Hi,

I thought I'd post what happened to us yesterday. It was 10:10 pm I was in bed trying to finish a book when I started hearing music coming from upstairs. I thought this was odd as my neighbours are really quiet and I only hear them walking once in a while. I asked my husband if he heard the music and he said nope. I asked him to come to the bedroom and then he could hear it, it was beautiful classical music so I did not know what to do. I said ok if this goes on until 11 then I'll go talk to the guy. Ten minutes later I put on the robe and headed upstairs, the mintue I opened the door I new it was really loud music.
So I went upstairs, rang the bell and a nice man opened the door. I said in English: "I'm sorry but I'm trying to sleep would you mind turning the volume down?". He asked me to come in, and started apologizing and explaining that he was doing it to get back at the neighbour above from him because he had been making terrible noise the night before until 2 am.
I could not but feel sorry for the guy told him that it was OK that I was not upset and if he lowered the volume I woul dbe happy but he said he would turn it off and kept apologizing.
The truth is that I always thought I'd be the first one to be asked to bring the volume down ...Anyways I am glad I cleared this with my neighbour, I guess being polite always pays off

Our baby only recently started walking. She has this toy-cart she is taking everywhere which makes incredibly ugly noise on the wooden floor. On times when she is not playing with that thing, she is dropping toys, mobile phones, remotes or laptops on to the floor.

During those noisy periods, I pray that my neighbors do not come up to make complaints; I have really pity with them but cannot do much against. We put carpets whereever possible so that the cart does not make too much noise and try to catch her before she drops heavy stuff.

I m still considering to give the neighbors some presents for their patience
(it might also be that they do have enough noise due to their own two small children)

Well done Angela-74.

Maybe your neighbour will follow your good example and go and speak to his neighbour, rather than using revenge...

Thanks ! I asked him if he had talked to them and he said he tried many times but he says there are so many people living in that appartment (when you look at the names on the door he is right there are 7 people on a 4.5 room appartment). So I think maybe they are students but Im not sure.
Anyways, I hope he does go talk to them again...

LOL poor you! I think a bit of noise here and there is no problem really and I can understand children being noisy. My next door neighbour has 4 or 5 and the otehr night one had a tantrum, I could barely hear him so I could not help but feel sorry for the woman .

My neighbours often play music very loudly during the afternoon, which is fine when I'm at work, and even better when I'm not!

They were a bit confused when I made a positive comment about the music - I think they suspected that they were being treated to some kind of weird Anglo-Saxon understated irony - and it took quite a lot of persuasion to get them to understand that no, I like the music, it brings some life to an otherwise dead village, and that I'm not actually complaining at all, honestly!

Bless 'em. I love it. Except when it's German disco, of course...

Nice story. It is funny to see such a chain reaction triggered by one annoyed neighbour who is trying to get back at another one with listening to loud music. You broke it... well done. Good way to get to know your neighbours as well.

We have a garden flat and very often we find "unidentified" objects in form of forks, underwear and pieces of fabrics on our lawn. They all are coming from upstairs and we try to return them back to the owners. Maybe not the best way but one of the effective ways to meet your neighbours

Well, we have access to a terrace shared by 3 other appartments, but one of the nighbours has 2 massive dogs and I have two cats. And on top of that the poop from the dogs is always there and they clean only sporadically, since this is annoying but I really do not care about the terrace I just locked my door to the terrace and shut the blinds...I really do not want to get into an argument if I can avoid it...plus I guess the dogs need more space than my two little kitties

I would report to Gemeinde that two ugly monsters not only bully my lovely kittens but the stench of smeared poop affects my nostrils and it does not mix well with aroma coming from my barbacue in summer time.

But on a serious note, it is always difficult to compromise in such situations to please everyone. Shared facilities are always bad news in one way or the other. I just wonder how many fireworks will land this New Year in our garden again

Totally right (except for the calling the gemeinde part ) so that is why I chose not to use it. Also, in this way I can say I do not use it, I dont have to clean it...maybe I am evil

I understand that you are wanting to be friendly neighbor and all, but having someone leave their dogs' excrement on the ground in a community area is unacceptable. Not only is it unsightly, but it is also unsanitary. You should definitely ask them nicely to immediately pick-up after their dogs.

I have 4 dogs, and even under the cover of darkness I pick-up after them. It's just being a responsible pet owner.

This sounds like a fantastic thing to me... unless you HAD wanted to use it?

I'd not be too keen on cleaning a shared terrace either... after all, I'm not too keen on cleaning up after hubby and he's someone I love!

That's correct and if this is a way to reduce rental cost I would still insist on it

You have a point, no doubt. But I really do not know how things are now because I have not been there in 3 months! At first it annoyed me a bit because when I saw the house it was all clean, when I moved in there was a load of caca . It is not right out my door or anywhere near but it is unsightly, if I want to use the terrace I will definetely tell her/him.

To the OP: Did you cheekily tell your neighbour if he wanted revenge on the noisy neighbours upstairs, he should play his loud Schlagermusik at 5am or 6am instead of late at night? Or ring their doorbell and then flash his Pooh-bear pyjamas at whomever opens the door?

what do you have against pooh pijamas (all my pijamas have either pooh or eeyore)

Just an update, my neighbour from upstairs showed up at my door today with a copy of the CD he was listening to because he remembered that I had said it was very beautiful music Isn't he a nice guy?

This is exactly what I like about Switzerland that people are keeping their promises. If they say something, most of the time they mean it! Next time around when in similar situation I will use your tactics

LOL I was only polite I really was surprised when he knocked on my door I never asked for anything!!!

I didn't meant to get the CD. I meant how to keep the noisy neighbours quiet, but getting extra benefit in form of the music is fine too