Have you ever had the cops called on you?

It's pretty late here, and my girlfriend and I got home from the bars a little over two hours ago. She wanted me to teach her how to dance, so I put on some music. Yeah, it was KIND of loud- not ridiculously loud- but loud, and we live in a townhouse.

Bout a half hour ago the cops show up, pounding on the door. I told 'em that we're in the unfortunate position of not being able to judge the music's volume from other people's homes, and he went away.

I understand why people may not have been pleased with our music, but they're right next door for Christ's sake. They could have just come over and said something. We would have turned it way down. My girlfriend's all upset now because she feels like a criminal (not me- I spent my college years in Isla Vista. HA! I had more experience than the cop did.)

Anyway...you ever deal with cops?

already. I'd do the same thing. It's on the record now.
Next time show some empathy and keep it down, OK?

me that it's too loud.

That's what DECENT people do. Face to face.

It's ain't no problem, and no more work than calling the police.

You can't tell if your neighbors can hear you or not. It's the right thing to do for the neighbors to tell you if they can.

way down about 15 minutes before the cops showed up.

Again, if "cranked up" is going to be determined by the neighbors, it would be nice if said neighbors went ahead and told me what "cranked up" means. I...can't...tell. I'm inside the room, not in their place.

I've never called the cops on my neighbors. Every time I've asked them if they would please turn it down, they have. At times I've just dealt with it, because I know the urge to listen loud, and I've figured I could deal with it, but my general philosophy is that, unless my neighbors have proven themselves unreasonable in the past, I'd ask them personally to turn it down before I called any authority. And as a result I've never had to call an authority. But that's just me.

especially in a townhome or condo where neighbors will definitely be disturbed and annoyed by the nuisance you're creating.

Your complaint appears to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

to come and TELL you.

See?

If it's loud enough for you to describe it in your original post as loud, despite the fact that you had been drinking, and were dancing, you knew it was loud. You didn't mention the precise hour, but from your description it was undoubtedly later than 10 p.m.

I lived in dorms for awhile in college, and also student apartments. No one played music loud late at night without catching hell from numerous neighbors.

I'm decades older now, and have a neighbor with late-teen children who occasionally party in the backyard pool late at night. It once woke my wife and baby up and she called them and left a message on their voice-mail complaining that it was 3:30 a.m. and she and our baby were woken up by their loud music. They haven't done it since.

But if they do it again, I'd be the first to call the cops. I agree the civil thing to do is call first, but if that doesn't work, then they deserve to have the cops called on them.

how it affects those in adjoining apartments. In apartments like ours, in fact, one expects that there is some serious noise insulation.

Your wife did the right thing in calling. My neighbors don't have our phone number, but we're only ten feet away from them. There's no NEED to bring law enforcement into the mix. We've never had a problem before that wasn't resolved face to face, and we shouldn't have started now.

just for the sake of argument, perhaps your neighbors did not want to get out of bed and get dressed to tell you your music was keeping them awake. Yes, I believe they should have dealt with you directly, but maybe they were afraid to do so, or too lazy!

probably not going to hold it against them, whichever one of the two it was. :)

other neighbors as well and just got sick and tired of it - woke up pissed and called the cops.

Most people who are woken up in the middle of the night by some neighbor's loud music (and remember what may be sweet to our ears may be very irritating to a neighbor's) tend to be pretty pissed. Some deal with it directly. Some don't want to be bothered - it's much easier to call the cops than to get up, get dressed, walk out the door and knock on a neighbor's door, not knowing how drunk or hostile or crazy they may be.

Do you even know the neighbor that complained about you?

In any case, later, I was walking out to the car in the parking lot to get something and made it clear in a rather loud voice that I wasn't pleased that the police were called. Bet they heard that.

I understand the laziness factor- but, you know, back in the day I even got the point with a loud bang on the wall (even did that one a few times myself- or the floor, or the ceiling). Doesn't take much.

I suspect you've done this on more than one occasion and that the neighbors probably have complained to you directly to no avail. You admit you and your girlfriend came home after drinking, so you probably forgot -in such a situation I would have called the cops on you too. Get over it. Observing the Golden Rule might help you in the future.

In Isla Vista.

Isla Vista is an extremely enclosed space. Whole lots of people packed together- and it's a college town, so it's a lot of YOUNG people. And, believe it or not, I've never called the cops on anyone for noise. In fact, I've never even complained. If I was to have done something, though, when I was being annoyed, I would have gone straight to the source. Much quicker, much more effective, much longer lasting.

And a much better person.

We're in Illinois, now, but I learned a lot from dealing with people back in my college days. The straightforward way is the best. When the cops get into the mix, a lot of bad blood is created.

Back when I was in high school there was this crazy old guy who called the police whenever a car full of kids drove down the street.

So me and my friends were driving over to a resturant for lunch and this nut case called the cops saying there were gang members with machine guns driving up and down the street...

Well on the way back from lunch, driving back to school we are boxed in by FOUR police cars!

It doesn't take the cops very long to figure out they have arrested the four least threatening teenaged males alive.

They didn't apologize, but they did call our school so we would be excused for being late.

Yup. :)

I called the cops because my drunk neighbor was outside shooting a gun at 1 AM. Somehow they got confused and they all showed up at my house thinking it was me shooting!

Luckily the dispatch cleared it up.

Yeah, I could see the cops showin' up for that. Sorry you had to deal with that garbage.

LOL kinda funny, though. :)

At the time it didn't seem so funny. :eyes:

I left the best part out, my neighbor drove off (drunk) while they had me detained...

I had already gone repeatedly over to knock on his door in the middle of night while he was playing his music outrageously loudly. It finally stopped once I called the cops.

I once had someone call the cops on me because I was listening to something on my computer late at night with the window open, and I guess the neighbors could hear. I try to be more careful now.

I don't really think it's that big of a deal.

That's totally understandable. At least you tried to reason with him.

...I lived in a townhouse, and we cranked the stereo up early in the morning after having had a few too many. I don't know how loud you had your stereo, but I'll freely admit that I had mine up WAY too loud that night. My "neighbor" also happened to be my landlord. He didn't call the cops, though; he just went to the master fuse-box and shut off all the power to my unit until the next morning. I didn't figure this out until the next time I saw him (after having long sobered up, of course), and mentioned the power "outage." He smiled and said that the power fuses to my townhouse were "sensitive to loud noises," and I got the hint. Actually, I was glad he did that rather than call the cops with a sober perspective - it was a college town and they probably would've cited me with a hefty $$$ fine. I've used headphones when in the mood for LOUD music late at night ever since.

but comparatively better than calling the police.

Funny landlord. :)

they were awake enough to call you .
How ignorant to call the cops on someone just for some music.But then again my nearest neighbor is a mile away lol.

When I moved to AZ, 3 years ago, I moved into an apartment and met my neighbors, nice single gentlemen in apts on either side of me both in their mid-life years as am I. We all got along very well. One of them moved when he purchased a house on some acreage.
The person who moved into that now empty apt was an asshole and a jerk. Played his music very loud as did his teenage son. After a few times of asking him to turn it down, I finally went to management to report the problem. That didn't even faze him. I started sleeping with earplugs.
So, I ended up moving to a different apartment complex. These apts were across the street from a sports bar that I started to frequent since I could crawl home.
One day, I saw my former neighbor (the one who moved), in the bar and we had a couple of beers together. After that we started dating, then a few months later I moved in with him and we've been a couple ever since.
So, ya see, sometimes loud music can be a godsend. And yes, we play music very LOUD sometimes but since we are on 5 acres, it doesn't bother anyone.....smile

came home from the bars and spent more than an hour playing loud music and dancing, probably a few feet from where they live and sleep, and they called you on your behavior. hm-m-m.

Unless you chose to do these things at 7 in the evening, I believe you need to rethink your concept of "decent people". I think there are quite a few folks who would not appreciate that sort of treatment from their neighbors.

there was a 3 day gap.

I got busted for shoplifting in college (I used to do a lot of drugs).

In high school, ChavezSpeakstheTruth and I had the cops called on us and a couple of our friends because we were caught throwing rocks on the frozen artificial lake across the street from my house one winter day......lots of nasty words and threats were excahnged between us and the people who caught us, and next thing you know, the cops are parked outside. Ah, youth!

Before I befriended a neighbor, I used to play music in the morning - around 9 or 10AM. I didn't know this guy worked the 3rd shift, so when I was dancing around my house, he was trying to sleep. He would call the cops when he would get home at 3AM and have them put tickets on my car parked in the street (we had a no street parking enforcement from 2AM to 5AM). Cost a hell of a lot of money, and I couldn't figure out why I kept getting hit. Until one day my roommate struck up a conversation with my neighbor and discovered that he was calling the cops all the time. It was actually kinda shady, but he was afraid to confront us because a relative of his was shot confronting a neighbor. So... that sucked. But when we became friends, they did a lot fo favors for us that sort of made up for the expense.

My neighbors used to blast their music, and someone called the cops. The cops paid me a visit. Since the music was off by the time he got there, I got a warning, but I was pissed because it was my neighbors and not me.

Loud music? Sure.

Also, we had a garage band back in the day, and played loudly. Of course, cops always show up for that.

Building cars in the back yard, neighbor whined to the cops about it not "looking good" for the neighborhood. Cops told the neighbor to MYOB.

lots of other times, I just don't remeber them all. All when I was a kid or teen...

RL

p.s. Go apologize to your neighbor ASAP. You have to live with them after all.

I was about to beat his (alleged) brains out with a table leg when about four cop cars showed up in time to save his useless life.