Girlfriend's Neighbors - Page 2 - PeachParts Mercedes-Benz Forum

OldPokey · #16 03-10-2008, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PaulC

Ok, here's what you do: Get two mondo stereo speakers and lie them on the floor, facing down. Get a decent CD player and amp and hook-up the speakers. Then go to WalMart's CD section and pick up anything recorded by Slim Whitman or Freddy Fender. Insert CD into CD player, set to loop play and then leave the house and enjoy your day.

Better yet, use a set of speakers that are really, really cheap - like the kind you find at a Goodwill store. When face down, they will buzz against the floor as the music plays - which is even more annoying!

Ara T. · #17 03-10-2008, 08:28 PM

The girls were playing their music extra loud to get on the guys downstairs' nerves but I cautioned against it since it would just get the girls in trouble. Well a different neighbor came to the apartment telling them that their music was vibrating her whole house (they share a wall). Poor old lady in a robe walking around in the cold all over the place trying to figure out who the culprits were

It's a good idea in theory but there are more people in the complex besides the girls and their a-hole neighbors.

irish_flu · #18 03-10-2008, 10:25 PM

I don't think I'd involve the police unless it becomes a necessity. If the guys *do* have a medical license for weed (odd that they'd *both* have one, eh?) the cops won't be able to do anything anyway.

I'd play on the roommate's respiratory ailment. Involve her doctor if necessary, stating that air conditions in the apartment are detrimental to her health. The landlord has a legal obligation (under the lease) to provide a place to live that doesn't make you physically sick.

Play dumb. Go to the landlord, have the discussion about the respiratory problems (plus her lightheaded, "dizzy" contact buzz), and pretend you don't know that it's pot smoke. Even if those guys have a valid medical need, so does your girl's roommate.

If the landlord refuses to help (which is most likely a violation of the terms of the lease) go to the city. Most cities have a department (here, it's called HAND- Housing And Neighborhood Development) whose charter includes making sure dwellings meet code and are safe, healthy places to live. Tell the city that the house is making her sick.

Either when you tell the landlord (if said landlord understands his legal obligations) or the city (if he doesn't) somebody will come by to investigate the smell, and *they* can be the ones who "figure out" what the smell is
and what can be done about it.

Remember, just because something is or isn't in the lease, doesn't mean that's all the obligation the landlord has. I can put a sign on my car that says "caution, no brakes, not liable for crashing" but it doesn't mean I can run stop signs.

If a resolution can't be found, at the VERY LEAST it will be grounds for your GF and her roommate to move to another place without "breaking" their lease; at that point, the landlord has broken the lease by failing to provide a nice place to live.

Alternatively, if you really wanna call the cops, I'd do so as a "noise complaint". Your city likely has an ordinance about loud parties or loud music. When the cops go to investigate the music, they'll smell the pot too, and either the prescriptions are legitimate or they're not.

I'd avoid calling the police, though; the cops can't be everywhere at all times, and the neighbors might try to retaliate in some way. Better to make the landlord the "bad guy", or the city.

Hatterasguy · #19 03-10-2008, 10:57 PM

Get an M14 and put a few rounds through the floor everytime they get loud. That should shut them up!

Jim B. · #20 03-10-2008, 11:31 PM

When I lived in a condo on Twin Peaks in San Francisco, some lesbian bought the one upstairs, and had one g/f after another (serial monogamy, San Francisco style!!!??)

The first thing they did was hire some butch lesbian carpenter that ripped out the carpets and installed tiles on the floor. (MY roof!!!)

So then, you get to hear every noise imaginable, magnified unbearably.

You haven't lived until you get woken up by the loud tap tap tap of high heel shoes across your roof at 3am in the morning after a drunken night on the town.

Then she got herself a huge fat girl friend that was a weight lifter.

Oh man, every freaking time that dyke she dropped those 200 pound barbells on that tiled floor, it felt like the next San Francisco earthquake had come, it shook up my whole house!!!

I was never happier than when they went away to work at another funeral parlor in Boston, and got out. Unfortunately they kept the place, and rented it out, did not sell it.

djugurba · #21 03-11-2008, 12:45 AM

These situations can be difficult. As a few have already stated, it is the landlord's responsibility to deal with it. Compose a letter and send it via certified mail to the landlord detailing the problems. In many states, landlords are required by law to report suspected law-breaking going on in their apartments, so check on that and remind the landlord in the letter. Give a period of time with a deadline at which you expect a specific result. Keep a copy of the letter and the certified receipt.
If landlord does nothing, determine which govt. body oversees landlords in CA and file a complaint. He/she can get in big trouble for not doing what he/she is supposed to do, especially if there is a reporting suspected illegal activities requirement in your state... because you'll have informed him/her in writing of the supposed illegal activity.

I would also not hesitate to call the police if marijuana smoke is infiltrating the apartment at all hours.

I have to add that I'm quite disgusted with the nasty way some of you are discussing homosexual women in this thread. Please keep your discriminatory attitudes to yourselves.

mgburg · #22 03-11-2008, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djugurba

...hours. I have to add that I'm quite disgusted with the nasty way some of you are discussing homosexual women in this thread. Please keep your discriminatory attitudes to yourselves.

Many times, when someone uses THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCE AS A TOOL to hide behind improper social behavior, or as an excuse to be a social misfit, the derogatory terms, sometimes, prove a point...it can be ugly out there and when PC-correctness takes precedence over common sense, sometimes the "truth" (whatever that may be now-a-days) becomes blurred.

If you want to make your sexual preference a reason you're being treated differently (when in reality, it's really the way you've behaved in normal social situations), then that is what's going to be discussed.

When I start to use my WASP-overweight-short-nearsightedness as MY excuse to become a "protected-class" obnoxious moron on this forum, then my WASPY-FATA55-VERTICALLY-BLIND excuses can be so attacked.

"So it is written, let it be read and attacked."

( I feel a "warning" on the horizon! )

Jim B. · #23 03-11-2008, 01:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mgburg

Many times, when someone uses THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCE AS A TOOL to hide behind improper social behavior, or as an excuse to be a social misfit, the derogatory terms, sometimes, prove a point...it can be ugly out there and when PC-correctness takes precedence over common sense, sometimes the "truth" (whatever that may be now-a-days) becomes blurred.

If you want to make your sexual preference a reason you're being treated differently (when in reality, it's really the way you've behaved in normal social situations), then that is what's going to be discussed.

When I start to use my WASP-overweight-short-nearsightedness as MY excuse to become a "protected-class" obnoxious moron on this forum, then my WASPY-FATA55-VERTICALLY-BLIND excuses can be so attacked.

"So it is written, let it be read and attacked."

( I feel a "warning" on the horizon! )

Maybe we should have posted that in Diesel discussion, eh?

Bad behavior is bad behaviour. Period.

God save us from "Political Correctness".

25 years in San Francisco was more than enough of it. Believe me.

djugurba · #24 03-11-2008, 02:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mgburg

Many times, when someone uses THEIR SEXUAL PREFERENCE AS A TOOL to hide behind improper social behavior, or as an excuse to be a social misfit, the derogatory terms, sometimes, prove a point...it can be ugly out there and when PC-correctness takes precedence over common sense, sometimes the "truth" (whatever that may be now-a-days) becomes blurred.

The ugliness out there is not improved upon by people who see others only as stock-characters and act on whatever assumptions they carry about that "type" of person. It's not political correctness that is at stake- it's simple human decency. In your story, it's clear that you think the stupid behavior engaged in by the neighbors was inextricably tied to their sexual preference. Did your illegal vandalization of their motorcycles have something to do with you being straight? Why make their sexuality a part of the discussion at all? You can be sure that they didn't write in to a forum talking about that straight guy who messed with their bikes- they might, however, have talked about how you carried yourself, your personality, and your actions.

mgburg · #25 03-11-2008, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by djugurba

...assumptions they carry about that "type" of person. It's not political correctness that is at stake- it's simple human decency. In your story, it's clear that you think the stupid behavior engaged in by the neighbors was inextricably tied to their sexual preference. Did your illegal vandalization of their motorcycles have something to do with you being straight? Why make their sexuality a part of the discussion at all? You can be sure that they didn't write in to a forum talking about that straight guy who messed with their bikes- they might, however, have talked about how you carried yourself, your personality, and your actions.

First off, it WAS their sexual ANTICS that started the whole situation...the part of my story about our bedrooms being above their bedrooms/rompus rooms was the first clue as to what was wrong with their behavior...what I left out was the fact that I had "asked" as politely and as "PC" as I could be, if they could tone it down. Super-***** threw it back at me that I should mind my own business and what THEY do in their own apartment is their own business. That, to me, is using your sexual preference as a shield to continue to be a PIA for anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot of the whip-crack (Sorry Mistress!), crys of pain or whatever. And what galls me is that when you know that someone's in pain, or is hurt, and the other person continues, even after being notified that they were heard and witnessed (verbally, not visually) that all was not "right with the moment" - and THEY tell the cops that they are GAY and that the STRAIGHT FOLKS, upstairs, have no business telling them what they can do, or not do, yep, my dander is up and I'm frizzed.

I can assure you that whatever my wife and I did in our bedroom wasn't "gossip" at the local "dyker-bar" or whatever. Our kid still thinks we did it once for his benefit...I haven't explained to him yet that adoption (on my part) meant I wasn't there even for the first time.

What's being discussed here is bad behavior being shielded behind something that's legal or is "recognized" as legit...whether it is or not. Calling someone who smokes weed a "pot-head" is bad if for NO OTHER REASON you just happen to know he smokes a little weed. I know of three people I deal with on a weekly basis (one was a room-mate of mine for six years) that do a doobie or two on a weekly basis - illegally, and I don't consider them "stoners" or "pot-heads" - but the two clowns, in this series of posts, are the definition of PHs or Stoners...

I also have fellow employees that are gay (at least 4, and I don't really care, or need, to find out if others are...) and it doesn't bother me. I'm sure they wouldn't prefer, or wish, to be in my situation (white, married to a female, one kid, 4 grandsons, one loopy DIL, a "reformed" ex-DIL and a REALLY overweight, super-loopy Daughter-Out-Law). My point here is that the folks I work with don't exhibit bad behavior and even on their good days they don't run around parading their sexual preferences as the reason they are good people.

As you pointed out, their daily activities speak for themselves.

Now, if I had gone out, and bought a "Slim Whitman" album, flipped my speakers onto the floor, and everytime those two girls started whipping on each other, I turned on "Slim" and let him yowl for and hour or two...who'd be the hick? Or aren't "Slim" freaks considered a little backward?

Then the cops would be coming over to the complex with the "hicks-over-the-chicks-without-dix" and laughing the whole way...they'd even be chewing on a few jelly-filled doughnuts, building up enough of a sugar-jazz to use as an excuse to claim "itchy-trigger-finger" syndrome to explain why a "warning shot" was placed into one of the apartment-complex's inhabitants.

But, then again...I can dream.

Either way, someone is put out the other's misery.

The Point?

Quit using your "specialness" as an excuse for bad behavior...because your shield is going to be attacked, first, in order to get to you to behave in a civil manner.

Eventually...

Oh, BTW, in case you missed the rest of what I wrote...our washer, dryer and access to our own property was, apparently, not suppose to be our right either...you can live next to those two, but we are to surrender our rights so that they can enjoy, and jam their "specialness," under our noses.

Someone needed a lesson in civility. I chose a path of least resistance to "their" lifestyle (I was already informed that I couldn't "correct" their actions because it was a "gay lifestyle" issue...) in getting my point across about getting along with your neighbors, whether it be straight, gay, bi- or whatever.

Or, as you put it...human decency.

aklim · #26 03-11-2008, 09:26 AM

This is like the guy that had visitors that buzzed every apartment in the block to get in at 0400 hrs. When I told him about it he said "You come here like the mother ****ing po lice and you tell me what to do because I am black.". Well, at 0400 hrs, a buzz on the door wakes me up just as much if it is a white person or a black person pushing the button. What about the guests of a black person? See above.

Jordan G · #27 03-11-2008, 09:28 AM

I'll say it again - bake them the kind of brownies they wanted - and they will crumble before your half-baked generousity.

Sometimes, you must meet your adversary in the middle, dude.

aklim · #28 03-11-2008, 09:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jordan G

I'll say it again - bake them the kind of brownies they wanted - and they will crumble before your half-baked generousity.

Sometimes, you must meet your adversary in the middle, dude.

I doubt it. The way they are, I don't think so.

I think overrunning them is more fun and sets a good president.

Jordan G · #29 03-11-2008, 09:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aklim

I doubt it. The way they are, I don't think so.

I think overrunning them is more fun and sets a good president.

This is where we differ, my friend. I'd rather chill out with them and listen to some Zappa. Except Zappa never did drugs. But I used to understand his lyrics better when I did. And it sure sounds like he did.

I'm telling yah, just win the neighboring Moon Unit and Dweezil over with kindness.

Or, listen to Aklim's advice and put on some Black Flag. I just thought it was funny that you (she) baked them brownies.

djugurba · #30 03-11-2008, 11:28 AM

The point is, the actions of the neighbors, reprehensible and indefensible as they were (as were yours; remember "two wrongs don't make a right") have nothing to do with their sexuality.

They were wrong to bring up their sexual pref. to the cops. They are not immune to neighborly consideration because of their preference, and again, if they defended their actions for this reason, that's wrong of them. However, it's quite clear that you regard them differently than if it had been a straight couple into S&M in the same situation. Perhaps that fact was not lost on them and they felt obliged to express their feeling that your complaints were motivated not only in the interests of quiet, but in the interests of keeping gay people from doing what (these) gay people do.

They may have been the most horrible people in the world, and said that every breath they took was because they were gay, and that you couldn't say a thing about anything they did or else you'd be discriminating about them because they were gay. That wouldn't make them correct to say so, nor would it be because they are gay that this point of view is objectionable. It might be because they are stupid, or inconsiderate, or self-righteous, or whatever.

But when you skip that step and assign the blame to the sexuality by using discriminatory language, you're compounding the problem. Rationalize all you want; if it was a straight couple whipping each other, defending their rights to beat the crap out of each other and acting like a-holes, you wouldn't have a sexual-preference-based pejorative to use, and would instead defer to something like "idiots" or "a-holes" or "m-f$%*ers." When the women in the downstairs apartment made the issues about sexuality, you learned not that they should be referred to with negative derogatory terms of sexual discrimination, but that they were inconsiderate a-holes. On that we can agree.

Incedentally, if you are looking for a pejorative for future run-ins with straight people which is sometimes used by individuals of various gender-preference to lambaste "normal" people living "normal lifestyles"... it's "Breeder."