<p>Hi parents, college student here: I posted this in the College Life forum but also want to cross post it here to get parents' advices and insight on what to do...</p>
<p>So I live below these people who basically talk really loud and act douchy until 2 or 3 in the morning every day. My roommate and I haven't had a good night's sleep since we moved in almost 3 weeks ago. These people apparently don't know a thing about quiet hours (was never mentioned by our RA during the first building meeting). We talked to our RA about it and she wants us to try to resolve it first.</p>
<p>We're planning on talking with those people tonight, but it's to the point where I'm thinking of attempting to reassigning or just commute from home, since I've been either a) not being able to sleep at all due to the new environment or b) getting 2 or 3 hours MAX per night because these guys likes to talk so loud that we can hear them AND they throw or bang things around until 3 am or whenever they go to sleep.</p>
<p>What should I do at this point, besides talking to our RA which we already did and the actual people themselves which we are going to do tonight?</p>
<p>p.s. we're pretty sure these people are the ONLY ones that actually parties and talk loud as heck because there are more girls in our apartment complex than guys</p>
<p>When you talk to the people, be polite and reasonable. Just state the facts and use “I/we” statements (“We are having a hard time sleeping because of the noise.”) rather than “you” statements (“You guys are too loud.”) It may very well be that they’re completely unaware that they’re bothering you, and that may end the problem.</p>
<p>If that doesn’t fix things, talk to the RA again. And mention that these people might not be aware of the policy on Quiet Hours.</p>
<p>If the RA drags her feet about handling it, or is ineffective, don’t hesitate to take it to the next level up, Office of Housing or whatever. You are entitled to a reasonable chance to sleep.</p>
<p>Since I’m a very shy person and probably wouldn’t confront them, I would most likely sleep with a loud fan turned on at night and a pair of earplugs if the fan doesn’t cover up the sound well enough. I have noise Issues and the white noise helps to drown out loud noises but of course, talking to them would be best</p>
<p>Many RAs are just a little older than you, and may not be well trained. If you do not get assistance, take it up the chain. Generally there is a senior RA or RD for each dorm - try him/her first, then go to Housing director. If the dorm has quiet hours, they should be required to respect them. Good luck.</p>
<p>Don’t go over the RA yet. the RA has asked you to speak up first. Get together a group of people who have had enough of this and sit down with the loud ones and let them know. They may not be aware they are keeping you up. If the response is f you then you go to the RA who needs to do his or her job and enforce some quiet hours. If you go over the RAs head first you will have mde an enemy of your RA, never a good thing.</p>
<p>ebee, I disagree. RA is over her head, and needs help. Resolve it yourself is NOT an answer when kids are breaking rules. OP may want to go to back to RA and say, they are breaking rules, you need to get involved. OP may want to send a nice email to RA saying listen we thought about this, and we dont feel comfortable resovling rules violations, so we would appreciate your getting involved.</p>
<p>I agree that the first thing to say to them is, “You may not realize that we can hear you when you talk and move around at night.” You haven’t mentioned loud music, so they may not realize that others can hear them talking.</p>
<p>Depending on what kind of person you are, there are different ways of resolving this. </p>
<p>D1 is better at picking battles to fight. When she was a freshman with a very loud next door neighbor, she asked us to get her a Bose noise cancellation headphone, and it solved her problem.</p>
<p>I am the kind of person who would go head on. I would ask them nicely at first to keep the noise down. If it continued, I would make a lot of noise in the morning when they are sleeping. I am sure partiers also need 8 hours sleep. If I couldn´t sleep at night, why should they be able to sleep in the morning. </p>
<p>I agree with Lasma’s suggestion. The RAs are there to enforce rules but they do more than that. This is a way to get students to start acting like adults (you do have to talk to your neighbors about issues). Then if there are no changes you can take it back to the RA and up the chain if you need to. I have no idea how we jump from the RA asking the student to talk to neighbors first to the RA is over her head.</p>
<p>Just go talk to them non-confrontationally, just the facts - they may not know how their noise goes through the floors - just as much as walls. Give them a chance (1-2 nights) to change…then if that fails go back to the RA and make sure you get some action on her part - don’t let it be “oh, I’m sure they will be quieter, just give them a week…” If she/he won’t, tell them nicely that you are going to Housing and then do just that.</p>
<p>This is not a problem isolated to your college years - you will have this problem all your life with neighbors in apts. and even neighbors if you get a house. Some things you can tolerate but some things you can’t! Like being able to sleep! You won’t have an RA to intervene for you when you are older - landlords certainly don’t get involved in this small stuff! So you need to get used to facing these sorts of issues yourself. Good luck!</p>
<p>Oh BS, you bet landlords will get involved in noise complaints. And police will get involved too. What the heck are the RAs getting free rooms for, if not to resolve rule violations. My guess, if RDs get complaints that RA is not enforcing rules, they will not be RA next year.</p>
<p>I am not impressed that RA did not mention quiet hours at move in.</p>
<p>It bothers me that you’re jumping all the way to “I’ll just go live at home” when you haven’t yet done the most basic thing and ask them nicely to keep it down. For all you know, they’ll say “oops, sorry” and the problem is solved. It’s important to learn how to assert yourself which is what the RA wants you to do.</p>
<p>Honestly, at my college, if people were being too loud and would not stop after being asked, I would call Public Safety on them. It’s confidential (the PS officers won’t tell them who called in the complaint) and it usually gets people to be quiet. </p>
<p>It’s absolutely true that the people may just not realize how noisy they are being. Most college students think that their dorm room is a hermetically sealed bubble, they totally forget about other people. So the best tactic is just to go down and ask them to be quiet. They’ll most likely be embarassed that they were bothering other people so much. You don’t have to make a big production, just knock on there door and say, “Excuse me/sorry, but it’s late and I’m having trouble sleeping upstairs. Could you be a little quieter?” </p>
<p>As others have said, this won’t be limited to your college years. I recently lived in an apartment (i’m just a few years out of college) where my neighbor liked to play TV loudly at night. If it was the weekend, I would just put up with it, but on weekdays, I did not appreciate being able to hear their TV going at 12 or 12:30 at night. Especially because they were the kind of people who just put their TV on as background noise so basically they were subjecting me to late night infomercials. So i politely went over and knocked on the wall between our apartmetns and said “Excsue me, can you turn down your TV”. And they did, right away. If it got noisy again, later in the week, I would knock on the wall again and ask them again, politely, to be a little quieter. After a couple of weeks, they learned to just naturally keep the TV at a lower volume, and neither of us had to bother the other anymore.</p>
<p>Taking OP’s post as a factual representation of what happened, I don’t like it that the RA said you should resolve it. The RA should be suggesting how to resolve, not just saying you guys resolve it. If the RA had asked, have you told them the noise is excessive would be better. That combined with the RA not discussing excessive noise leads me to beleive that the RA is at best over his/her head, at worst, just doesnt care.</p>
<p>I would deal with the problem one way or the other, confront them or go to RA again and if that does not work, you can go over RAs head, as others have suggested. I would not use a fan, ipod, etc. at the price you or your parents are paying for board. You deserve to be able to sleep at night. This is consistent noise, not once in a while that could possibly be overlooked. If they are on the floor above as you stated, there is another RA involved, also. I’m surprised no one else on upper floor has complained, maybe they have. Kayf makes a good second point. RA should have covered noise at first meeting.</p>
<p>They may be completely unaware that you can hear their noise. It may be that noise doesn’t travel sideways in your building, only down.</p>
<p>My mother has a condo at which she rarely stays. Last time we were there, the lady from downstairs came up and said that the sound of my mother’s sandals on the tile floors in the morning was waking her up. (My mother is a very early riser.) My mother made sure to wear soft shoes from then on. Problem solved. We had NO idea that anyone could hear ANY noise from our apartment in theirs: we were on the top floor and never heard a peep from the apartments on either side.</p>
<p>If this woman had come up with the mindset that she was going to “confront” the “douchy” neighbor, things would not have been so pleasant. Nor would it have been so pleasant had she run to the building management to complain, rather than simply dealing with it herself.</p>
<p>It is too bad that your RA didn’t stress quiet hours at orientation, but I think it is perfectly reasonable to ask you to tell your neighbors that their noise is preventing you from sleeping in a civil manner, using “I” statements that are not accusatory. If that doesn’t work, then by all means go to the RA and expect him/her to deal with it.</p>
but of course, talking to them would be best</p>