Apartment situation

Its not so easy to live in an apartment complex alone when you have social phobia. Ever since I left home many years ago I had to change places 3 times. I'm someone who can't go outside by myself very easily. I don't have any friends or a girlfriend. After a while the neighbors start noticing that other than going to work I'm always home. In some apartments the walls were paper thin and I heard my share of "loser" and "poor guy" comments through the walls.

I moved in to a new place about 4 months ago. I took a basement thinking people won't hear me walk over their head. Maybe I can go unnoticed in a big apartment complex. Sadly my upstairs neighbors are the worst. They are a young couple. They keep their boots or shoes on and they have long distance walkathons in their living room everyday. The guy is especially intense when he walks. Ever since I've arrived here its been nothing but BOOM BOOM BOOM till they go to bed at around midnight.

Of course me being an idiot I decided to write to the landlord about it. I asked if it was possible to ask them to be a bit more careful. To at least take off their shoes while inside. I didn't think it was something unreasonable to ask.

...Apparently I was way off. The very next day the couple started kicking the ground and throwing things and they even upgraded their daylong fast walk session to jogging instead. I guess to make a point that they would not stop. The guy seemed especially mad and after that day he always made it a point to hit the floor very hard a couple time.

A month later I was still being jogged over so I had an even worse idea, to make another complaint. I heard the guy being so furious upstairs the next day, banging and walking hard.. It once again changed nothing except making them angrier at me.

I think one of the big problem is that they assume that I'm on welfare and that I don't have a job. That they are paying my living with their taxes. Truth is I've been on a long term sick leave from work. Ever since I moved there I barely ever went outside. So once in a while I can hear them with the name callings

Little by little its driving me insane. Its hard to have so much difficulty going outside because I'm afraid of being judged by people and yet when I'm home (which is all the time) all I can think about are my angry neighbors who think so little of me.

I'm trying to hold on but its been really hard the last month or two. Some days I menage to stay strong and think of ways to not let them get to me. Other days like today I feel so trapped. It feels like I'm being abused by the immature guy upstairs who seem to have a power trip over me since I don't fight back.

I guess I make it too easy for him

Just about the only thing you can do is record their behavior and go to the police.

"Neighbors From Hell" are impossible to reason with because they have a persecution complex, which means no matter how bad they act, they always see themselves as the victim; whatever they do, no matter how outrageous, they're justified, since to them, you're the real a55hole.

Give law enforcement something to go on and they'll be able to do more, otherwise you'll get lip service and nothing else. The more of their behavior you can get on video, the better.

Short of that, start getting used to it or start looking for a new place to live. :/

really sorry for what you're going through. in life there r just those people who r ignorant or unkind.

I have been in similar situation before. I moved as soon as I could. As Fountain mentioned, those types of people will never change.
In my situation they only increased their torment and went further with their nasty ways to see how far they could go, and still get away with it.

If you are able to, move into an apartment that is high up and is at the side/edge of the building so at least one side is neighbour free. Then you can spend some time in the room closest to the edge of the building, when you want some peace and quiet.

Also in the room which is the furthest away from your neighbours, put several large, think floor mats over the floor. They will help to drown out some sound if you only have neighbours underneath you.
You can also put high bookshelves against walls to help block out the sound through adjoining walls etc.

Also those people who judge you for being home all the time have no idea what you could actually be doing while you are at home.

Their are several occupations that mainly work from home; authors write their novels at home. You could sometimes leave the apartment with a huge slab of paper cradled in your arms as if you are taking several chapters of your next novel to your publisher.

You could be a freelance website designer.
A freelance writer for magazines.
You could design online games.

Stand somewhere where your neighbours can hear you talking, then pretend to have a phone call with your publisher, or the company you help design online games for.
Write out the phone conversation first, and just read it out as if you are talking to someone about your work, over the phone.

From my experience, complaining about anything regarding your neighbours to the landlord can backfire on you and it usually never results in the change you would like to happen. Unless it is a serious matter that you can take to the police of course.

really good advice there BlueDays!

thank you all for the help. I agree with jinxed, very good advice. I'm gonna start fake talking on the phone everyday from now on

Why should the OP even HAVE to fake phone conversations to prove to some idiotic folks he does not know, that he is some "valuable person with a decent job" or whatever? How is that even their business?

In the apartment complex down the street and many others right near to where I live, there are many folks with serious mental issues (I mean, they look relatively normal but you can tell they are "off" somehow) and I don't think most of them work.

You think these folks have had to justify their existence to neighbors in an apartment complex? I know nothing about this, maybe this could be a real thing but it's pretty much the first I've heard of it.

If this is some kind of general rule for living in an apartment--everyone has to know what you do or that you're "contributing"--maybe that's my cue to avoid living in an apartment in the first place. But again, that's where I'll have to be eventually. Say it ain't so... :-/

I had kind of the opposite experience. When I was young and single, I had an apartment by myself. I used to listen to my TV at what I thought was a moderate level thru my stereo because I thought it made it seem like I was in the theater. However, one day my neighbor from directly above me came down. I had a little history with he and his girlfriend. She was kind of a j erk. She used to accuse me of making noises in my apartment that my next door neighbor was actually making. I would try to explain to her but she never listened (our building had weird acustics). Anyway, this one day it actually was my television that was the culprit. Her boyfriend came down. Poor guy, I could tell she put him up to it. Little dude, extremely nervous that my reaction would be less than amiable. I wonder if he didn't have social anxiety, himself. He was breathing deeply in between words, explained he was from upstairs and could I please turn the TV down. I told him I understood and apologized for my oversight. He seemed tremendously relieved and we always made it a point to say hello to each other in passing after that. I guess my point is, as uncomfortable as it may be, probably a direct and polite approach may have been better rather than going thru the landlord. It may not have made a difference with your neighbor but he may feel like he was being ratted out by you and thus put on the defensive.

One other time, I had a neighbor whose alarm clock kept going off about a half hour after he left for work. It was still very early in the mornings and the walls were thin. It was always loud enough to wake me before my time. So, I left a polite note telling him of the situation and it stopped. My point here is if face to face interaction is too much then maybe correspondence will do the trick in the future.

I complained about my neighbours and they left.

I agree that generally speaking, talking to your neighbour first is a better idea. Going to see the landlord first kind of feels like an attack. People may act more reasonably if they meet you in person. BlueDays's idea could work, but as Bronson said, I'm not sure it is such a good plan to pretend to be someone else so that your neighbours think better of you. It will suck you dry on the long term, I think. In fact, as difficult as it could be, I think there is still a chance that you could recover the situation by going to talk to them to fix the situation. You could say something like, I think we got off on the wrong foot, I should have come to you before going to the landlord, I'm hoping we could fix our little different in a friendly way so we can both live in harmony blah blah... You could even say that you need the noise to be kept low because you're on sick leave and you need a lot of rest so you can go back to work as soon as possible. No big deal if you blush and stutter all through it, the point is that you are making a move toward peace.

If they are not reasonable enough to cooperate, they are a**holes, and you'll have to go back dealing with the landlord.

Little update:

This last week was hell with the upstairs neighbors. They decided to do everything they could to make me move out. After a 5 hours long session of name calling and stomping really hard all over the apartment, I decided to leave for the weekend. My sister was nice enough to make some space for me at her home. Now that I'm back I decided that I would move. My landlord doesn't want to break my lease because I don't have a police report to back up that I'm being bullied. Honestly I don't think the cops would be able to do much in this situation. For one thing, as soon as someone enter the building everybody can hear it. Its even worse if they ring first since that can be heard from their apartment as well. Catching them on the act would just be really difficult and long. Also its not constant. As much as the people upstairs want to make me leave, they don't stomp around 24/7. I would have to call the cops and hope they decide to do it for a long continuous period of time. Which they do sometimes but its not like they have a schedule. ...that I'm aware off anyway lol

So I want to break my lease without a police report. I am not rich so paying off the landlord 3 or 6 month of lease would be difficult. Apparently giving a 3 month notice to the landlord to break a lease isn't something that can be done where I live.

Does anyone have an idea of what to do?

On a side note I picked this basement apartment which was really cheap, really old. A lot of things don't work correctly. The windows don't even close properly. The upstairs neighbors made a huge water mess in their bathroom which in turn made a mess in mine. Now I have some molds and holes on my ceiling. My kitchen counter is rotten and has mold under it. I told my landlord about the washing machine valves that leaks. I have to keep them close at all time or I would end up with a water mess of my own. Oh and the door weather-stripping needs to be replaced. I live in Canada and their is no insulation on my door. I can feel the cold coming in from the door.

At first i would've given the advice that you should take Pacific_Loner's advice basically but then i read how poor your house condition is and that you should move out. good luck