Strollerderby

I find I have that problem with our friends, who don't have children of thier own! My closest female friend, for example, is smart, lively and comletely incapable of understanding that my three year old is way to excited to be on the beach to refrain from running on it. Even if that means that she gets some sand on her everyonce in a while. Cranky neighbors are one thing, but how do you keep your friendships healthy with low kid-tolerant friends?! Yikes. It's really a challenge.

I'm fortunate enough to have neighbors (across the hall) with a small kid of their own, and an upstairs neighbor who's deaf. So nobody sued us when we sleep-trained. But we have to move to a bigger apartment soon, as the kid is getting older and needs more space, and I'm afraid of bitchy neighbors, too. I agree that if you live in a city, you make the choice to live in close proximity to other families...and that means you'll hear some kid noise.

I'm just happy my future kid's noise will be payback for the late-night vacuuming, stampeding cats, loud stereo and general stompiness from the upstairs neighbors. We luckily have no one living below us.

we had upstairs neighbors who complained about every noise we made.

having a newborn i thought we tried our best to be very respectful of all

our neighbors. no one else complained and others said they down right never heard her. what's so funny is we put up with these upstairs neighbors who were

very loud themselves and would be awaken by them having sex on a nightly basis. my husband finally decided to call them to let them know as subtle as

possible we could hear everything and they actually threatened him and wrote

as letter to the HOA. well, we laugh about it now, but it was the worst 2 years.

the night we moved into our house i relished the silence.

We live in the unit about the garage.  In fact, it was one of the selling points for us.  Our twins were almost two when we closed on the place, and we have the only young children in the building.  

The adjacent neighbors have never complained.  I guess we're pretty damn lucky.

Even in the suburbs, you can't escape unusual neighbors. Our next-door-neighbor sent us a registered letter because our motion-sensitive outdoor light kept getting activated by deer and raccoons and shining in her bedroom window in the middle of the night. Apparently, walking over to our house and letting us know in person was unacceptable to her. We immediately got rid of the light and since then, there've been no problems, but sheesh! A registered letter?

I've never had serious problems on either side when we've lived in basement apartments. Grown-ups make as much noise as kids do, what with high-heeled shoes, loud TV/music and, yes, SEX (don't get me started...).

There were 2 older kids upstairs at our first place. We would've appreciated it if they'd held off on piano practice above our bedroom until at least 9 on a Saturday morning (also jumping-jacks), but hey, they're kids. They make noise. We dealt with it.

I have a friend who lives in Vancouver, Canada whose baby was cooing happily inside their townhouse.  The crotchty old cow next door told her to shut her baby up as she was ruining her patio dinner.

That is rediculous.

I have to say that this is a problem no matter where you live, or where you go. I am laid back when it comes to the noise of my daughter, but my man feels that she should be quiet everywhere we go. It's frustrating as a mom to have to listen to other people say things like that. I get complimented on the fact that my daughter is well-behaved in public, yet feel bad that she isn't allowed to be silly sometimes. Why is it so important for society to take childhood away from our kids? If people would just let children be children, we might not have the problems in schools and communities that we have these days.

That's great that all you parents think others who live below children should just suck it up. Unfortunately for those of us who have a child that is allowed to constantly run up and down the hall of the suite above with hardwood flooring (and no area rugs) it's hard to sympathize.

Parents do need to help their children to understand "good neighbour" policy and if that means playing a game of "quiet" once in a while what's the harm. To just blatantly expect your neighbours to have to "deal" with your shortcomings as a parent or lack of finding creative solutions is just lazy.

We live temp in an apartment and have a house in another state. I relish the time that we get to spend in our house. Living in this apartment is horrible. The children STOMP up and down the hallways all day long shouting. Its nice outside, send them out there. Or better yet. Let your child know that they don't live in a house and need to learn to respect their neighbors. We have a child and teach her to respect other people and to go outside to be a kid.

I live across the street from 2 families with a combined total of 5 kids between the ages of 4-9.  They scream, yell, fight in their front yards every day.  I get home at 5:30 and I hear them nearly continously until they go to bed around 9.  Then all day Saturday & Sunday.  I know kids are kids and they are noisy when they play, I expect them to be be noisy much of the time. But last Saturday they were fighting with one kid yelling, at the top of his lungs, I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna kill you.  No parents in sight.  Solution?  I turned my stero speakers right at them and crank it.  Some nice brassy jazz with lots of horns.  Hey, if those parents can't hear their kids continous screaming & yelling then they certainly won't hear any loud music.  They embrace & promote loud, rude behavior, I was merely adding to their pleasure.  But my condolences to the other, repectful neighbors who have to endure these obnoxious, ill mannered poorly parented kids.