Why Apartment Living Stinks

Okay, so we're on the 3rd (and top) floor of our apartment building. It's a beautiful complex in a great neighborhood, and generally we're really happy to be here. Especially knowing that people in our old neighborhood in CA are paying $200 more a month for a smaller place with fewer amenities.

Now, on to the part that sucks. We have relatively new neighbors living downstairs. They have 2 little girls, ages 5 and 3. Hoping they would be sympathetic to a woman with 3 young children, I introduced myself when they moved in and appologized in advance for any noise we might make. I also told them that if we were noisy, to please let us know and we'd do everything in our power to correct the problem. Nice, right? I thought so.

So, within a month we had a noise complaint. Last night, we got another one. The woman at the office said that the complaint was that my "children were running around until after midnight." Huh? What kind of mother does she think I am? I did let my children stay up until 10. We'd just gotten back from California (so in their minds it was still 8) and I wanted them to kiss daddy goodnight, since they hadn't seen him in a week! We were up a little bit longer than that as I wanted to unpack a bit, But then we got into bed to watch the first episode of "Sliders" on DVD (which is awesome by the way). I told the woman in the office that the complaint made against us was physically impossible and did not appologize.

Here is the letter that my hormones are driving me to write, but my good sense is keeping online:

Dear Neighbor:

I understand you think we are the kind of parents who allow our children to stay up past midnight. You are wrong. I tried to be nice when you moved in, even asked that if you had a problem you come and speak to us. A request you have ignored. Last night we had come back from a trip to California and were up slightly later than usual, but we were hardly noisy. In fact we're rarely noisy. We don't have parties, we don't play loud music. I am constantly reminding my children to move with gentle feet. Although now I have an overwhelming desire to wake them in the night soley to jump on your ceiling. So, forgive us for living in our own apartment. Forgive us for walking, talking, or breathing if that bothers you. But my best advice for you is to move. If you don't like living with other people who make small amounts of noise during the course of daily living, perhaps you shouldn't live in an apartment. As for me, I'm pregnant again. With the extra 50 lbs. I'll probably put on, I'm sure my steps will only become louder. Couple that with pregnancy insomnia and I could be keeping you up nights. I might try to keep it down and play the ballerina hippo from the cartoon, but considering the two of you have been complete jerks, I think it highly unlikely that at this point I would do anything to make your lives better.

Sincerely,

Your Upstairs Neigbor

Hmmm...think it's too much?