Hello all. I am in a very tricky situation. I live above the housing director of my hall, who has an apartment with her husband and their two kids. Ever since my roommate and I got back for the spring semester, we have been receiving noise complaints from her on a very frequent basis for noise that is very minimal (I live right next to my floor’s RA and she has never complained about noise). Her and her family have lived below me since the start of the year, so I don’t know why the noise complaints have ramped up all of a sudden. It has gotten to the point where we have received written warnings regarding our noise, and we have had the RA on call come to our door when my friends and I were being relatively quiet.
But, here’s where it gets weird. Because the hall director not only can file noise complaints as a resident of the hall, she also handles how we get punished regarding noise. I don’t know if that’s standard protocol for a university, but I find it very unjust that she has the right to give punishment as a HALL DIRECTOR when she already has a negative bias toward my roommate and I for noise complaints that she filed as a RESIDENT. Should I try and fight for a neutral third party to give any future punishment? The whole idea that she can file complaints and then punish people based on those complaints just seems very murky.
I’d ask to have a meeting with whoever is the head of Residential Life. Ask your RA or look it up online to see who is in charge of the residential organization at your college.
At the very least, I don’t think the person making the complaint should be the one deciding the punishment. If you truly believe that she is being overzealous with complaints, that is also something that you can discuss with whoever is in charge. However, if you went that route, you’d want some of your neighbors to back you up particularly the RA if possible.
There have been instances where the RA on call has been called to my room during a conversation at normal volume with friends while other students in the common room were literally screaming. Also, the night that we received a written warning, we were never given an oral warning from the RA on call, which is against normal protocol regarding noise.
I plan on moving to a different dorm next semester, I had that mindset before all the noise complaints started happening but this only just strengthens my feeling about moving.
I agree…get a third party like the head of res life…and then say that you think that the HD is mistaking the noise from the common room for your room…you had an RD visit during such a time.
And get the RA involved with this. He/she is going to get called in eventually so it may as well be as a fully informed witness. Was your room loud? Were others louder? Are these complaints reasonable?
Also, can you or your RA ask the person downstairs why the sensitivity has changed? Is there a sick kid or did her husband start working second shift and need more sleep? It’s kind of a difficult thing to impose half way through the year.
And in the real world, do you have a rug or carpets down yet? And can you hang out in a friend’s room more? This may not get resolved until you get a chance to move so measures might have to be taken to work around this situation.
quick update: haven’t received any noise complaints since the time of posting this, but I did get in contact with my RA about this situation. my RA does not think that my roommate and I are being excessively loud when we have people over (and she lives right next to me, rather than below me). we have rugs down and carpeting was also in the room as a default.