“If I Wanted To Live With Them I Would’ve Reproduced”: Woman Can’t Stand Neighbor’s Kids, Reports The Mom And She Gets Fined $4,000
Moving into a luxury apartment complex comes with expectations of tranquility and harmony, but for Redditor u/ComedianTraining7414, this idyllic vision was shattered when her upstairs neighbors, a family with three energetic children, started disrupting her peace with constant noise.
Despite repeated attempts to maintain civility when confronting them, the woman’s sleepless nights took a toll on her. Seeking solace, she began reporting the “menacing” behavior to the apartment management, unaware that this would eventually lead to a $4,000 fine. Now, after learning that it’s too much for her neighbors to pay, she turned to Reddit’s ‘Am I the Asshole?’ community, asking its members to help her make sense of the ordeal.
Image credits: Liza Summer (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Jessica West (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)
The woman added more details about the whole situation
Image credits: u/ComedianTraining7414
Image credits: Andrea Piacquadio (not the actual photo)
It’s easy to understand ComedianTraining7414’s concerns. Adults need between 7–9 hours of sleep to function at their best. However, humans have evolved so that we are more easily startled by unexpected sounds than by objects suddenly intruding into our field of vision. Our nervous systems react to noises that are loud and abrupt (gunshots), rumbling (airplanes), or whining and chaotic (leaf blowers, coffee grinders) by instructing our bodies to boost the heart rate, breathe less deeply, and release fight-or-flight hormones.
But the physical responses that helped save us from predators back in the day have obvious downsides in the 21st century when you’re trying to get some sleep and there are three kids in the apartment above yours.
Even if you think you’re immune to city noise, it may still be affecting your health. In one study of 4,861 adults, a 10-decibel increase in nighttime noise was linked to a 14 percent rise in a person’s likelihood of being diagnosed with hypertension. Health experts studying more than 1 million people in the vicinity of Germany’s Cologne Bonn Airport found that people subjected to the background noise of greater than 40 decibels were at increased risk of cardiovascular diseases, kidney failure, and dementia compared with those who lived farther from the flight paths, where things were quieter. (For comparison, the legal nighttime noise limit in Washington, DC, is 55 decibels.)
Image credits: Ketut Subiyanto (not the actual photo)
The impact of noise pollution is even worse on kids. A sad study examined the cognition of 2,800 students in 89 schools across Europe. It found that aircraft and road noise significantly affected reading comprehension and certain kinds of memory. The results, adjusted for family income, the mother’s education, and other confounding factors, were linear. For every five-decibel noise increase, the reading scores of British children dropped by the equivalent of a two-month delay, so that kids in neighborhoods that were 20 decibels louder than average were almost a year behind.
Yes, the author of the post doesn’t have any kids of her own, but she still needs to recharge.
A healthy soundscape “is not a wishy-washy amenity,” said Peter James, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health whose team is using Park Service data to explore whether excessive noise is partly responsible for disparities in cardiovascular outcomes in disadvantaged communities. “It’s a potential public health factor we need to understand to make sure everyone has the same opportunities.”
People have been debating whether or not the Redditor went overboard. However, I think we can all agree that after the mom refused to remedy the situation, someone had to do something.
Some people defended the mother, saying that the author of the post took everything too far
But most thought she did nothing wrong and that it was the mother who could’ve easily prevented this conflict
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We're hearing only one bell here so I'll take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, if it's really that noisy, especially during quiet hours, like very early in the morning, she has every rights to complain. During the day she should tolerate the noise a little more, but at night? Nope. The neighbor needs to curb her kids and teach them about respect. Kids behaving erratically will become adults who behave erratically. That being said, to those who say "if you don't like it, move!": well, nobody should move out their house because of three badly educated kids, what the heck! She's not asking for the moon, she just want to sleep at night. Also, you could say the same thing to her: if you want your kids to run, play and make noise freely, YOU should move to a remote house in the country with no neighbors 🤷♀️. And I'll add that here in Italy, most condos have rules regarding the noise; in some you aren't even allowed to use the washing machine or vacuum after 8 pm!
My former landlords gave outlets to their three active boys: some bars in the house that they could climb and swing from. We rarely had a noise problem, other than a week of one kid screaming early in the morning because the oldest was being an a*****e.
Load More Replies..." You shouldn´t of had them." God, how much I hate that part of the whole thing. the "of" has no business being in this part of the sentence.
Lol. How bout "shoulda aint had 'em?" Does that just sound like nails on a chalkboard to you? Me too, Rene Sauer...me too.
Load More Replies...I empathize because I’ve been her before. I once lived under someone who had 5-7 kids. I don’t know the exact amount, but it sounded like I lived under a jungle gym. I complained within days of moving and had to continually complain on them because the noise was over the top. I ended up switching apartments because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was woken up and bothered all hours of the day and night. I wish people who had a bunch of kids would request a bottom floor apartment just so they wouldn’t bother people under them, but I know that’s not always within their control.
On what planet is she the AH? Wtf?! There's zero reason she gets fined if what was going on was out of bounds. Yes, being neighbors will result in some noise, but it also comes with an obligation to keep it to a minimum inside certain hours. If you can't control your kids from making that kid of noise during those hours, you really shouldn't have had them in the first place. You definitely shouldn't have picked a top floor of an apartment building either.
She even said 'call the police' and she cursed out the property manager. What did she think was going to happen? I get loud children during the day but night time and early morning? Absolutely not.
Load More Replies...Not the a*****e at ALL. People who have kids shouldn't be allowed special license to be bad neighbours. Mom should parent better. I know loads of children who grow, play, and exist at tolerable volumes.
3 kids under the age of five. ‘Mom’ shouldn’t have to parent better. ‘Dad’ should assist even if there’s more than one dad and even if he doesn’t live with them. I have one child, now an adult but when she was aged 1-4 she never rearranged the furniture, couldn’t pick up heavy items to drop on the floor and couldn’t stay up for 17 hours a day. You are absolutely right that the person writing this isn’t an arsehole but neither are the children or their mother.
Load More Replies...I think NTA for complaining. It's a bummer fines we're issued. But if she were polite to mgmt, instead if cussing them out, maybe fines wouldn't be issued anyway. However, I lived in a similar situation where I WAS the top floor neighbor. I bought a condo, top floor. 15 yrs later I got married, had my 1st kid. A new woman bought the unit below as my son began trying to walk. All the units had hardwood, we laid out soft rugs. But my son, with 50% weight and height percentile, had a 90th percentile head. So this boy was top heavy, like a tiny walking lollipop! Anyway, for that one year, he would frequently lose balance while toddling around. *THUMP!* multiple times a day, he'd fall and thump that noggin on the floor. She complained daily. We were looking for a house, but the market was BAD! One day I just Said "we're NEVER leaving". She listed her unit for sale that day. By the time the buyer moved in, my son walked just fine. No more thumps, no complaints. Then we moved anyway. Ha!
We're hearing only one bell here so I'll take it with a grain of salt. Anyway, if it's really that noisy, especially during quiet hours, like very early in the morning, she has every rights to complain. During the day she should tolerate the noise a little more, but at night? Nope. The neighbor needs to curb her kids and teach them about respect. Kids behaving erratically will become adults who behave erratically. That being said, to those who say "if you don't like it, move!": well, nobody should move out their house because of three badly educated kids, what the heck! She's not asking for the moon, she just want to sleep at night. Also, you could say the same thing to her: if you want your kids to run, play and make noise freely, YOU should move to a remote house in the country with no neighbors 🤷♀️. And I'll add that here in Italy, most condos have rules regarding the noise; in some you aren't even allowed to use the washing machine or vacuum after 8 pm!
My former landlords gave outlets to their three active boys: some bars in the house that they could climb and swing from. We rarely had a noise problem, other than a week of one kid screaming early in the morning because the oldest was being an a*****e.
Load More Replies..." You shouldn´t of had them." God, how much I hate that part of the whole thing. the "of" has no business being in this part of the sentence.
Lol. How bout "shoulda aint had 'em?" Does that just sound like nails on a chalkboard to you? Me too, Rene Sauer...me too.
Load More Replies...I empathize because I’ve been her before. I once lived under someone who had 5-7 kids. I don’t know the exact amount, but it sounded like I lived under a jungle gym. I complained within days of moving and had to continually complain on them because the noise was over the top. I ended up switching apartments because I couldn’t take it anymore. I was woken up and bothered all hours of the day and night. I wish people who had a bunch of kids would request a bottom floor apartment just so they wouldn’t bother people under them, but I know that’s not always within their control.
On what planet is she the AH? Wtf?! There's zero reason she gets fined if what was going on was out of bounds. Yes, being neighbors will result in some noise, but it also comes with an obligation to keep it to a minimum inside certain hours. If you can't control your kids from making that kid of noise during those hours, you really shouldn't have had them in the first place. You definitely shouldn't have picked a top floor of an apartment building either.
She even said 'call the police' and she cursed out the property manager. What did she think was going to happen? I get loud children during the day but night time and early morning? Absolutely not.
Load More Replies...Not the a*****e at ALL. People who have kids shouldn't be allowed special license to be bad neighbours. Mom should parent better. I know loads of children who grow, play, and exist at tolerable volumes.
3 kids under the age of five. ‘Mom’ shouldn’t have to parent better. ‘Dad’ should assist even if there’s more than one dad and even if he doesn’t live with them. I have one child, now an adult but when she was aged 1-4 she never rearranged the furniture, couldn’t pick up heavy items to drop on the floor and couldn’t stay up for 17 hours a day. You are absolutely right that the person writing this isn’t an arsehole but neither are the children or their mother.
Load More Replies...I think NTA for complaining. It's a bummer fines we're issued. But if she were polite to mgmt, instead if cussing them out, maybe fines wouldn't be issued anyway. However, I lived in a similar situation where I WAS the top floor neighbor. I bought a condo, top floor. 15 yrs later I got married, had my 1st kid. A new woman bought the unit below as my son began trying to walk. All the units had hardwood, we laid out soft rugs. But my son, with 50% weight and height percentile, had a 90th percentile head. So this boy was top heavy, like a tiny walking lollipop! Anyway, for that one year, he would frequently lose balance while toddling around. *THUMP!* multiple times a day, he'd fall and thump that noggin on the floor. She complained daily. We were looking for a house, but the market was BAD! One day I just Said "we're NEVER leaving". She listed her unit for sale that day. By the time the buyer moved in, my son walked just fine. No more thumps, no complaints. Then we moved anyway. Ha!













































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