Apartment living can be stressful.
Back in the day, some apartment buildings in many major cities were just thrown together haphazardly.
The sounds from the neighbor’s apartments bleed through constantly.
A lot of people just live with it.
But… some people need to make a fuss about it.
Redditor blackswan-nyc wanted to discuss their experience and get some feedback, so naturally, they came to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subreddit.
They asked:
“AITA for telling my neighbor it’s not my problem that her newborn wakes up to noises coming from my apartment?”
The Original Poster (OP) explained:
“I recently moved into a one-bedroom apartment that had been vacant for a while.”
“The unit is great overall, and I really like living here.”
“I have a two-year-old goldendoodle.”
“He will occasionally bark when he hears something outside my door or in the hallway, but I work from home, so I’m almost always there, and I correct the behavior when it happens. “
“It’s usually just a couple of alert barks.”
“Tonight, around 7:00 pm, I was having dinner with my sisters when my neighbor knocked on my door.”
“She told me that my dog’s ‘constant barking’ has been disturbing her newborn’s sleep and that this has apparently been going on for weeks.”
“She also said she has two dogs and that she educated them not to bark, so I should be able to do the same with my dog.”
“The thing is, my dog wasn’t even barking when she knocked on the door, and I honestly don’t believe he is barking constantly.”
“Since I work from home, I would definitely notice if he were.”
“I told her I would try my best to manage it, but also said that I can’t control the fact that the building’s sound insulation seems pretty poor.”
“I can hear her baby crying through the walls quite often, but I’ve never complained because that’s just part of apartment living.”
“Babies cry, and dogs sometimes bark.”
“Now the whole interaction has made me really anxious and hyper aware.”
“If my dog barks even once, I immediately worry she’s going to complain again.”
The OP was left to wonder:
“AITA for telling her that the building’s thin walls aren’t really something I can control?”
Redditors shared their thoughts on this matter and weighed in on some options to the question:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors declared that OP was NOT the A**hole.
“NTA – This woman just had a baby.”
“Her brain is all kinds of messed up.”
“Give her some ‘I’m sorry’ chocolate gift in the name of good neighborhood etiquette, and you might even turn this thing around.” ~ Milo_Fuckface
“No judgment.”
“I suggest you audio or video record during the day, so you can prove to the landlord how often your dog actually barks in case she puts a formal complaint in.” ~ lilolememe
“Dog owners are almost always oblivious to how much their dog barks, so I’m inclined to side with the neighbor.” ~ Low-Attention-1998
“This, 100%.”
“And I’ve met so many doodles that bark at every noise/movement.”
“I have a golden (non-doodle), and we spent months ensuring that he does not bark at anything unless it’s truly an emergency/terrifying.”
“It was hard work, but worth it, and we live in a stand-alone home!”
“I’ve lived in apartments with barky dogs, and it’s such a nightmare.”
“It’s like the owners grow immune to it.” ~ bondagenurse
“It’s just as easy to point fingers at the parents who tune out the wails and screams of their babies and children in restaurants, airplanes, and adjoining living spaces, too.”
“It sucks, but if you’re renting, you simply do not have total control over the soundscape of your living quarters.”
“Even if you’re a homeowner, your control only extends to your property line.”
“Egregious noise violations should obviously be addressed, but it’s just as likely the mother got used to the silence of the long unoccupied adjoining apartment.”
“It could be she feels entitled to that relative luxury, but again, thems the breaks of rental life.” ~ OpalLaguz
“Absolutely this.”
“A neighbor tries to evict me because my dog was always barking when I was at work.”
“I installed a camera, and he basically slept the whole time! I walked him in the morning, during my lunch, when I got home, and in the evening.”
“I trained with him daily and left to train at a dog club 3 times per week.”
“I was barely home on the weekends and had him with me.”
“The poor dog used the time alone to recharge and was accused of being a malicious barker!”
“She also said that a German Shepherd did not belong in a city and that I should get rid of him.”
“She also accused me of being a sex worker and complained to the landlord because my ex-husband came over to sign divorce papers, and a male friend came over once for pancakes within the span of two weeks.”
“The horror!!”
“Meanwhile, she also complained that I hadn’t walked her dog once because she (the owner) had poor hips, and the old neighbour sometimes did that. What!?”
“Her poor dog left the house maybe once per day.”
“Also, I hadn’t come over for coffee and hadn’t brought a cake.”
“Note that I was never invited, and she accused me of being a sex worker.”
“What on earth!?”
“So, misery loves company.”
“Get proof.”
“Talk to your landlord before she poisons their ears.” ~ Coolfarm88
“I had a neighbor complain about my dogs barking.”
“I did exactly this and asked the neighbors on the other side if they heard them bark, and they said they only noticed it when walking by our apartment and that it never bothered them.”
“When I recorded them, they barked only about 2–3 times a day for less than a minute each time.”
“My pet cam would note when they barked, showed that to my landlord, and he told the neighbors that it’s a dog-friendly complex, that a normal level of barking is expected, and that the barking wasn’t excessive.” ~ TcTuggersLLC
“NAH. I mean, babies cry, dogs bark.”
“As long as you are truly correcting it in the moment and not letting your dog go for long periods of time, what can you really do about it?”
“Maybe consider a bark collar, I don’t know.”
“I’m sure that mom is just super stressed and exhausted with her newborn, and it is frustrating to have sleep interrupted like that… but that’s definitely a risk with apartment life, unfortunately.” ~ Minute-Aioli-5054
“NTA. Dogs bark in neighborhoods, too.”
“Kids scream in neighborhoods.”
“She needs to get a white noise machine.”
“Obviously, if your dog is barking excessively, you would know because who lets their dog bark excessively when they are home??”
“Honestly, your dog and the baby are both getting used to new surroundings.”
“The dog will bark, and the baby will cry.”
“That’s life.” ~ Slight-Philosophy470
“I own guardian breeds.”
“They’re gonna alert bark to door knocking, certain sounds outside, they see someone in the yard.”
“I’ve trained them by getting up at the first bark, looking, informing them job well done/I see it, and they stop.”
“If you wanted to get them to totally stop barking, forever, you’d have to cut their vocal cords out.”
“I feel for mom, she’s probably exhausted and doing the best she can, but when living in an apartment, dogs will occasionally bark, kids will occasionally play, couples will occasionally fight.”
“NTA, NAH.”
“But, I am, however, giving you good faith by assuming you’re truthful and self-aware about how often your dogs are actually barking, and how quickly they stop.” ~ cheerioz12
“NTA – people need to make their homes noisy so their kids sleep through it.”
“Honestly, though, I’d find a way to set up a camera or a recorder for when you aren’t there just to make sure.” ~ Tough_Difference9935
“It’s called a sound machine!”
“Your neighbor should invest in one.”
“We had a baby in NYC, and guess what, we couldn’t control the traffic noise, so we got a good sound machine.”
“Also (no blame on mom), the baby might just be a bad sleeper, and she needs someone to blame it on.”
“You’re NTA!!!” ~ No_Low_5419
“NTA, especially bc you are home all day and wouldn’t be able to work if your dog was barking.”
“Newborns are hard, and she is likely sleep-deprived, and setting herself up for failure if she is tiptoeing around and insisting on silence.”
“She needs to get a sound/white noise machine, and the baby would never hear a dog barking.” ~ Glitter_Girl100
“NTA. As long as it’s during the daytime and it’s not nuisance barking, you’re entitled to make noise in your apartment.”
“That’s the realities of living in close quarters, you hear music playing, dogs barking, kids screaming, etc., etc.” ~ ausbby4
OP came back with an update for us.
“This situation has made me very hyper-aware, so I’ve been paying close attention to my dog (mini goldendoodle) since the interaction.”
“Last night and this morning, he didn’t bark once, and honestly sleeps through most of the day.”
“We take long walks, and I play with him after feeding, and he’s been trained since he was a puppy.”
“I think part of the issue may be that my unit was vacant for a long time before I moved in, so they may have gotten used to total silence next door.”
“I lived in my previous apartment for two years and never received a single complaint about my dog.”
“My husband even added an extra layer of insulation around our front door to reduce hallway noise, and the building itself is very pet-friendly (there are probably more dogs than people here).”
“I’m trying to empathize because I’ve never had a baby and maybe don’t fully understand what she’s going through with a newborn, but at the same time, I don’t feel like I should have to tiptoe around my own home in fear that a single bark might wake her baby.”
Reddit is with you, OP.
Dogs will bark every so often.
Just babies are going to cry.
That is all the circle of life.
Your neighbor is just going to have to adjust.
Good Luck.