The Most Foolish People You'll Ever Hope to Meet

Dear ----,

I have said all of this to ----, in writing, without getting a response. I have thought about withholding part of my rent payment until I get a reply to my concerns and may consider doing that in the future, but first I want to relay these complaints directly to you to make sure you’re aware that this situation, which I have brought to your attention before, is ongoing.

I have had noisy and ill-mannered (to say the least) neighbors upstairs dating back to 2010, from approximately the time your company acquired this property. This problem continues with the current tenant. I talked to her (once) about heavy footsteps and miscellaneous noise, and she professed not to know what I was talking about. At first, she was not as consistently noisy as the other tenants have been, so it was easier to ignore, but I was bothered on the evening of Feb. 26 (as on other occasions) by tapping noises directly above my head while I was trying to relax in my living room. There is no reason I can think of why someone would be tapping on the floor unless they wished to annoy someone, an immature exercise at best, but I noted from the young woman's general demeanor that she was no more likely to be a good neighbor than any of her predecessors.

I'm not concerned about ordinary noise and realize that some is unavoidable. In years past, though, I had a rather heavyset neighbor living above me, considerably larger than the young woman in question, and I rarely heard him--just to give you a point of comparison. It’s impossible to escape the conclusion that the noise is deliberate (all of these tenants have been rather odd as well).

Secondly, on the afternoon of March 18, I found some trash (cotton swabs and a coin) on the back floorboard of my car that I definitely didn't put there; the only explanation can be that someone else has been in the vehicle, although it did not appear to have been broken into. I'm meticulous about locking the doors, so I'm not certain how someone could have gotten in. I threw the items away and called the ---- police to report the incident, but I was told that unless something was damaged or missing, I couldn't file a report.

I'm telling you because I think this is most likely to have occurred at the apartments. I rarely take the car anywhere except to the coffeehouse and the grocery store, and I doubt if it happened in broad daylight. It probably happened overnight. There's nothing in the car that anyone would want to steal or that would make it a likely target for thieves. I usually park it underneath the light at the corner of the lot. The last time I had been in the back seat was on the previous Saturday when I put my groceries there, and I didn't notice anything then, so it must have happened sometime that week. I haven't discovered anything missing or broken in the vehicle so far, but that doesn't negate the fact that someone broke in, which I assure you I take quite seriously as a safety concern.

Finally, I never got a response last summer (2015) to my request for someone to service the air conditioner for my unit, which did not work up to par for most of the summer. When that happened, my refrigerator failed to work properly, and I had to throw some food out. I have already requested someone to take a look at it well in advance of the warm weather; I am told now that this will happen, and I hope that's the case.

All of this is to say that I am not really sure what I am paying rent for since I haven’t had proper use and enjoyment of my apartment for the last 5½ years. These issues go beyond mere annoyance, which would be bad enough, to the level of actual health and safety concerns. I am not sure that some of the tenants upstairs haven’t been (or are not now) engaged in criminal activity, based on my observations. I want you to understand that I’m not talking about pranks typical of college students. With previous landlords (I’ve lived here for almost 16 years), we sometimes had tenants who partied or came in late, though most of them lived in the other buildings. Some of them were undoubtedly problem tenants, but I never had an entire string of them living directly above me for years at a time.

I was unable to resolve this issue with the first problem tenants back in 2010 by telling them about it, and though I have introduced myself to subsequent tenants and let them know, more or less politely, about the problems they were causing, it has been to no avail. There has been a pattern to these issues extending over a period of years (and unprecedented in my many years of living in apartments). The least I expect of a landlord is to maintain a safe environment so that I can enjoy my own apartment in peace, and I am not getting that. I do not bother these neighbors, I take care of my own apartment, and I expect my concerns to receive a response.

I will also add that, though you may be unconcerned about your water bill (as evidenced by my inability to get my dripping kitchen faucet properly fixed), I hear water running so frequently above me that I often wonder what people are doing besides playing with the pipes. It seems rather excessive.

Sincerely.