Exactly ... living in close quarters, you have to accept that you will hear and perhaps even smell your neighbors. Sure, I am annoyed regularly by them, but that comes with the package of living in an apartment in the middle of the city...give and take people, otherwise move to the middle of nowhere, where I am sure some pesky wildlife will annoy you too.

There have been two times in my 20 years of living in flats where I have had to kindly request quiet from my neighbor:

1) Allowing their hyperactive two year old to run around, scream and play above us at 4 AM on a Sunday morning, regularly. I left a note with a toy for the child and chocolates for them...hardly happened again.

2) The neigbor below us was a nurse who left her home for her shift at 3 AM...we had those old school metal outside window blinds that hadn't been serviced for 20+ years and it woke us up in our deep sleep every AM. I kindly requested that she not do this with a bottle of wine and it never happened again.

I have only received one noise complaint ever and I'm still bitter about it. Had a small party in my current flat and she ran the door bell at exactly 10 PM on a Friday night. (Meanwhile I have to listen to her interesting sex life on the reg.) Now anytime I have a party, I leave her wine or chocolates with a note days in advance and she hasn't complained about it since.

As long as you are being considerate and reasonable in your behaviour, then a concession to a troublesome neighbour will only lead to more complaints concerning your behaviour, and more apologies and concessions from you.
It will be an unbearable downhill spiral until you dare not move, or cough, or sneeze in your home.

To you, it would seem that you are the bad neighbour and are constantly upsetting your neighbours when the reverse is probably true.


Some new neighbours moved in to a ground floor flat near us last summer.

On the first night, a Saturday night, they had many friends and family round and made a racket in their garden until about one in the morning.

Still, it was their first night so although it was annoying for those who wanted to sleep, people thought that it wasn't the end of the world.

The very next night, a Sunday night, they did exactly the same thing with the same large group again until around one in the morning.

I don't know who spoke to them but they never did it again.

There can be a difference between unreasonable behaviour and unreasonable neighbours.

Only on Sunday?

That's a passive-aggressive behaviour I'll never fully get, but then maybe I'm not fully integrated. Or I didn't live in the "right" places as I never experienced it myself here. I prefer to let the other person know they're disturbing (and them to do the same when it's the case) . So far we had only one complaint coming from the neighbours (it was after 10 p.m. indeed) and we also had only one complaint which was immediately taken care of. I wouldn't have normally complained but I had an exam the next day and I really needed my 8 hours night sleep. I've rewarded the guys downstairs with a bottle of wine and a thank you card. It wasn't necessary, but I thought it's good to let them know I appreciated their consideration.