[malgorium]

I've been living in apartments/condos since 2000, and I've never really considered myself overly noise sensitive... that is, until I moved into this condo in 2008. Bear with me, because this is a little long:

I found soon after I moved in that my neighbor had a son who had his bedroom next to our adjoining wall, and he would play the drums, which is just about the loudest instrument possible. We fought about this quite a bit until I finally called the police, and I haven't heard any drumming since. It goes without saying though that those neighbors and I are not on good terms.

Even though the drumming has stopped, I found I'd developed a level of noise anxiety I've never had. Any noise coming from their unit would bother me. If I heard them in the corridor, I would get anxious. If I heard that son just jumping around a bit or making noise that I could hear, I would get anxious. No sane person would ever consider the noises I hear to be malicious in any way, but they still gave me anxiety attacks... and it was about to get worse.

The way my condo is situated, my living is above the garage of another unit. The owners of that unit are a very nice couple, and I got along with them fine, and we've never had any problems. However, they recently moved out and rented their unit to the brother-in-law of my neighbor. We haven't had any interactions, but I'm pretty sure that since they're related to my neighbors, they can't be too fond of me neither.

But now when these new neighbors use their garage and I hear their car doors close and other random thuds, I can feel my heart rate go up and I get anxious. Again, they're not doing anything deliberately malicious, but any noise related to them just gets me going (e.g. if I can hear their voices in the hall, or hear their screen door slamming, etc etc).

The thing is, I know this is an issue with me because when garage downstairs belonged to the previous owners (the ones I got along with), I never thought twice about it. Also, when I hear other neighbors go on with their lives and make random noises, it doesn't affect me at all. It's the fact that my formerly drum-playing neighbors and I are on such bad terms that it's coloring everything they do as possibly malicious, and putting me on a constant state of anticipation.

What can I do to snap myself out of this state? I hate dreading having to come home.

[AnotherDayDown]

I have the same problem I bet it would help to talk to a therapist about it, but that is something I haven't done either.

[unaluna]

It might be possible to turn it around. I got off on the wrong foot with one of my new neighbors, after being tortured by both previous ones (one was a nurse on shift work, who expected me to magically guess when she was (actually!) sleeping. A lot of times I had NO PROBLEM figuring out she was in bed!). Anyway, new neighbor moved in during the summer, and promptly started going in and out the balcony door (slam slam slam) like a dam cat, yakking at the top of his lungs on his cell phone, and the sound just CARRIES here. I lost it and yelled at him before I even knew his name. But I later apologized, and thru various elevator encounters, he has gotten to see the REAL me, I think? and learn I am not really such a hag, and we are pretty friendly now, considering I am old enough to be his grandmama. So - maybe the brother-in-law is more afraid of you, than you are of him? They can't possibly have thought they were really going to get away with the drum playing. The parents are probably thanking YOU, they just made you the fall guy. Hmm, I'm starting to think I should get a job as a spin doctor!

[malgorium]

Originally Posted by hankster

They can't possibly have thought they were really going to get away with the drum playing. The parents are probably thanking YOU, they just made you the fall guy. Hmm, I'm starting to think I should get a job as a spin doctor!

Oh, that's the part I couldn't believe either. Their defense was essentially made up of two parts: 1) "Well the tenants in your unit before you never complained, so you shouldn't either." and 2) "Well he's only playing during the daylight hours"

They're renters so I found out the number to their landlord and called him, and I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised to know that he was completely on their side. I can understand why an idiot kid would think it's ok to drum, but 3 different adults? Sigh... I guess that's what I hate society

[malgorium]

The funny thing is I'd feel less crazy if they were making MORE noise... after I called the police and the drumming stopped, they don't really make any more noise than anyone else just living their daily lives. But because I have such bad blood with them, any little sound I hear from them makes my heart start racing and my blood start boiling, and I know it shouldn't. In the past, when I lived in an apartment and got along well with my neighbors, I wouldn't even notice the sounds they made because it didn't bother me at all.

Maybe I need to seriously look into therapy...

[AnotherDayDown]

I know this doesn't help, but I think my neighbor is a prositute and drug addict and her "clients" are teenage boys, who think they are adults because they smoke. They have a big dumb pit bull. But, I can't really complain. No one is louder than "normal living noises."