As both luck and irony would have it, we have become the "upstairs neighbors."
Andrew, Brooklyn and I hadn't occupied our new Jersey City apartment for three days before there was a knock on our door. Our sitter, Gina, was home with Brooklyn at the time and took a message through the cracked door for us.
"The neighbor downstairs came up today and asked that we keep it down up here," she informed me when I arrived home that evening. "He said it's too loud up here and he can't concentrate."
My stomach dropped. I was surprised...and a little angry.
"What does he mean, 'keep it down?'" I asked. "We're the quietest tenants ever."
"Apparently he can hear us up here every time we move. He complained about Brooklyn walking around up here, saying it was too loud and if we could keep her from running around when he's sleeping that would be preferable. I just told him I'd pass on the message to you."
Great. I envisioned the next year being spent in misery as we tiptoe around in fleece socks and speak only in whispers....
"Brooklyn, put down your blocks and get in your new padded cage now, the charming pitter-patter of your tiny feet is making too much noise for the downstairs neighbor to bear as he gets his beauty sleep until 4pm. Oh, hi visitors, I need to ask you to remove your shoes and wear these slippers and if you could keep your voice at a steady 30 decibels or lower, that'd be great, thanks. Also, if you need to fart, cough, or sneeze, please do so into this designated noise-dampening pillow."
I stewed for the next couple of hours. We weren't even close to being noisy up here...most certainly not like our old upstairs neighbors (see the clog dancers entry below). Hell, we weren't even a quarter as noisy as they were. And as loud as those neighbors were, I never dared tell them to keep their kids quiet. You simply don't put a cap on how much noise is appropriate for a family with young kids, unless you have proof that they're deliberately trying to be loud and make you miserable...or jumping off of chairs and clog dancing past midnight.
When Andrew arrived home from work later that evening, I filled him in on the news, being careful to keep my voice low. If Brooklyn walking through the apartment was too loud for this guy to handle, who knew if he could hear our conversations. Andrew was not so careful.
"Who the fuck does this guy think he is?" he blasted. "Brooklyn is one year old! One! What are we supposed to do? Lock her in a cage and yell at her every time she drops a toy?"
"Keep your voice down, Andrew," I scolded, "I don't want to start anything with this guy. A bad neighbor can make our lives miserable. Promise me if you see him, you'll be polite."
Grudgingly, he agreed.
It turns out he would have to practice his politeness skills a little sooner than either of us expected. At 7am the following morning, there was a knock on our door. Andrew, who had been up for no more than 5 minutes with Brooklyn, sidled up to the door wearing only his underwear. I hadn't been able to pull myself out of bed yet, so I can only imagine the groggy death stare Andrew probably had on his face when opening the door. I heard him utter a few words before shutting the door.
"Who was that?" I called from my pillow.
"Who do you think?"
"Ugh. What now?"
"He's complaining about Brooklyn running around up here. He said it's too early for all the noise and asked if we could keep it down, especially in the mornings."
My stomach sank again. Brooklyn's feet hadn't touched the floor for more than a few minutes and he was at our door lickety-split, ready to pounce.
"What'd you say to him?" ("Were you polite?" my tone implied.)
"Not much. I just said that she's a baby and it's hard to tell her anything, but we'd do our best."
Relieved that Andrew hadn't unleashed his temper on the guy, I figured we could at least make more effort on our part to perhaps keep her hard toys out of reach for the first hour of the morning and distract her with books and breakfast to keep the running around to a minimum. It was annoying to feel like every move was being amplified, but having just escaped noisy lower-floor living, I understood.
That is, until I spoke with the landlord later that day.
I had stayed home for part of that day for a cable appointment. The cable guy needed access to the lines in the basement, so I had to call Brian, our landlord, to figure out where those were. He verified their location and just as I was getting ready to hang up, Brian said,
"Oh, by the way..."
Somehow, I knew what he was going to say and had to quickly muffle an involuntary snort.
"I wasn't even going to mention this to you because it's really not a big deal and it's something he can talk to you about himself, but your neighbor downstairs just called and said something about it being really noisy up there. Now, I'm sure you guys are fine. Maybe he's just hearing your little girl. I have my own kids and I know there's not much you can do about them making noise, but I just thought you might like to know that he contacted me about it, in case he hasn't said anything to you yet. He's a really nice guy, though. Maybe you can go down and talk to him."
My jaw clenched. I thanked Brian through gritted teeth and got off the phone. I was livid. It was not easy to hear this after I'd spent all morning meticulously combing the floors for Brooklyn's hard toys and keeping her occupied with quieter activities. This was the third time in less than 24 hours I had been informed of the downstairs douche's supersonic hearing and my penchant for politeness was dangerously frayed. I didn't want to tell Andrew. He is far less concerned about politeness than I am when someone angers him and won't think twice about telling that person off. Regardless, he heard the strain in my voice when I spoke to him on the phone later that day and he pulled it out of me.
Later that night, I rang the intercom buzzer to be let in the door since I had left my keys with Gina. Andrew answered.
"Yeah?" Despite static crackling in the intercom, his menacing tone could not be disguised.
"Honey, it's me. Let me up."
I dragged my feet heading upstairs, speeding up only as I passed apartment 2, Douchebag Habitat. I already knew what news was waiting for me at the top of the stairs.
"The asshole came again."
"Hello to you, too." I said kissing Andrew as I squeezed past him through the front door.
"I wasn't home for one minute and I knew, I just KNEW he was going to come up! This is his fourth fucking visit. Unbelievable." He was launching into a full blown tirade.
I sighed.
"What'd you say to him?"
"Well, I swung open the damn door so he could see Brooklyn and told him to go ahead and try telling a one-year-old to be quiet. He kept saying some bullshit about how he deserves to live in a noise-free environment. I told him we'd be happy to trade apartments if he'd like to fund the move. He just turned on his heel and stormed back downstairs."
I had a feeling I'd eventually be on damage-control, but despite that expectation I was no more ready to face the beast. I was pissed, too, but knew that if I didn't smooth out the situation now, it would only get worse. Andrew may not have regretted his approach, but that didn't mean it didn't bother him to be at odds with a neighbor, so when I told him I was headed down to talk to the guy he didn't argue; he looked slightly relieved. I took five minutes to calm my nerves as much as possible and then ventured down the stairs. I knocked.
There was some frantic shuffling from somewhere deep in the apartment and then the sound of floor boards slowly creaking as he quite obviously was creeping up to the door to sneak a look through the peep hole. I did my best to look as nonthreatening as possible, standing there hands folded behind my back, friendly smile playing lightly on the corners of my mouth, eyes focused away from the peep hole. La la la, harmless neighbor here, just stopping by to blow some sunshine up your ass.
As I waited, I tried to imagine what he must look like and could only conjure up images of a neurotic balding older European man-child who's wardrobe consisted exclusively of Burberry slippers and turtle necks that he wore religiously to hide his weak chin. I could just picture him listening to Bach on vinyl and waving his finger in exaggerated conductor-like motions, eyes closed, his grotesque shiny head swaying in time with the symphonies...
The door cracked open slightly, just enough for a head to poke through. After a small pause, the neighbor's face appeared from behind the door.
"Yes?" he asked, his face both tense and skeptical. He looked nothing like I had envisioned. He was a young black man with stylish glasses, dressed casually in jeans and a button-up, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. Imaginary turtle-neck dweeb wouldn't have dreamed of wearing denim or putting any creases in his starched sleeves. I noticed the apartment behind the neighbor was pitch black and for a moment I worried that I may have awakened him. Fantastic.
Affecting the most cheery tone of voice I could muster, I extended my arm forward and shot my hand right through the darkness beyond the door frame, "Hi, I'm your neighbor from upstairs, Ruth. It's so nice to meet you."
"Oh, hi..." he said meekly before hesitantly opening the door a little wider and weakly shaking my hand.
Leaving no room for awkward pause, I launched right in:
"Listen, I want to apologize for all the noise you've been hearing upstairs. I won't apologize for my husband. He's a big boy and can do that for himself if he decides to, but he was just on-edge today and you came at a bad time. Anyway, just so you know we both really do care and we're doing everything we can to dampen the noise."
To my surprise, rather than begin to snivel about the issue and how the situation had been addressed on the part of my gruff husband, he visibly relaxed, opened the door wide, and smiled. Despite his strange initial approach (4 times in 24 hours), this time he very gracefully explained what he was hearing and what times he preferred things to be a little more quiet. We hashed things out, both of us conceding a little to satisfy the other's schedule. It was clear that we were both going to walk away satisfied, so we eventually changed the subject and made friendly small talk.
As we were wrapping up our talk, and just as I was relishing in the fact that it had, overall, been an awkward-free, and dare-I-say, pleasant, conversation, my eyes were suddenly and inexplicably drawn to the crotch of his pants. There they landed with horror on his gaping, wide-open fly and the thin stretch of underwear that very poorly concealed his junk. I instantly diverted my gaze at the very same second that he realized I had just received an eyeful of information one doesn't normally get when meeting their neighbor for the first time...or any time thereafter. He took a not-so-discreet step back behind the door to shield his lower half and extended his hand in a hasty gesture of goodbye, which I grasped weakly this time.We said goodbye. I walked back upstairs, shut the door quietly, and washed my hands. Twice.
We haven't heard from him again.
