My record collection is not very deep in regards to "music to study to" or "music to ensure I don't rage against the ceiling with the broom handle again like I did last night". Ummm... we also wrote a nice note earlier too.

Side question: can you call the cops on your neighbors for a noise complaint in NY? Would they really respond to something so trivial? I've never needed to make a call like that before, though I must admit when I was younger on the west coast I was the cause for many of those complaints.

Our neighbors are like 25. Just a few years younger than us so we hate feeling like the uncool assholes, but my partner is pursuing a PhD while they get drunk, dance, and knock shit over at from 9pm-3am too many nights of the week for it to be easy to shrug off anymore.

we hate feeling like the uncool assholes

Never mind that. You got shit to do, man. tell those whippernappers to pipe down.

Yeah, last night I was like "fuck the letter" and I beat the ceiling with the broom. It's the first time I've lost it with them. I'm on a codiene cough suppressant at nights right now and they still managed to wake me up. If I had a lawn I'd tell them to get off it, too.

I would complain to the landlord. You should have a "quiet enjoyment of property" clause in your lease (I think that's the wording); in any event, if the neighbors are being that obnoxious and your landlord's not doing anything about it (once he knows about the problem), he's violating your lease.

Thanks for the advice, and the soundtrack as genre recommendation in the askme thread, occhiblu. I'm pretty sure they've built some structures inside their apartment that probably violate their own lease as well. I was only half-joking about the concerts in my askme question because they have band practices in their apartment on wednesdays. Wild.

Well, I'm off to try to sleep now. Wish me luck!

Good luck & sweet dreams!

Side question: can you call the cops on your neighbors for a noise complaint in NY? Would they really respond to something so trivial?

Yes and Yes.

You can totally call the cops...especially if it's late at night (late at night is the best time, actually)...they'll go up and knock and scare them.

My CD Swap CD should help you out. It should mail next week.
:-)

this thread should help. I bought a ton of recommended stuff and have a ton of appropriate things already. let me know if there's anything in particular you want to hear.

a noise complaint in NY?

There are (at least) three different standards in NYC depending on the zoning: residential, mixed, manufacturing. There are different levels for day and night, and times for the cutoff. Call 311 to find the decibel levels for your place, as well as the zoning.

Radio Shack sells a cheap sound meter for monitoring this. Best to get one and find out exactly where the readings work to support your case, pro or anti noise.

The police will have a meter, but they might just stick their arm in the door with it, when two feet off the floor in the kitchen has the offending level.

Safetyfork: I posted you an answer. You should check out my two playlist posts so far or try out one of my DJ sets on radio mecha if you can catch it.

God, I wish the fucking neighbors downstairs played punk and slam danced around.

Instead, I get MTV's Sucka Free Sundays blasted at all kinds of weird hours. Sometimes it'll be dead quiet all day and then at 3AM they start blasting whatever crap ass mainstream hiphop it is that they're playing on their seriously shitty Wal Mart stereo. Great, loud and shitty audio reproduction. Yeah, man, nice bass. Is that a goat? Why does that bass kick sound like a bleating goat in a compactor? Oh, that's right. You're a moron, and worse, with bad taste.

I don't even bother going to talk to them because they're fucking trash, and it's just going to end up in fisticuffs or bloodshed.

No, the management is no help. They can't even remember my phone number even though I've sent it to them via four different mediums. They can't even be bothered to give me a fucking key to the mailbox, after 9 months of not having one. (Yeah, we're moving. End of this week, or mid April.)

Once or twice it's gotten on my nerves enough that I've taken my small subwoofer and set it to fire right into the floor and played obscenity laced hardcore underground "free tekno" turned way the fuck up. They usually turn down their stereo real soon after that, 'cause nothing ruins a good (ugh, bad! Very bad!) hiphop slow jam session like 150-160 BPM sounds of psychoactive drug-fuelled killer robots having machine-fucking orgies of apocalyptic doom.

Attention neighbors: Get some Tribe Called Quest or some shit, man. Fuck. Sugarhill Gang would be better then that shit. NWA. Public Enemy? Egyptian Lover? Comon, you WalMart humping gutfuckers! Oh, oh God. Please, not Black Eyed Peas "My lumps" again. That's the third time today!!

I so fucking wish I was joking. :( :( If you've ever heard me wax on lovingly about my relatively inexpensive Philips solid-shell closed ear headphones, well, now you know why.

Orbital is my "get stuff done" music.

Thanks for all the suggestions, confirmations, and advice!

No party last night, just some random foot clomping/heavy walking/object dropping. Ah, I feel like I could write an ode to their stomp stomp stomp which is almost worse than when they throw a party or have a band practice because you can begin to ignore the overall sound in those cases (and I will grant that their taste in music is not bad). It's those attention grabbing one, two random thud's or a string of clomp clomp clomp down the hall that tend to grate on my nerves the worst (although I think my partner would like to see them silenced overall). I'll probably follow up further in the metafilter thread monday or tuesday.

dobbs, I didn't see that thread in my, admittedly quick and cursory, askme searches; I'm going to go through them both for ideas which is excellent.