10 Suggestions for Friendly Relations at Waterside
- Remember the walls are paper thin and the floors and ceilings not much better. You can hear your neighbors and they can hear you. So keep the noise down, especially after 10pm and before 7am (later in weekends).
- Loud music or TV can be annoying to others. Sometime neighbors work together doing a volume test so they know at what sound level they are disturbing their neighbors.
- Take your shoes off when you come home. Your downstairs neighbors won’t hear you padding around in soft slippers but wearing those high heels indoors will drive them crazy.
- Ask the kids to play ball outside rather than in the living room. If they must play indoors, make sure it’s on a carpeted floor to mitigate the noise.
- Speaking of carpet: your lease requires you to cover 80% of your floor space.
- Don’t let your apartment door slam shut. The whole floor will get a fright and your neighbors’ walls will shudder. There’s not much we can do about those pesky menu delivery people slamming the stairwell doors, but at least we know better, right?
- What about that garbage room! Please put your garbage down the chute, not in bags on the floor. Recycled materials should be stacked neatly not just thrown anywhere. Some floors have bins for bottles and plastics so please use them.
- If you smoke, consider quitting. Otherwise smoke outside or invest in an odor eater so that your neighbors don’t have to breathe secondhand smoke. An open window doesn’t always help as it can blow the smoke out under your door and in under your neighbors’ down the hall.
- If you cook, make sure the vent in your kitchen is working to expel cooking smells. To paraphrase an old saying: remember that one man’s grilled meat is another man’s putrid stink!
- If there’s something that your neighbors are doing that is driving you crazy, knock on their door and explain, or slip a polite note under their door. Don’t call the doorman to complain unless it’s a last resort. Often people have no idea they are upsetting their neighbors and quickly make amends once they know. Similarly, if your neighbors complain to you, don’t take offense but try to see it their way.