Advice - Downstairs Neighbors

Cornstarch7

I live on the 2nd floor of an apartment, and our downstairs neighbors just complained to maintenance that our toilet has been running constantly. They came to fix it, but it's been working fine. I can only assume it's because I go to the bathroom constantly, especially at night -- about every 20-30 minutes. Sometimes more. I feel really bad if it's been keeping them up at night. We don't talk to them a whole lot, but we're friendly when we see each other. I'm sure they've noticed that I'm pregnant. I'm wondering if I should go down and explain the situation or just ignore it. What would you do?

MoRay05

I would just ignore it. You won't be going to the bathroom as frequently once you have the baby.

dramaphile

Maybe just leave them a note apologizing and let them know you're hugely pregnant and hopefully the bathroom trips will slow down once the baby comes. I would hope they'd be understanding, and if they're not, oh well. Sometimes people who haven't had kids don't understand just how pregnancy goes in real life!

Pontot31

Might be a little gross but when I'm home alone and at night I usually only flush every 3-4 pees. I'm in there so much I don't want to waste that much water!

oliarnmom1517

Pontot31 said:

Might be a little gross but when I'm home alone and at night I usually only flush every 3-4 pees. I'm in there so much I don't want to waste that much water!

I did the same thing once my maternity leave started and I was home alone all day.. I felt like every time I turned around that I was in the restroom so it made sense to me..

makeoutside7

Lol. @Pontot31 me too! I always felt like I had to unleash a gallon but in reality it was always just a few drops! Not enough to keep flushing every time. So I would wait a few times too.

Cook3133

I sometimes don't flush early in the morning either, but it has nothing to do with wasting water. It's totaly selfish, I don't want to wake up the kids or let them know I'm up.....

mrsgabus

Cook3133 said:

I sometimes don't flush early in the morning either, but it has nothing to do with wasting water. It's totaly selfish, I don't want to wake up the kids or let them know I'm up.....

As soon as the boys are down to bed there is no flushing until 7 am .Unless of course its not pee then flush away lol 

The toilet is loud and backs up against their wall, I do not want them up in the middle of the night just because I have to half tinkle. 

Gapeach83

We are also ones that don't flush at night if just pee. Don't want to wake kids and saves water. Definitely will continue with the baby in our room.

NovemberSno

Pontot31 said:

Might be a little gross but when I'm home alone and at night I usually only flush every 3-4 pees. I'm in there so much I don't want to waste that much water!

Same here!!! My husband actually thanked me for that. So gross I didn't mean for him to see hahaha.

Cornstarch7

Thanks ladies!

2015mommy2b

Yikes I hope they won't be jerks when the baby is crying!!

MaeMae91

My dad's mantra is "if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down"

I understand about downstairs neighbors complaining, mine used to pound on the ceiling if I exercised in my apartment or if our 90 pound German shepherd ran from one room to another...

It might be nice if you're not going to stop flushing to just send them a little note and maybe some cookies, you don't want them as enemies

Jeenyus

I've been home during the day as well, and just don't flush every time.  I figure if I'm in there every 20-30 minutes, may as well conserve water

HopefulMNMom

Living in a complex means having to deal with other people's noises, dinner smells, schedules, etc. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about it. You can't help when you need to go to the bathroom and you can't feel bad for having to do so where you live. I say too bad downstairs neighbors, they will need to move into a private residence if they are bothered by living in a building with others.

RaisingJulian

HopefulMNMom said:

Living in a complex means having to deal with other people's noises, dinner smells, schedules, etc. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about it. You can't help when you need to go to the bathroom and you can't feel bad for having to do so where you live. I say too bad downstairs neighbors, they will need to move into a private residence if they are bothered by living in a building with others.

I agree. I used to live in a duplex (or whatever it's called) where the upstairs neighbors were so loud! They were up all hours of the night. But we never complained or anything because that's their home & they should be able to do what they want. We weren't about to say "hey I get its ur house & all but can u stop living ur life cuz it's inconvenient." I feel like that's what it says when u complain about noise in others home. As long as it's not anything like a party going crazy. I think people should be able to do what they want in their house. We ended up moving in the end like u said.

AmoLovesAud

Well it at least doesn't sound like a complaint-complaint, they were concerned that your toilet was broken.  If you want to go explain to them (I guess they don't have bio kids?) you can, but I don't think you have to unless they either complain again or make it into a noise violation.

We had a downstairs neighbor one time that called management to blame us every time she heard any noise in the building.  We did everything, even watch TV, with headphones on, and we left our shoes at the door and put down rugs to try to muffle our walking around, but she never stopped calling to complain if she heard anything at all.  The 3 times the noise was bad enough that management called us to stop, we weren't even home!!!!  The last call we got was 2 days after we moved out!  (Sorry, not particularly relevant, I just like making AW-posts about that whacko.  That must've been her first apartment or something because you just have to get used to people above, below and next to you walking around and living their life, you can't expect complete silence.)

itstheblackwidowbaby

AmoLovesAud said:

Well it at least doesn't sound like a complaint-complaint, they were concerned that your toilet was broken.  If you want to go explain to them (I guess they don't have bio kids?) you can, but I don't think you have to unless they either complain again or make it into a noise violation.

We had a downstairs neighbor one time that called management to blame us every time she heard any noise in the building.  We did everything, even watch TV, with headphones on, and we left our shoes at the door and put down rugs to try to muffle our walking around, but she never stopped calling to complain if she heard anything at all.  The 3 times the noise was bad enough that management called us to stop, we weren't even home!!!!  The last call we got was 2 days after we moved out!  (Sorry, not particularly relevant, I just like making AW-posts about that whacko.  That must've been her first apartment or something because you just have to get used to people above, below and next to you walking around and living their life, you can't expect complete silence.)

I just laughed so hard. What did you tell the complex? "Umm... So you guys know we turned in our keys two days ago right?"

AmoLovesAud

itstheblackwidowbaby said:

I just laughed so hard. What did you tell the complex? "Umm... So you guys know we turned in our keys two days ago right?"

We left the keys with MIL, manager told her when she dropped them off.  "Oh by the way, (neighbor) complained that she heard a lot of loud shouting and running up and down the halls near (our apartment) again last night...." MIL: "Well, they left on Tuesday!  Don't think it was them!"  The manager also tried to take $300 out of our security deposit because she found 3 hairs in one of the bathroom drawers, claiming they'd need to hire a cleaning service.... I spent my last day in that apartment scrubbing/dusting/bleaching everything in sight, it was spotless...  despite it being a "luxury" apartment complex (meaning it was reasonably new, had stainless appliances, and you could rent a garage), they were still a little skeezy....

VexedMommy

AmoLovesAud said:

itstheblackwidowbaby said:

I just laughed so hard. What did you tell the complex? "Umm... So you guys know we turned in our keys two days ago right?"

We left the keys with MIL, manager told her when she dropped them off.  "Oh by the way, (neighbor) complained that she heard a lot of loud shouting and running up and down the halls near (our apartment) again last night...." MIL: "Well, they left on Tuesday!  Don't think it was them!"  The manager also tried to take $300 out of our security deposit because she found 3 hairs in one of the bathroom drawers, claiming they'd need to hire a cleaning service.... I spent my last day in that apartment scrubbing/dusting/bleaching everything in sight, it was spotless...  despite it being a "luxury" apartment complex (meaning it was reasonably new, had stainless appliances, and you could rent a garage), they were still a little skeezy....

Ugh.  What crap.  I always take a huge amount of pictures on move in and move out.  I also do the walk through with management and get confirmation that there are no problems before I turn in the keys.  That way they can't try those skeezy things.  (I got burned too many times when I was younger.  lol)

Cornstarch7

AmoLovesAud said:

Well it at least doesn't sound like a complaint-complaint, they were concerned that your toilet was broken.  If you want to go explain to them (I guess they don't have bio kids?) you can, but I don't think you have to unless they either complain again or make it into a noise violation.

We had a downstairs neighbor one time that called management to blame us every time she heard any noise in the building.  We did everything, even watch TV, with headphones on, and we left our shoes at the door and put down rugs to try to muffle our walking around, but she never stopped calling to complain if she heard anything at all.  The 3 times the noise was bad enough that management called us to stop, we weren't even home!!!!  The last call we got was 2 days after we moved out!  (Sorry, not particularly relevant, I just like making AW-posts about that whacko.  That must've been her first apartment or something because you just have to get used to people above, below and next to you walking around and living their life, you can't expect complete silence.)

Wow, that's nuts!

Cornstarch7

Thanks for the advice everyone. After talking it over with my husband I decided an explanation wasn't necessary, but that I would try to "let the yellow mellow" overnight as much as possible. I do think they really just thought the toilet was broken, but at the same time I don't want to keep them up at night. I highly doubt they would be upset about the baby crying, though. They don't have kids, but they have noisy dogs. Our dog is noisy too and they've never complained about him. It's a dog building, so everyone is pretty understanding when it comes to barking, as long as it's not at night (thankfully our dogs are all pretty good about that).