Dear Honey & Vinegar: Annoyed and Surveilled (?)

Dear Honey and Vinegar,

I live in a house that’s been divided into multiple one-bedroom apartments. The thing is, my upstairs neighbors are SO LOUD. They are always dropping things, moving furniture, playing music and TV at an unreasonably loud level. On more than one occasion, they’ve set an alarm on their Alexa speaker (is it listening to me too?) and it goes off for hours during the day while they’re not home to disable it. Should I confront them? Or just deal with it?

Sincerely,

Annoyed and Surveilled(?)


Dear Annoyed and Surveilled,

I want you to speak to them about this because their actions are disrupting your life and that is unfair to you. Though this does take courage, I would suggest speaking to them in person. This way, you will be able to get your point across better and they will understand that their actions truly affect someone. Being passive-aggressive could make them annoyed and lend themselves to ignoring it; being aggressively confrontational might make them angry and, if they are petty, make them even louder. The best policy is to be honest and respectful. Tell them what you need to but do so in a kind manner. 

I wish you the best of luck in this endeavor. If they are not listening, perhaps Alexa will listen in and you can set an alarm for an ungodly hour where they will wake up. Teehee, I’m just joking! 

Sincerely,

Honey



Dear Alexa,

I have been in your situation more than a few times and it honestly blows. If they are being loud at an unreasonable hour, you need to speak to them first. If it continues, escalate to the landlord. If it STILL persists then I strongly encourage you to use this situation as an exercise in standing up for yourself. You say it’s a house divided up so I don’t know if there is any communal living spaces, but if not:

  1. Leave a note on their door asking for them to be mindful past 9 pm (or whatever time you prefer). Do not be passive aggressive. In my experience it’ll just make things worse.
  2. Bring their landlord into it. Mention how if it is a constant problem you’ll find another place to live, but in a non-threatening way.
  3. If none of this works we get to the petty, fun part of it: Home Warfare. Now this actually won’t help your situation or get them to be quiet but it certainly is fun. I once had a neighbor from hell that my landlord refused to deal with. As an act of revenge and just petty justice I sent them a glitter bomb. They opened it and boom, the place was ruined for at least a week or more. My landlord asked if I had anything to do with it and I denied, denied, denied. I felt good after that, and moved out once the lease was up. 

This is a valuable reminder to never, ever, ever live underneath somebody. It’s better to be the person above than the one down below. 

I won’t harp on your thinking their Alexa is somehow listening to you, but that’s paranoia level 10. I don’t even know how to touch on that part of the message. Their Alexa is not listening to you…I don’t even know how’d that work. So…yeah. 

Whatever you do, don’t you dare just “deal with it.” You don’t have to do anything face-to-face if that makes you uncomfortable, but don’t let them win. I hope this advice helps and that you can get back to normal, quiet living.

Sincerely, 

Vinegar.



e-mail askhoneyandvinegar@kjhk.org