Pooty Belly
Posted October 24th, 2004 @ 08:31pm by Erik J. Barzeski
Things in my townhouse are going great. I live in the second apartment out of four: the left apartments get four parking spaces (unlined) and the right get four also. This works out well as most townhouses have, at most, two occupants with cars.
There's one problem so far, and one I've yet to solve very well: the next door neighbors on my side of the four, the left endcap. The woman, who Carey and I have nicknamed "pooty belly," can't drive and plays her music very loudly. Perhaps the walls are thin, but I can't hear my neighbors on the other side at all. Carey and I have considered complaining multiple times - but pooty belly is a scary-looking foe. She just looks like an unreasonable type, and the conversations we've heard ("conversations" is being polite) through the walls with her husband seem to back that up.
Today Carey and I returned home in separate cars to be beaten by five seconds by pooty belly. Her husband had already parked a snowmobile cart in the grass in position 4, and she pulled in very poorly as illustrated to the right, leaving Carey and me with little choice but to park in spots 2 and 3 (really spots 2.5 and 3.5). She went inside after Carey and I both backed up to get as close to her as possible so that her husband might have enough room to park. Then she came out, walked right past us, looked at the space beside her car and the snowmobile and trailer, and went back inside.
Carey and I were too stunned to speak, but I'd have said "we'd gladly move our cars so your husband could fit if you want to move yours into the first space." I'd have added "instead of taking up two spaces, playing your music really fucking loudly, and driving your toddler all over the place without a car seat."
We don't know what to do. The music is blaring right now, bumb bumb bumb bumb, and Carey's going to leave a stick-it note if soon. The parking situation is crap, the snowmobile has been sitting there all day, and blah blah blah. This is, at this point, an amusing situation to Carey and myself, but it could clearly and quickly become annoying. At some point, we'll have to buck up and make the effort to say something. Until then, we'll simply wonder what part of pooty belly's brain is missing.
Donate Life
Posted 24 Oct 2004 at 8:44pm #
I have had similar problems with the noise in particular - our place has ample parking (plus, you can get reserve spots if it's a problem).
However, we have had many bad neighbors, and we tolerated them until I was woken out of a dead sleep at 4:30 am to the sound of what could only be described as my roof caving in on me (we live on the first floor). I have slept through the largest earthquake to hit San Diego ever, so that should say something about how loud this noise was.
I got up and marched right up to his door wearing just enough to cover my naughty bits and chewed this asshole out. Peace and quiet, at least for a little while.
2 weeks later, apparently this guy and his mother were having a fight. Now, we have complained to the landlord many times and if she had echoed that to him, it wasn't going anywhere.
So I called the cops claiming a domestic dispute. The upside is that if they do find evidence of one, at least in Oregon, someone has to go with the cop right now. Vindictive, I know, but after a year of not be able to hear the TV over whatever he was doing up there (dancing, basketball, drums, never figured it out), I was done playing nice.
They took him away, so they found something. No one gets more than a ticket here for noise. 2 weeks later we had new neighbors who were about as loud as a cricket 3 miles from here... Too bad they had to leave and give the opportunity for whoever lives up there now to blare their Mr. Big and Whitesnake records at full volume with the windows open. Oh well.
Posted 24 Oct 2004 at 8:59pm #
Sounds truly annoying to me, I wonder how long I'd manage to put up with it before trying to get some understanding from "Pooty Belly".
Reminds me of one evening I had some friends over, with me showing of as a cook. One of my friends had to work late and as such would be arriving in his own car instead of together with someone else. And this posed a slight problem as there are just a few parking spaces where I live. We ended up using a couple of our neighbours' parking spaces, and didn't have a chance of notifying them as they were seemingly away.
The evening went by very well, until it was time to leave, upon which we find that the two cars we parked over at my neighbours' had been blocked by my neighbours huge car - add to that all the snow (I live in Norway, enough said). So my neighbour had obviously been annoyed by hour liberate use of their spaces, and decided to "give us a lesson" or something, because we could clearly see he could have parked a lot differently and thusly not blocking our cars.
Anyway, it was quite late when we discovered this, and since it seemed my neighbour wasn't too happy with the situation we decided to try and solve it ourselves - shoveling snow. Five minutes into the shoveling, my neighbour appears. He walks right past all of us, not glancing at either of us, starts his car and moves out of the way. Problem solved.
I could also add that in Germany, they allocate separate spaces at shopping malls and the like - for women. And there exists german websites filled with photos of women "in action".
Hm, hope this wasn't too long of a comment. 🙂
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 6:25pm #
Now you know why your townhouse was vacant. 🙂
You need to start complaining to the manager ASAP to start a documentary record, and if that doesn't resolve the issue, complain to the local law enforcement. This may sound over the top, but in some US jurisdictions, you could actually be charged with harassment for "unreasonable" requests, especially if you do it repeatedly.
Posted 26 Oct 2004 at 9:13pm #
I called the manager today because they were taking up three spaces and had moved their snowmobile into the parking lot. I noted the noise as well. The manager is sending a letter, saying the maintenance guy saw it when he drove by (so the neighbors don't blame us).
Posted 14 Jan 2005 at 2:37pm #
Turns out the solution regarding Pooty Belly was simpler than I imagined: wait until she breaks up with the neighbor and moves out. I'm not sure she's gone, but I haven't seen or heard her since about a week or...