANDLE THE SITUATION!

• 24 Michelle // Dec 14, 2009 at 4:59 pm

  I feel ya!!! And I don’t get people who agree with your neighbor and the things they think. They just think that small innocent children are the devil!!!! What is wrong with people that think like that!!! You can’t make a toddler, not act like a toddler. We have a similar problem that when we moved in the first week metal music vibrating our walls, loud talking and profanity at all hours of the night. When we knocked on their door and asked them politely to turn it down, they just yell at us through the door and say “go away!” Then they go outside and mock us and yell “we better be quite for our neighbors!!!” So after time went by, I settled down about the issue. I was going to report them but didn’t want to create awkwardness this early on. Still, they don’t have the common decency to turn their bass down or off when playing music. And even though it bothers us we try not to be a nag about it. Well the other night my child, was acting like a normal child, walking like a normal toddler and playing. They start banging on our walls. You’d think I would have more balls then them, to actually knock and confront them on their loudness. lol! My husband has walked by them outside and they say hi, and so doesn’t he (politely) but they can’t even look him in the eyes!!! Then why say hi if you are going to fake!!! WTF!!!!!