The Great Debate! Am I Being Unreasonable? I THINK NOT!

[reindeerflotila]

RANT PHASE

Comments

[satyrica]

that sounds like no fun, and worrying: generally people who complain without any significant provocation are unappeasable as their expectations are so unrealistic :-(

[reindeerflotila]

OMFG came around because she knew someone was in because *ahem* she heard me walk down the stairs the stairs you know, inside our apartment.

We really cannot be blamed for being alive, nor for OMFG's formation of a Babyocratic Alliance of what I have termed the fragile, assassin-quiet Glass Statuary and IdentiCouple as allies. Bah.

Must Retain Perspective. Must also stop drinking iced coffee in agitation as this will not help matters.

***Sorry for the repeated replies in your inbox, I was eliminating all uses of OMFG's real name as it dawned on me this was a poor move on my part. I Effed it up a few times, itchy clicking finger ***

[anonymous]

I wonder if perhaps a slightly different perspective might be useful

[reindeerflotila]

I have been exceedingly sympathetic, and I fully take your point and have pondered the above in relation to OMFG. WHich is also why I have been terribly nice to her. It's also assuming I know anything about her life..... :P

However is it reasonable of her to then emotionally blackmail me with her baby? Or to threaten the disapproval of my nieghbours who presumably, at some undefined point in the future, are going to swoop down to wag their fingers at me?

I fink not, Mr W!

:)

[sea_of_flame]

No, it's not reasonable of her - but it may mean that a solution may be nothing to do with music (whether you WANT to play the friendly neighbour after her actions so far may be another matter!)

[reindeerflotila]

I think maybe the walls are a bit crap and the bass goes through the wall which is not a big problem but if you add it in to exasperated sleep deprivation I imagine it becomes a serious problem pretty quick. We are going to get some fuzzy material to put under the speakers and get them off the floor, see if that helps the situation.

However it is important to note that OMFG could hear me, through the wall, simply walking up our stairs, inside the apartment. I fear no amount of careful attitude on our part is going to turn this apartment to the silent mausoleum state desired by the Babyocracy.

[reindeerflotila]

they moved the Baby to the further bedroom away from us to avoid our 'noise'. Which was sensible of them, but has been presented as proof of our nature as the very cock of cthulhu.

[sea_of_flame]

Couple of thoughts

- hate to say it, but is there a chance that this isn't actually about the music, and actually about the fact you guys don't fit into their 2.4 kids (and /obviously/ husband+wife to create such) little world? Hope not, but it would be far easier (and more likely to get a landlord to take action) to whinge about noise than admit to homophobia...

- if she comes round again, it might be worth offering to leave the music at its current volume, and go round to hers to see how it's filtering through - you might find that either somehing structural in the block is doing weird acoustic things so it carries loudly, or that there's in fact another surce of noise other than your flat (easily tested by having one of you in your flat, one in hers, and ringing through on a mobile to try turning the music on/off)

[reindeerflotila]

Our household is made up of a woman and two men, OMFG has no idea what kind of pairing arrangement we have, but it did dawn on me.

OMFG did offer to let me pop round to hear it, but I was resistant to this idea for some reason. I think maybe I don't need to have PROOF the sound carries as I am more than prepared to A) believe her, and B) acknowledge we can try to do something about it. I think maybe past my surface calm I was enraged already and the thought of playing nice and meeting the Baby and the husband was a little much at that point :/

Ultimately though, they have had he baby, knowing they do not live in a secluded, sound-proofed bubble. I think I kinda resent the overt inference that they have a child and thus their wishes hold greater weight than ours, as to how we live OUR lives.

[sea_of_flame]

Makes sense - check out the local noise regs before doing so then?

I'd bet it's some volume level, or bands based on times...

Would just suck if she's there fuming at your music, when it fact it's carrying from elsewhere - and I can't think of a way to check that without going down there!

[reindeerflotila]

I am pretty sure it is us. She admitted it was extremely infrequent, and that we were thus reasonable. It was odd. She was basically saying " I know I am being unreasonable but can you please never have music on and actually, could you just move out please, we preferred it for the previous 4 months when it seemed like nobody was living there - we didn't hear a peep then!"

well, DUH.

I think the place was either empty or just used to house worker-drones during the week.

[lanfykins]

My parents used to leave me in a back room with 70s rock playing loudly on a speaker next to me; to send me to sleep.

(I claim this early conditioning to be the reason I have Rick Wakeman and Focus on my iPod.)

Anyway; she needs a better baby.

[reindeerflotila]

I expect her baby is a perfectly normal baby, and she is under tons of sleep deprived-stress. Which is why in person, I have been lovely but firm in the face of her bullying and emotional blackmail.