Revenge

Last night I was so sick of my upstairs neighbors being inconsiderately loud at 12:30 in the morning that I washed my dishes loudly and muttered to myself a lot.

I fantasized that maybe they could hear me slamming dishes around and wondered how they would like dealing with random crashes and thuds and slams and clanks. Even if nothing I do is shaking their house like their furniture-moving, jumping off high places, running in the halls, slamming drawers, and loud music does to mine.

Thing is? I don't really believe in revenge. Because it doesn't feel good and it doesn't work.

I have a big stick that I use to pound on the ceiling whenever they blast music (no idea if it has ever worked). If I wanted to, I could hey, just pound on the ceiling randomly after they go to sleep. Sometimes I'm awake when that happens (and you can always, without a doubt, tell that they are home and awake if they are). Why not give them a taste of their own medicine?

a) Because if I woke them up, they'd be awake, and then they'd make noise and continue to bother me;

b) Because they do not associate my noises with anything they're doing. They are inconsiderate and selfish, but they are not doing it just to mess with my life.

I've complained to the apartment complex at least a dozen times, probably more. The current administration keeps saying they're "trying," but the trying so far seems to have included leaving a note on the door and "giving it a few days" (so what, they'll pick a time to have a family conference to discuss the note and collectively decide to stop being obnoxious?) and also knocking on the door ("they're not answering" *shrug* oh well) and I think someone from there tried to call but was not able to reach anyone.

In other words, they haven't effectively been told they're causing a problem for me, and the people in charge of making it better have acted like it's a problem of doing enough to make me think they're trying, not a problem of doing something that results in actual connection with the people causing the problem and making them recognize that they are causing a problem, and also enforcing consequences.

But they won't do that, because more than likely they think I'm the problem.

I think this because on one of the occasions where the manager was telling me she was "going to try," she suggested that maybe when my lease is up in September, they can move me to an upstairs apartment.

Yeah. Move ME. Because the problem isn't them making noise; it's me being annoyed by it. And, as the manager carefully suggested, I will probably be unhappy below anyone.

You know, because I must just be sensitive about footsteps above me or something. It can't be because a family of at least three adults and two kids and a dog are literally moving furniture so it scrapes against the floor, at least two dozen times a day, and this is not an exaggeration, and I have given them a video capturing their noise with time stamps and dates showing that the upstairs neighbors are making a baffling amount of noise after midnight consistently, but you know, what can they really do if they can't directly observe it, right?

Sleep over at my house. If you can sleep. Try, I dare you.

When the manager said they'd be glad to move me, I made my final decision that I am moving out. I find it unacceptable that their solution would be to move me away from the problem instead of acknowledging that there is a problem and stopping it, and I find it unacceptable that I would be the incredibly inconvenienced person who would reward them for this with more of my money.

So I guess that's a form of punishment, though not revenge. If you won't address my needs even though I've made them more than clear, I'm not going to give you my business anymore. Revenge, though? Not interested. I'm not planning to post scathing reviews on websites. Not planning to leave a passive-aggressive note on my neighbors' door or in my file. If they have a place for me to do so, I will certainly state for the record that the reason I'm moving is almost 100% because I can't deal with the neighbors' noise anymore. I don't care about vengeance or comeuppance or karmic fulfillment--whatever you call delighting in people getting what's coming to them. (Cosmic justice is fun to watch once in a while, but I am not out to help it along.) I don't get any satisfaction from it, and it does not make the world better.

I'm not sure if this is a philosophical post or a rant about my neighbors but I guess I'm just gonna post it.