If you wanted to legally and safely annoy an apartment neighbor,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you like them? Are you prejudiced? Did they wrong you somehow? If they’re not doing these kind of things to you, why can’t you get along? Perhaps you’re not cut out for living with a shared wall.

They don't like me, and it is rooted in prejudice. They say nasty things about me to all our neighbors and never speak to me and glare at me whenever I see them. It makes me uncomfortable but there is nothing they have technically done to me. But I'd like to make it unpleasant for them to live there until they move. There are several reasons why they probably don't like living here, I'd just like to help them along and hopefully get a neighbor there who is less hostile towards me. They make me uneasy.

Sounds to me like they know who they are dealing with. You are a devious and vindictive person. They probably should be wary of you and warn their neighbors.

Comments like this are bonkers. You don't know any of the people involved! Probably you are projecting your own experiences with neighbors in the past onto this thread and drawing silly conclusions.

What? The op was literally asking for tips on how to be a jerk in a sneaky way with the explicit goal to force their neighbor to move. There is never a justifiable reason to act in such a way. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this childish attitude is also apparent to her own neighbor.

But she wants the neighbor to move because he is badmouthing her around the building and treats her poorly. That's actually a pretty reasonable reason to want someone to move away, especially if you've lived there a longtime. And OP specified "legal and safe." So she's not trying to harass the neighbors, just make them think "you know what, this is not the place for us."

I don't see why OP should have to put up with neighbors who treat her badly and try to ruin her reputation in the building. Their behavior sounds really nuts. I do think OP is justified in wanting to annoy them out of the building if she can find a way to do it carefully so it doesn't result in blowback on her.

Wanting someone to move is reasonable. Purposefully plotting to annoy them is not. Annoying a neighbor intentionally with the goal of making them move away is clearly harassment. Trying to manipulate people without facing any “blowback” is antisocial behavior. I am amazed (but probably shouldn’t be) that so many nasty and manipulative people there are!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you like them? Are you prejudiced? Did they wrong you somehow? If they’re not doing these kind of things to you, why can’t you get along? Perhaps you’re not cut out for living with a shared wall.

They don't like me, and it is rooted in prejudice. They say nasty things about me to all our neighbors and never speak to me and glare at me whenever I see them. It makes me uncomfortable but there is nothing they have technically done to me. But I'd like to make it unpleasant for them to live there until they move. There are several reasons why they probably don't like living here, I'd just like to help them along and hopefully get a neighbor there who is less hostile towards me. They make me uneasy.

Sounds to me like they know who they are dealing with. You are a devious and vindictive person. They probably should be wary of you and warn their neighbors.

Comments like this are bonkers. You don't know any of the people involved! Probably you are projecting your own experiences with neighbors in the past onto this thread and drawing silly conclusions.

What? The op was literally asking for tips on how to be a jerk in a sneaky way with the explicit goal to force their neighbor to move. There is never a justifiable reason to act in such a way. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this childish attitude is also apparent to her own neighbor.

But she wants the neighbor to move because he is badmouthing her around the building and treats her poorly. That's actually a pretty reasonable reason to want someone to move away, especially if you've lived there a longtime. And OP specified "legal and safe." So she's not trying to harass the neighbors, just make them think "you know what, this is not the place for us."

I don't see why OP should have to put up with neighbors who treat her badly and try to ruin her reputation in the building. Their behavior sounds really nuts. I do think OP is justified in wanting to annoy them out of the building if she can find a way to do it carefully so it doesn't result in blowback on her.

Wanting someone to move is reasonable. Purposefully plotting to annoy them is not. Annoying a neighbor intentionally with the goal of making them move away is clearly harassment. Trying to manipulate people without facing any “blowback” is antisocial behavior. I am amazed (but probably shouldn’t be) that so many nasty and manipulative people there are!

Eh, it's more complicated than that.

Say you were Indian American, and you had a neighbor who hated you because of a racial prejudice (just assume for the sake of the hypothetical, you know for sure that they hate you for your race/ethnicity). In this situation, I would cook delicious curries three days a week, throw a big Diwali party, decorate my doors and windows with some traditional Indian decor (assuming compliance with building rules), listen to Indian pop music and watch Bollywood music (not too loudly, but I might tick the volume up one smidge louder than I normally would). Is this harassment? Or is it living my life in a way that is going to annoy the racist in unit 4C, in the hopes that he moves the heck out? I think the latter.

Another one. Say you have kids, and then someone moves in downstairs how HATES kids. You've lived in the building since before your kids were born, but suddenly the new neighbor is constantly complaining that the building should rip out the play area in the complex and put in a dog run instead, that kids should be banned from the community pool after 4pm, and complains any time your kids speak above a whisper or make any noise at all in common areas. In this situation, knowing that I'm protected by federal law that makes it illegal to discriminate in housing based on family status, I think my kids would suddenly get really into gymnastics, and I'd be enrolling them in piano AND drum lessons. And tap, I think my kids now do tap. Is that harassment? I don't think it is.

That's the situation here. The neighbor has a prejudice against single women over a certain age. He's made disparaging comments about her to neighbors. He's hostile. The way I'd handle it would be to live my single, professional lady life to the hilt. Dinner parties every weekend, I'm playing Chaka Khan and popping champagne for myself on a Tuesday night because I can, leaning in hard on the fact that as a single woman of a certain age, I have the means and freedom to do what I want. Will your building let you paint your door? Paint it hot pink and hang a leopard print door knocker. If not, I'd invest in a rotating series of loud, obnoxious door wreaths (neon rainbow for Pride month, bright pink Eiffel towers for the Paris Olympics -- Etsy is your friend here). Is this harassment? No! It is leaning in hard on an identity that is annoying a small-minded, controlling little ahole who doesn't know how to live in close quarters with a wide variety of people. Too bad for him, that's what it means to live in a condo. I'd lean in.

None of this is harassment. It's a little petty, but I would take petty over a prejudiced jerk any day. I'd have fun with it. What I would not do is accept that my craptastic neighbor gets to run around the building saying nasty things about me even if I've never been anything but friendly and polity, and ruin my enjoyment of my home. No way. You want to live in a condo building, you're going to have to deal with your neighbors and learn to live and let live. This guy 100% needs to learn that lesson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say don’t do harrass your neighbor OP. The last time I lived in an apartment I had a neighbor harrass me. My bedroom shared a wall with her and her husband. She would bang on my wall or leave nasty notes on my door that she could hear me having sex all night. Honestly, I was trying to be quiet and even rearranged my room to make it less noisy. It felt like she just really had it in for me and would even sneer at me in the hallway. Her husband always seemed super nice though. I felt bad for him.

Was she harassing you or were you having really loud sex all the time and she left you notes to let you know it was disturbing her?

Leaving a note for a neighbor that they are doing something that is causing a noise disturbance is not "harassment." Did the notes call you names or disparage you in any way? Or did they just inform you that she could hear your sex sessions through the wall and it was louder or longer in duration than she thought was appropriate in a shared building? It might be irritating to you, but I expect your loud sex was also irritating to her. It is not a reflection of her "having it in" for you, it was likely because she didn't like you due to the loud sex that was disturbing her sleep and her enjoyment of her home.

People are using the term "harassment" really liberally on this thread. Harassment is not just any interaction you don't like. Harassment is unprovoked behavior that intimidates or pressures a person. Generally harassing behaviors need to be repeated. So a note regarding something loud or irritating you are doing in your apartment is not harassment. Hanging wind chimes or ugly decor outside your apartment might constitute a nuisance (especially if they create a noise disturbance or violate building rules) but is not harassment.

Nasty looks probably could never rise to the level of harassment -- it's too hard for a look to be defined as threatening or intimidating (and some people's faces just look like that). They'd have to actually DO something. Yelling at you, making threatening or intimidating gestures, making repeated unprovoked demands -- these would be harassment.

I do think that starting a whisper campaign about someone in the building could be considered harassment, especially if they were spreading rumors that were untrue and very disparaging. Or simply making lots of disparaging remarks (that you are ugly or stupid, for instance) to neighbors. There are laws about libel and slander, of course, but there are also private causes of action regarding damage to someone's reputation. So if someone was being excessive about this behavior, it could rise to the level of harassment. It's tricky though because it could be hard to prove. But certainly I wouldn't want to live in a building with someone who was regularly saying nasty things about me to my neighbors, especially if the things they said were untrue or unfairly damaged my reputation.

Yes, we probably had some long sessions but it wasn’t like it was way into the night. And,yes some of her notes were calling me names and saying stuff like “You sound like a sl*t”.

And by the way, I didn’t just rearrange my bedroom, I also took apart my bed and did everything I could to make it as quiet and squeek-free as possible. It made me feel like I couldn’t enjoy my own apartment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say don’t do harrass your neighbor OP. The last time I lived in an apartment I had a neighbor harrass me. My bedroom shared a wall with her and her husband. She would bang on my wall or leave nasty notes on my door that she could hear me having sex all night. Honestly, I was trying to be quiet and even rearranged my room to make it less noisy. It felt like she just really had it in for me and would even sneer at me in the hallway. Her husband always seemed super nice though. I felt bad for him.

Was she harassing you or were you having really loud sex all the time and she left you notes to let you know it was disturbing her?

Leaving a note for a neighbor that they are doing something that is causing a noise disturbance is not "harassment." Did the notes call you names or disparage you in any way? Or did they just inform you that she could hear your sex sessions through the wall and it was louder or longer in duration than she thought was appropriate in a shared building? It might be irritating to you, but I expect your loud sex was also irritating to her. It is not a reflection of her "having it in" for you, it was likely because she didn't like you due to the loud sex that was disturbing her sleep and her enjoyment of her home.

People are using the term "harassment" really liberally on this thread. Harassment is not just any interaction you don't like. Harassment is unprovoked behavior that intimidates or pressures a person. Generally harassing behaviors need to be repeated. So a note regarding something loud or irritating you are doing in your apartment is not harassment. Hanging wind chimes or ugly decor outside your apartment might constitute a nuisance (especially if they create a noise disturbance or violate building rules) but is not harassment.

Nasty looks probably could never rise to the level of harassment -- it's too hard for a look to be defined as threatening or intimidating (and some people's faces just look like that). They'd have to actually DO something. Yelling at you, making threatening or intimidating gestures, making repeated unprovoked demands -- these would be harassment.

I do think that starting a whisper campaign about someone in the building could be considered harassment, especially if they were spreading rumors that were untrue and very disparaging. Or simply making lots of disparaging remarks (that you are ugly or stupid, for instance) to neighbors. There are laws about libel and slander, of course, but there are also private causes of action regarding damage to someone's reputation. So if someone was being excessive about this behavior, it could rise to the level of harassment. It's tricky though because it could be hard to prove. But certainly I wouldn't want to live in a building with someone who was regularly saying nasty things about me to my neighbors, especially if the things they said were untrue or unfairly damaged my reputation.

Yes, we probably had some long sessions but it wasn’t like it was way into the night. And,yes some of her notes were calling me names and saying stuff like “You sound like a sl*t”.

And by the way, I didn’t just rearrange my bedroom, I also took apart my bed and did everything I could to make it as quiet and squeek-free as possible. It made me feel like I couldn’t enjoy my own apartment.

Namecalling is totally unacceptable but ugh, listening to other people having sex is absolutely miserable. Personally I'd move. Maybe she wanted to and her "nice" husband that you are feeling sorry for insisted they stay.

It sounds like she was rude to you but I really feel bad for her too. I wouldn't want to hear it either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you like them? Are you prejudiced? Did they wrong you somehow? If they’re not doing these kind of things to you, why can’t you get along? Perhaps you’re not cut out for living with a shared wall.

They don't like me, and it is rooted in prejudice. They say nasty things about me to all our neighbors and never speak to me and glare at me whenever I see them. It makes me uncomfortable but there is nothing they have technically done to me. But I'd like to make it unpleasant for them to live there until they move. There are several reasons why they probably don't like living here, I'd just like to help them along and hopefully get a neighbor there who is less hostile towards me. They make me uneasy.

Sounds to me like they know who they are dealing with. You are a devious and vindictive person. They probably should be wary of you and warn their neighbors.

Comments like this are bonkers. You don't know any of the people involved! Probably you are projecting your own experiences with neighbors in the past onto this thread and drawing silly conclusions.

What? The op was literally asking for tips on how to be a jerk in a sneaky way with the explicit goal to force their neighbor to move. There is never a justifiable reason to act in such a way. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this childish attitude is also apparent to her own neighbor.

But she wants the neighbor to move because he is badmouthing her around the building and treats her poorly. That's actually a pretty reasonable reason to want someone to move away, especially if you've lived there a longtime. And OP specified "legal and safe." So she's not trying to harass the neighbors, just make them think "you know what, this is not the place for us."

I don't see why OP should have to put up with neighbors who treat her badly and try to ruin her reputation in the building. Their behavior sounds really nuts. I do think OP is justified in wanting to annoy them out of the building if she can find a way to do it carefully so it doesn't result in blowback on her.

Wanting someone to move is reasonable. Purposefully plotting to annoy them is not. Annoying a neighbor intentionally with the goal of making them move away is clearly harassment. Trying to manipulate people without facing any “blowback” is antisocial behavior. I am amazed (but probably shouldn’t be) that so many nasty and manipulative people there are!

Eh, it's more complicated than that.

Say you were Indian American, and you had a neighbor who hated you because of a racial prejudice (just assume for the sake of the hypothetical, you know for sure that they hate you for your race/ethnicity). In this situation, I would cook delicious curries three days a week, throw a big Diwali party, decorate my doors and windows with some traditional Indian decor (assuming compliance with building rules), listen to Indian pop music and watch Bollywood music (not too loudly, but I might tick the volume up one smidge louder than I normally would). Is this harassment? Or is it living my life in a way that is going to annoy the racist in unit 4C, in the hopes that he moves the heck out? I think the latter.

Another one. Say you have kids, and then someone moves in downstairs how HATES kids. You've lived in the building since before your kids were born, but suddenly the new neighbor is constantly complaining that the building should rip out the play area in the complex and put in a dog run instead, that kids should be banned from the community pool after 4pm, and complains any time your kids speak above a whisper or make any noise at all in common areas. In this situation, knowing that I'm protected by federal law that makes it illegal to discriminate in housing based on family status, I think my kids would suddenly get really into gymnastics, and I'd be enrolling them in piano AND drum lessons. And tap, I think my kids now do tap. Is that harassment? I don't think it is.

That's the situation here. The neighbor has a prejudice against single women over a certain age. He's made disparaging comments about her to neighbors. He's hostile. The way I'd handle it would be to live my single, professional lady life to the hilt. Dinner parties every weekend, I'm playing Chaka Khan and popping champagne for myself on a Tuesday night because I can, leaning in hard on the fact that as a single woman of a certain age, I have the means and freedom to do what I want. Will your building let you paint your door? Paint it hot pink and hang a leopard print door knocker. If not, I'd invest in a rotating series of loud, obnoxious door wreaths (neon rainbow for Pride month, bright pink Eiffel towers for the Paris Olympics -- Etsy is your friend here). Is this harassment? No! It is leaning in hard on an identity that is annoying a small-minded, controlling little ahole who doesn't know how to live in close quarters with a wide variety of people. Too bad for him, that's what it means to live in a condo. I'd lean in.

None of this is harassment. It's a little petty, but I would take petty over a prejudiced jerk any day. I'd have fun with it. What I would not do is accept that my craptastic neighbor gets to run around the building saying nasty things about me even if I've never been anything but friendly and polity, and ruin my enjoyment of my home. No way. You want to live in a condo building, you're going to have to deal with your neighbors and learn to live and let live. This guy 100% needs to learn that lesson.

Wow. You should take your own advice and learn how to live and let live. It is not your job to teach any grown adult a lesson. It wouldn’t work either way. Nobody in history has ever developed less hostile feelings towards a neighbor that is actively harassing them. Like it or not but you can’t control what other people say about you. Psycho drama.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think we do know for sure that the neighbor is badmouthing OP. We've only heard that from her, and what if she is just paranoid or otherwise cognitively compromised? People like to declare that they "know for a fact" on little to no actual, firm evidence.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think we do know for sure that the neighbor is badmouthing OP. We've only heard that from her, and what if she is just paranoid or otherwise cognitively compromised? People like to declare that they "know for a fact" on little to no actual, firm evidence.

DCUM is not the place for "firm evidence." This isn't court. You can either accept an OP's premise or not, but there's zero point in trying to sleuth out "the truth" of a situation if you are skeptical. You won't get it. The neighbor isn't on here and even if he was, he'd almost certainly massage the facts in his favor too.

If you want to weigh in on what she should do, you pretty much have to take what she's offered you here at face value, which is that her neighbor dislikes her personally even though she has not, to her knowledge, done anything to them. And that her neighbor has repeatedly disparaged her to others in the building to the point where they have alerted her to it, and that these comments have included criticism of her being a single, middle-aged, professional woman.

That is the premise. Take it or leave it. I personally believe it because I've encountered people like this before and while I'm married and have a kid, I'm middle aged and have specifically encountered men who took an instant dislike to me because they just had some kind of issue with middle-aged women (mommy issues, probably). I wouldn't want to live next to one either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you like them? Are you prejudiced? Did they wrong you somehow? If they’re not doing these kind of things to you, why can’t you get along? Perhaps you’re not cut out for living with a shared wall.

They don't like me, and it is rooted in prejudice. They say nasty things about me to all our neighbors and never speak to me and glare at me whenever I see them. It makes me uncomfortable but there is nothing they have technically done to me. But I'd like to make it unpleasant for them to live there until they move. There are several reasons why they probably don't like living here, I'd just like to help them along and hopefully get a neighbor there who is less hostile towards me. They make me uneasy.

Sounds to me like they know who they are dealing with. You are a devious and vindictive person. They probably should be wary of you and warn their neighbors.

Comments like this are bonkers. You don't know any of the people involved! Probably you are projecting your own experiences with neighbors in the past onto this thread and drawing silly conclusions.

What? The op was literally asking for tips on how to be a jerk in a sneaky way with the explicit goal to force their neighbor to move. There is never a justifiable reason to act in such a way. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this childish attitude is also apparent to her own neighbor.

But she wants the neighbor to move because he is badmouthing her around the building and treats her poorly. That's actually a pretty reasonable reason to want someone to move away, especially if you've lived there a longtime. And OP specified "legal and safe." So she's not trying to harass the neighbors, just make them think "you know what, this is not the place for us."

I don't see why OP should have to put up with neighbors who treat her badly and try to ruin her reputation in the building. Their behavior sounds really nuts. I do think OP is justified in wanting to annoy them out of the building if she can find a way to do it carefully so it doesn't result in blowback on her.

Wanting someone to move is reasonable. Purposefully plotting to annoy them is not. Annoying a neighbor intentionally with the goal of making them move away is clearly harassment. Trying to manipulate people without facing any “blowback” is antisocial behavior. I am amazed (but probably shouldn’t be) that so many nasty and manipulative people there are!

Eh, it's more complicated than that.

Say you were Indian American, and you had a neighbor who hated you because of a racial prejudice (just assume for the sake of the hypothetical, you know for sure that they hate you for your race/ethnicity). In this situation, I would cook delicious curries three days a week, throw a big Diwali party, decorate my doors and windows with some traditional Indian decor (assuming compliance with building rules), listen to Indian pop music and watch Bollywood music (not too loudly, but I might tick the volume up one smidge louder than I normally would). Is this harassment? Or is it living my life in a way that is going to annoy the racist in unit 4C, in the hopes that he moves the heck out? I think the latter.

Another one. Say you have kids, and then someone moves in downstairs how HATES kids. You've lived in the building since before your kids were born, but suddenly the new neighbor is constantly complaining that the building should rip out the play area in the complex and put in a dog run instead, that kids should be banned from the community pool after 4pm, and complains any time your kids speak above a whisper or make any noise at all in common areas. In this situation, knowing that I'm protected by federal law that makes it illegal to discriminate in housing based on family status, I think my kids would suddenly get really into gymnastics, and I'd be enrolling them in piano AND drum lessons. And tap, I think my kids now do tap. Is that harassment? I don't think it is.

That's the situation here. The neighbor has a prejudice against single women over a certain age. He's made disparaging comments about her to neighbors. He's hostile. The way I'd handle it would be to live my single, professional lady life to the hilt. Dinner parties every weekend, I'm playing Chaka Khan and popping champagne for myself on a Tuesday night because I can, leaning in hard on the fact that as a single woman of a certain age, I have the means and freedom to do what I want. Will your building let you paint your door? Paint it hot pink and hang a leopard print door knocker. If not, I'd invest in a rotating series of loud, obnoxious door wreaths (neon rainbow for Pride month, bright pink Eiffel towers for the Paris Olympics -- Etsy is your friend here). Is this harassment? No! It is leaning in hard on an identity that is annoying a small-minded, controlling little ahole who doesn't know how to live in close quarters with a wide variety of people. Too bad for him, that's what it means to live in a condo. I'd lean in.

None of this is harassment. It's a little petty, but I would take petty over a prejudiced jerk any day. I'd have fun with it. What I would not do is accept that my craptastic neighbor gets to run around the building saying nasty things about me even if I've never been anything but friendly and polity, and ruin my enjoyment of my home. No way. You want to live in a condo building, you're going to have to deal with your neighbors and learn to live and let live. This guy 100% needs to learn that lesson.

Wow. You should take your own advice and learn how to live and let live. It is not your job to teach any grown adult a lesson. It wouldn’t work either way. Nobody in history has ever developed less hostile feelings towards a neighbor that is actively harassing them. Like it or not but you can’t control what other people say about you. Psycho drama.

Honestly, I don’t think I was being loud. At least I was actively trying to be quiet. I don’t want other people to have to listen to me either. There also may have been bias because my bf was black, but she left a number of nasty notes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:why do this? we dont need more bad karma around. really.

+1 hard to believe how some people think, behave, and retaliate

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say don’t do harrass your neighbor OP. The last time I lived in an apartment I had a neighbor harrass me. My bedroom shared a wall with her and her husband. She would bang on my wall or leave nasty notes on my door that she could hear me having sex all night. Honestly, I was trying to be quiet and even rearranged my room to make it less noisy. It felt like she just really had it in for me and would even sneer at me in the hallway. Her husband always seemed super nice though. I felt bad for him.

Was she harassing you or were you having really loud sex all the time and she left you notes to let you know it was disturbing her?

Leaving a note for a neighbor that they are doing something that is causing a noise disturbance is not "harassment." Did the notes call you names or disparage you in any way? Or did they just inform you that she could hear your sex sessions through the wall and it was louder or longer in duration than she thought was appropriate in a shared building? It might be irritating to you, but I expect your loud sex was also irritating to her. It is not a reflection of her "having it in" for you, it was likely because she didn't like you due to the loud sex that was disturbing her sleep and her enjoyment of her home.

People are using the term "harassment" really liberally on this thread. Harassment is not just any interaction you don't like. Harassment is unprovoked behavior that intimidates or pressures a person. Generally harassing behaviors need to be repeated. So a note regarding something loud or irritating you are doing in your apartment is not harassment. Hanging wind chimes or ugly decor outside your apartment might constitute a nuisance (especially if they create a noise disturbance or violate building rules) but is not harassment.

Nasty looks probably could never rise to the level of harassment -- it's too hard for a look to be defined as threatening or intimidating (and some people's faces just look like that). They'd have to actually DO something. Yelling at you, making threatening or intimidating gestures, making repeated unprovoked demands -- these would be harassment.

I do think that starting a whisper campaign about someone in the building could be considered harassment, especially if they were spreading rumors that were untrue and very disparaging. Or simply making lots of disparaging remarks (that you are ugly or stupid, for instance) to neighbors. There are laws about libel and slander, of course, but there are also private causes of action regarding damage to someone's reputation. So if someone was being excessive about this behavior, it could rise to the level of harassment. It's tricky though because it could be hard to prove. But certainly I wouldn't want to live in a building with someone who was regularly saying nasty things about me to my neighbors, especially if the things they said were untrue or unfairly damaged my reputation.

Yes, we probably had some long sessions but it wasn’t like it was way into the night. And,yes some of her notes were calling me names and saying stuff like “You sound like a sl*t”.

And by the way, I didn’t just rearrange my bedroom, I also took apart my bed and did everything I could to make it as quiet and squeek-free as possible. It made me feel like I couldn’t enjoy my own apartment.

Namecalling is totally unacceptable but ugh, listening to other people having sex is absolutely miserable. Personally I'd move. Maybe she wanted to and her "nice" husband that you are feeling sorry for insisted they stay.

It sounds like she was rude to you but I really feel bad for her too. I wouldn't want to hear it either.

Sorry, I replied to the wrong post earlier.

Honestly, I don’t think I was being loud. At least I was actively trying to be quiet. I don’t want other people to have to listen to me either. There also may have been bias because my bf was black, but she left a number of nasty notes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:why do this? we dont need more bad karma around. really.

+1 hard to believe how some people think, behave, and retaliate

In my instance, I never retaliated, complained, etc. I actively tried to make the situation better by rearranging my bedroom and trying to be more quiet. I just feel like she didn’t like me or the guy I was dating (possibly because of his race) and for some reason was just focused on me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you like them? Are you prejudiced? Did they wrong you somehow? If they’re not doing these kind of things to you, why can’t you get along? Perhaps you’re not cut out for living with a shared wall.

They don't like me, and it is rooted in prejudice. They say nasty things about me to all our neighbors and never speak to me and glare at me whenever I see them. It makes me uncomfortable but there is nothing they have technically done to me. But I'd like to make it unpleasant for them to live there until they move. There are several reasons why they probably don't like living here, I'd just like to help them along and hopefully get a neighbor there who is less hostile towards me. They make me uneasy.

Sounds to me like they know who they are dealing with. You are a devious and vindictive person. They probably should be wary of you and warn their neighbors.

Comments like this are bonkers. You don't know any of the people involved! Probably you are projecting your own experiences with neighbors in the past onto this thread and drawing silly conclusions.

What? The op was literally asking for tips on how to be a jerk in a sneaky way with the explicit goal to force their neighbor to move. There is never a justifiable reason to act in such a way. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this childish attitude is also apparent to her own neighbor.

But she wants the neighbor to move because he is badmouthing her around the building and treats her poorly. That's actually a pretty reasonable reason to want someone to move away, especially if you've lived there a longtime. And OP specified "legal and safe." So she's not trying to harass the neighbors, just make them think "you know what, this is not the place for us."

I don't see why OP should have to put up with neighbors who treat her badly and try to ruin her reputation in the building. Their behavior sounds really nuts. I do think OP is justified in wanting to annoy them out of the building if she can find a way to do it carefully so it doesn't result in blowback on her.

Wanting someone to move is reasonable. Purposefully plotting to annoy them is not. Annoying a neighbor intentionally with the goal of making them move away is clearly harassment. Trying to manipulate people without facing any “blowback” is antisocial behavior. I am amazed (but probably shouldn’t be) that so many nasty and manipulative people there are!

Eh, it's more complicated than that.

Say you were Indian American, and you had a neighbor who hated you because of a racial prejudice (just assume for the sake of the hypothetical, you know for sure that they hate you for your race/ethnicity). In this situation, I would cook delicious curries three days a week, throw a big Diwali party, decorate my doors and windows with some traditional Indian decor (assuming compliance with building rules), listen to Indian pop music and watch Bollywood music (not too loudly, but I might tick the volume up one smidge louder than I normally would). Is this harassment? Or is it living my life in a way that is going to annoy the racist in unit 4C, in the hopes that he moves the heck out? I think the latter.

Another one. Say you have kids, and then someone moves in downstairs how HATES kids. You've lived in the building since before your kids were born, but suddenly the new neighbor is constantly complaining that the building should rip out the play area in the complex and put in a dog run instead, that kids should be banned from the community pool after 4pm, and complains any time your kids speak above a whisper or make any noise at all in common areas. In this situation, knowing that I'm protected by federal law that makes it illegal to discriminate in housing based on family status, I think my kids would suddenly get really into gymnastics, and I'd be enrolling them in piano AND drum lessons. And tap, I think my kids now do tap. Is that harassment? I don't think it is.

That's the situation here. The neighbor has a prejudice against single women over a certain age. He's made disparaging comments about her to neighbors. He's hostile. The way I'd handle it would be to live my single, professional lady life to the hilt. Dinner parties every weekend, I'm playing Chaka Khan and popping champagne for myself on a Tuesday night because I can, leaning in hard on the fact that as a single woman of a certain age, I have the means and freedom to do what I want. Will your building let you paint your door? Paint it hot pink and hang a leopard print door knocker. If not, I'd invest in a rotating series of loud, obnoxious door wreaths (neon rainbow for Pride month, bright pink Eiffel towers for the Paris Olympics -- Etsy is your friend here). Is this harassment? No! It is leaning in hard on an identity that is annoying a small-minded, controlling little ahole who doesn't know how to live in close quarters with a wide variety of people. Too bad for him, that's what it means to live in a condo. I'd lean in.

None of this is harassment. It's a little petty, but I would take petty over a prejudiced jerk any day. I'd have fun with it. What I would not do is accept that my craptastic neighbor gets to run around the building saying nasty things about me even if I've never been anything but friendly and polity, and ruin my enjoyment of my home. No way. You want to live in a condo building, you're going to have to deal with your neighbors and learn to live and let live. This guy 100% needs to learn that lesson.

Wow. You should take your own advice and learn how to live and let live. It is not your job to teach any grown adult a lesson. It wouldn’t work either way. Nobody in history has ever developed less hostile feelings towards a neighbor that is actively harassing them. Like it or not but you can’t control what other people say about you. Psycho drama.

It is if it's a lesson they should have learned as a child but didn't. It takes a village, as they say.

[Anonymous]

When I lived in an apartment, a nasty family complained about my dog (it was a dog friendly building) and was rude to my kind, elderly neighbor.

Let’s just say I shifted my vacuuming schedule around their baby’s naptime and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I lived in an apartment, a nasty family complained about my dog (it was a dog friendly building) and was rude to my kind, elderly neighbor.

Let’s just say I shifted my vacuuming schedule around their baby’s naptime and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

I support this.

When it comes to communal living, there's that old adage: f**k around and find out. If you're a jerk to others, don't be surprised when they dish it right back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you like them? Are you prejudiced? Did they wrong you somehow? If they’re not doing these kind of things to you, why can’t you get along? Perhaps you’re not cut out for living with a shared wall.

They don't like me, and it is rooted in prejudice. They say nasty things about me to all our neighbors and never speak to me and glare at me whenever I see them. It makes me uncomfortable but there is nothing they have technically done to me. But I'd like to make it unpleasant for them to live there until they move. There are several reasons why they probably don't like living here, I'd just like to help them along and hopefully get a neighbor there who is less hostile towards me. They make me uneasy.

Sounds to me like they know who they are dealing with. You are a devious and vindictive person. They probably should be wary of you and warn their neighbors.

Comments like this are bonkers. You don't know any of the people involved! Probably you are projecting your own experiences with neighbors in the past onto this thread and drawing silly conclusions.

What? The op was literally asking for tips on how to be a jerk in a sneaky way with the explicit goal to force their neighbor to move. There is never a justifiable reason to act in such a way. I think it is reasonable to conclude that this childish attitude is also apparent to her own neighbor.

But she wants the neighbor to move because he is badmouthing her around the building and treats her poorly. That's actually a pretty reasonable reason to want someone to move away, especially if you've lived there a longtime. And OP specified "legal and safe." So she's not trying to harass the neighbors, just make them think "you know what, this is not the place for us."

I don't see why OP should have to put up with neighbors who treat her badly and try to ruin her reputation in the building. Their behavior sounds really nuts. I do think OP is justified in wanting to annoy them out of the building if she can find a way to do it carefully so it doesn't result in blowback on her.

Wanting someone to move is reasonable. Purposefully plotting to annoy them is not. Annoying a neighbor intentionally with the goal of making them move away is clearly harassment. Trying to manipulate people without facing any “blowback” is antisocial behavior. I am amazed (but probably shouldn’t be) that so many nasty and manipulative people there are!

Eh, it's more complicated than that.

Say you were Indian American, and you had a neighbor who hated you because of a racial prejudice (just assume for the sake of the hypothetical, you know for sure that they hate you for your race/ethnicity). In this situation, I would cook delicious curries three days a week, throw a big Diwali party, decorate my doors and windows with some traditional Indian decor (assuming compliance with building rules), listen to Indian pop music and watch Bollywood music (not too loudly, but I might tick the volume up one smidge louder than I normally would). Is this harassment? Or is it living my life in a way that is going to annoy the racist in unit 4C, in the hopes that he moves the heck out? I think the latter.

Another one. Say you have kids, and then someone moves in downstairs how HATES kids. You've lived in the building since before your kids were born, but suddenly the new neighbor is constantly complaining that the building should rip out the play area in the complex and put in a dog run instead, that kids should be banned from the community pool after 4pm, and complains any time your kids speak above a whisper or make any noise at all in common areas. In this situation, knowing that I'm protected by federal law that makes it illegal to discriminate in housing based on family status, I think my kids would suddenly get really into gymnastics, and I'd be enrolling them in piano AND drum lessons. And tap, I think my kids now do tap. Is that harassment? I don't think it is.

That's the situation here. The neighbor has a prejudice against single women over a certain age. He's made disparaging comments about her to neighbors. He's hostile. The way I'd handle it would be to live my single, professional lady life to the hilt. Dinner parties every weekend, I'm playing Chaka Khan and popping champagne for myself on a Tuesday night because I can, leaning in hard on the fact that as a single woman of a certain age, I have the means and freedom to do what I want. Will your building let you paint your door? Paint it hot pink and hang a leopard print door knocker. If not, I'd invest in a rotating series of loud, obnoxious door wreaths (neon rainbow for Pride month, bright pink Eiffel towers for the Paris Olympics -- Etsy is your friend here). Is this harassment? No! It is leaning in hard on an identity that is annoying a small-minded, controlling little ahole who doesn't know how to live in close quarters with a wide variety of people. Too bad for him, that's what it means to live in a condo. I'd lean in.

None of this is harassment. It's a little petty, but I would take petty over a prejudiced jerk any day. I'd have fun with it. What I would not do is accept that my craptastic neighbor gets to run around the building saying nasty things about me even if I've never been anything but friendly and polity, and ruin my enjoyment of my home. No way. You want to live in a condo building, you're going to have to deal with your neighbors and learn to live and let live. This guy 100% needs to learn that lesson.

This may not be harassment but could well run afoul of a building’s noise regulations. My building screens for musical instruments and would never let someone tap dance unabated.