So right before Christmas, I got new neighbors. This is the fourth tenant that's lived in that apartment since I moved into the building and I never had an issue with a single one of them. Now obviously, one of the hazards of apartment living is that you will hear things through the walls. It happens, but if everyone is courteous about it, it doesn't have to be a problem. I try not to play music, or do anything loud really, between 10 pm and 9 am. Because that's when people are asleep. I feel like that is a pretty generally accepted rule. Don't be crazy-loud at night.
My new neighbors don't seem to share this notion.
A thing that confuses me is that all of the apartments in my building are one bedroom. Yet my new neighbors are a mom and her son (~10 years old). There are possibly more people living there because I hear multiple voices A LOT. Which makes me feel kind of judgmental. Maybe she's a single mom and can't afford a two-bedroom place. Unfortunately, there is a direct correlation between my benevolence and my quality of sleep. Both of which are running on empty right now.
The biggest problem is the son. His shrill little-kid voice carries through the wall like you would not believe. Also, "bedtime" seems to be a foreign concept to these people. He is routinely up at 1 am yapping on like a deranged monkey.
Last night I was woken up by him delivering a monologue, at volume, about the relative merits of singers like Lil Wayne, Cee Lo, and Jennifer Hudson. You don't even want to know about the shenanigans they get up to in his gym class. I certainly didn't.
Now, I can be confrontational when it is warranted, but I'm not quite sure what to do in this situation. Part of the problem is that when I get woken up abruptly I kind of come up swinging. So in the throes of my sleep-rage, all I want to do is punch my way through the wall and scream at him to shut up. That is not the best attitude to have when going over to ask someone in the middle of the night to get their kid to be quiet. People are touchy about their children anyway, and diplomacy is not my strong suit when I'm in that mood.
I could go over at some other point during the day or in the morning, but my more rational side argues that the kid is just talking (albeit loudly) and I can't very well enforce a bedtime on a kid that doesn't happen to belong to me.
That doesn't make it any less infuriating, however, when I'm forced to go sleep on the couch because some yammering child seems to be yelling through the wall directly at my head. I genuinely started thinking about rearranging my bedroom so that the bed isn't on the wall that I share with their apartment. But then, I like the way my apartment is. I shouldn't have to change everything around just so I can actually sleep through the night, right? Surely that can't be unreasonable.
