I immediately called the cops and don’t know what happened after that. I asked the night clerk and he said the cops knocked on the door and nobody answered. Duh!

To this day I wonder if I should have thrown something through that glass and helped that girl myself.

I said all that to say you’re not alone, December. Hopefully it all works out o.k. -V95

I had noisy thumpy upstairs neighbours in a condo once. I slipped a note under their door (cause they were never home when I was) and the guy (bouncer at a bar who liked to “workout” at 3 in the morning) came down and told my husband to deal with the noise and stop banging on the ceiling or he’d come down and deal with him! My husband told the guy if he knoced on the door at 3 in the morning he’d have a shotgun in his hand when he answered.

Silence from then on.

I never had the neighbours complain to me, but out of spite we blasted Slayer from our deck for a few weeks. We had 5 acre parcels and the jerks took out all but 9 trees between our houses and aimed their living room window at our deck.

We live in a college town. There are hundreds of 20-year-old guys who think it’s their God-given right to drink and yell, “WHOOOAAAA!” at 1am.

They don’t even have air conditioning here, Michele, so no, I don’t think so, sadly. But I also imagine by now that if a kid matching the description we gave had been reported missing, someone would have come by to get a more complete discription, since we gave our name and address.

See, kis, that’s the kind of thing that infuriates me. They have noise ordinances but they’re basically unenforceable. You can be arrested on the street for disorderly conduct, but you can’t be arrested at home for making enough noise to wake the dead nd keeping your neighbors up all night.
Now I’m a personal freedom kind of a girl. I think what I do in my own home should be nobody else’s business–as long as I’m not disturbing other people. But when somebody is blatantly, purposefully ignoring the rights of others, they should be fucking busted for it. Fined heavily at the very least.

It does get easier, doesn’t it Paca? I think that’s why it always amazes me on tv or in movies where shit’s happening and nobody ever thinks to just call the cops.
The first time–actually, I believe it’s still the only time–I ever called 911 was right after the hubs and I (dating at the time) got mugged right outside my apt. building. I was so freaked out, and I’m telling the woman what happened and hearing those little beeps in the background indicating the conversation was being recorded. It was unreal. And I hung up the phone, my hand still shaking, and my roommate–who’d managed to sleep through the whole thing–looks at me and says, “They were speaking some language, it sounded like Aaaaasian.“
And hubs and I lost it. It was awesome. (It’s a Cable Guy reference, if you didn’t catch it.)

But yeah, I’m much more willing to call the cops now if something is happening.

And, you’re awesome for making those calls or thinking of it to begin with. Remember Kitty Genovese?

Yeah, Bernita, it was…but I still wish I’d called sooner. I just wasn’t sure what was going on, and thought if it’s just some people playing, or yelling at their kid, I don’t want to get in trouble with the police for wasting their time or something. Thanks though.

How many fucking times do the police have to come by for them to know, yeah, you’re bothering people???

There are noise bylaws in our town, but until these neighbors of ours started making problems 5+ nights a week, there was no mechanism for enforcing them. But me calling the cops sometimes five times a night as often as 7 nights a week for eight months actually made the RCMP and the town council change the system. Yay! How bad is it, when it’s your fucking asshole party animal neighbors who induce a whole town to change the law?

As for that kid, yeah, I’d be freaked, too. Absolutely. I hope the cops manage to figure out what it was all about, and have the consideration to let you know so you can stop worrying.