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Thin apartment walls are a recipe for disaster. My co-workers regularly exchange stories about people who do the absolute most and are less than conscious about their noise levels. Just last week, one colleague expressed that he was going to wait outside of his neighbor’s apartment door until she got in from work because he can’t take all of the noise she makes at night. While some of us here in the office found his course of action to be a little extreme, apparently, he’s not the only one who pops up on noisemakers.
Earlier today, I read about a guy whose new neighbor basically came out and asked him to move his bedroom or stop having sex in it because he shares a wall with her son, who can overhear the guy having sex with his boyfriend at night. He apologized and promised to be more conscious about his noise levels, but the woman continued to press him about moving into another bedroom in his apartment. He let her know that wasn’t going to happen, and the next time he had sex with his boyfriend, the woman began banging on his apartment door like a madwoman. She even threatened to contact police.
A new family just moved into the apartment next to mine. At first, everything was fine. Their son was a little noisier than I’d like, but it’s just something to get used to.
About two weeks ago, the mom approached me and took me to the side. She told me that she liked the apartment, everything was fine, except for one thing: her son’s room was next to mine, and he could very obviously hear me having sex with my boyfriend.
I apologized and said I’d try to keep things a little quieter. She told me that she thinks it’s for the best if I move my bedroom, or have sex somewhere else, just in case her son hears. I told her that wasn’t going to happen, but I would definitely try to be more courteous about timing.
Fast forward to this past week. My boyfriend (who lives with me part-time, but is a grad student on the go most of the time, so we don’t always see each other) was over, and we ended up having sex. It was probably 4 in the afternoon. While we’re going at it, there’s a knock on the door. I’m not expecting anyone, so we ignore it, and the knocking continues.
Then comes the shouting. I need to stop, I’m being disgusting, don’t I know there’s a child in the next apartment, I’m a degenerate, I’m a slut, I’m a hooker. She went away eventually, but not after yelling some more.
And then, there was that New York couple we reported on last April. The pair was so loud during their intimate moments that the residents in their apartment building made 133 complaints about their noise levels.
While both of these scenarios are probably extreme situations, I imagine that neighbors in apartment buildings overhear each other doing the nasty more often than they’d like.
Has a neighbor ever complained to you about being too noisy during sex? How did you handle it? Also, have you ever had to complain to a neighbor because you overheard their bedroom activity?
