I’ve been here a while…I know better…yet…
For a few months now I’ve been attempting to get the university students who live in the building behind us to stop doing their laundry at 2am right outside our bedroom window and keeping us awake. It all starts friendly enough with “Excuse me, It’s 2am. Can you please not do your laundry now; we can’t sleep.” This of course met with limited success and the usual Taiwan shrug that silently says “But what has your suffering got to do with my convenience?”
So I end up conceding to the “grin and bear it like everyone else” logic that is an inescapable part of expat life in Taiwan. Advice from friends all says “no win on this one”.
Perhaps it was subconcious worry about the doctors report earlier in the week about my pregnant wife’s high blood pressure that requires “adequate sleep” ; or maybe it was the pain of a broken tooth from a bloody stone in my mixed nuts from Giant Supermarket the day before, that I knew had no hope in hell of accountability; anyway, for whatever the reason I snapped. When I was awoken at 3am to yet another fool putting in a load of wash I leaned out the window and yelled: :“Don’t you know it’s 3 in the morning?!!! Don’t you know people are trying to sleep?!!!”
to which my scholarly neighbor replied with a simple “F#@% You!” and proceeded to load the machine…
…so by the time the police I had called showed up, I had already kicked in the locked front door of the neighbors building and had been pacing up and down the halls calling him out and waking up everyone in the building… not good. Needless to say the #@#% never emerged and the police simply shut off the washing machine and left.
Now I must simply await the inevitable scooter slashing, broken window, mob baseball bat beating, that are generally the recourse in these situations. I know i should of attempted to call the manager of the building before it had escalated to this… 20-20 hindsight and all that. 10 years of pent-up frustration is my only excuse I guess. Nothing to do now except wait and see.
You can win though, because all of us forumosans can think up all kinds of nasty surprises. (without any consequences of course! )
Remember… you know where they live. Also do you want my gas powered pistol? Seriously looks real and I was told that it could fire ball bearings, although I only ever tried ceramic pellets. I won’t be able to take it with me when I go back home.
Bad move on your part, but I doubt there’ll be further consequences, as you have shown you are willing to take the battle to them, which, in my experience, always precedes a backing down on their part.
I suspect you’ll have no more late-night laundry sessions keeping you awake.
Sorry about your tooth and congrats on the forthcoming baby.
The old “As long as things are convenient for me, everyone else can fuck off” attitude is such a drag, but I can’t say I’ve only experienced this in Taiwan.
My advice is to visit building management and file a complaint. Make it clear that you were inconvenienced over the course of several nights, weeks, etc., that you have been polite, then insistent, and that you were told to fuck off. Mention that your wife is pregnant and needs her sleep. Let the manager know that you are reasonable but that you will NOT be played a fool or taken advantage of by some punk kids. Act as put out as you possibly can. Let your anger show, but don’t get out of control or direct it at the manager.
You’ve already made it clear to the kid that you’re willing to go nuts on him if he fucks with you, and the police have been to his apartment. I doubt anything is going to happen at this point, but certainly, keep an eye out for anything weird over the next few weeks.
I’ve got to say that you’d be well within the bounds of reasonable behaviour if you found the kid who told you to fuck yourself, slammed him up against a wall and let him hang while you explained to him that he will not be doing wash after midnight again.
Most of the humanus assholuses I’ve met are also cowards. You’re probably not worth the risks involved in retribution.
Kicking in doors?
Hanging people / slamming them off walls?
What kind of Charles Bronson movie fantasy is this?
This sort of thing/advice is going to end up getting the OP jailed, not the offending idiots across the way.
Yes, I agree. When confronted with an individual who has no respect for others, and who responds to a demand that he shut off a loud washing machine at 3am with the words “fuck you,” the best course of action is to simply lay down and let him walk all over you. Better yet, find him, offer him a deep apology, and kiss his arse on both sides, hoping he’ll forgive you.
Yours in contrition,
Charles B.
P.S. In my former life as a vigilante who was often jailed for my actions, I learned that you can push a fellow against (that’s “against,” not “off”*) a wall, lift him up so that his heels are a bit off the ground (i.e. “let him hang,” not “hang him”), and he won’t bruise. He may shit his pants, but he won’t bruise.
*Clarification provided for the semantically impaired
I get the frustration.
I catch myself slipping into ranting-outraged man mode more often that I’d like.
But, seriously. As useless as the police are, you don’t want them arresting you (with pretty good cause, to boot).
I wonder, though, is this site full of armchair vigilantes, or are there really hordes of Forumosan’s out there cracking heads, and keeping the neighbourhoods clean?
My goodness. Where exactly did you get that there are hordes of outraged Forumosans out cracking heads?
Got to run–my armchair is getting cold, and I’ve still got a few more people to incite to violence before I go to bed and dream of being tough like Charles Bronson.
[quote=“sojourner”]Kicking in doors?
Hanging people / slamming them off walls?
What kind of Charles Bronson movie fantasy is this?
This sort of thing/advice is going to end up getting the OP jailed, not the offending idiots across the way.[/quote]
Not to mention, it’s bound to create more dirty laundry, if you understand what I mean.
This story reminds me of two of my own, from years ago.
I had a nice house out in the boonies, but not two meters from my bedroom window was someone’s balcony. The guy there worked nights and they had 6 or 7 kids. The wife would do laundry at 2am and it would keep me awake. I went around and tried to reason but the bottom line was ‘we don’t have time to wash clothes during the day, and we don’t give a shit if you sleep or not’. Finally I took to leaving a metal CD on repeat all day (at reasonable volume) while I was out so the guy couldn’t sleep. He suddenly learned to be cooperative. No repercussions.
Another place I lived was in a quiet apartment complex with very thick walls. It was perfect until suddenly this whining sound, like someone ‘playing’ a wine glass, would be heard every evening for about two hours. It wasn’t loud but it’s the kind of noise that goes right through you. Finally I figured out it was someone’s exercise bike and asked the building manager to take them a can of WD40 (I gave him one) and ask them to fix the bike so it didn’t sqeal like a stuck pig. They were five working-class guys in there and they told him to piss off, they weren’t going to oil no squeaky wheel. A couple of days later I freaked out and went over there with a hammer and started banging on the door and screaming at them to come out and tell me themselves to piss off. None of them would come out and face me. They never made a peep after that and again, there were no repercussions.
I’m not proud of either of these events, just telling it how it happened. I’m quite sure that if I’d picked the wrong person in either case I wouldn’t be here now to tell the tale.
dont matter where you go, theres always a chance to run into shitty neighbors !!
this 4plex that i live in in calif (4 units , 2 downstairs, 2 upstairs ). this family downstairs just LOVES to barbeque, I mean every meal , every day !! I shouldve figured that out when i saw the HUGE professional BBQ unit the guy has in his front porch (its not really a yard).
anyway, the smell sure gets upstairs to my unit. Hes sure not going to be giving up his cooking habits with that 5000 dollar machine hes got !! I just close the sliding glass door when hes up to cooking. and the other 98pct of the time theres no issues.
you cant win when you are living with other humanoids
Some guy kicks in the locked door of a building he does not live in and the police do nothing?
Why not just shoot a video and show all the neighbors how rude they are in a tenants meeting? Print out some copies of the offending parties and post them on their (now broken) front door?
the problem nowadays is narcissim on a national level, and it’s getting that way in all countries. guy runs you off the road. how dare you get angry with his right to run you off the road. you have a nice motorcycle. i’ll slash the tires because yours is better than mine.
it all started when parents stopped slapping the shit out of their kids for being selfish. it all started when if you fight the bully at school, they kick you out for escalating.
there’s a cultural war: the have class against the no class. and i’ll tell you something:
if the have classes don’t stop running these bastards will take over the world.
dr. michio kaku says that the next 100 years will determine if this planet becomes a class A (which will eventually transcend normal limitations) or degrade down to a class C (stone age). he also said Islamic fundamentalism may be one of the keystones in sending us back 2000 years. i see very little difference between islamic fundamentalism and gangsterism/ narcissim. all the same. just a bunch of people who wanna take over and impose their will on others.
i’ve been talking a lot about coping, because i want to have control over my emotions and my day. the coping methods i’ve been investigating have been helping me. but if there is any solution, i’m afraid it will have to be an all out war (in the legal arena) to put a lid on the no classes once and for all. as far is individual neighborhoods and property rights are concerned, it may be necessary for citizens to organize and arm themselves against gangs. purge them from their neighborhoods by the same methods they use to gain a foothold. the type of citizens who do this would have to be extremely responsible, because that power once it is used, tends to corrupt.
Well, no slashed seats or beating with bats yet. But no change in behavior either, as the damn washing machine was going again last night, although only till 1:30am this time. Guess I wasn’t as intimidating as I thought with my mad foreigner on the loose rampage the other night.
Have decided to pursue a solution through the much calmer route of contacting the manager and having him put up a sign over the washing machine: No washing after 12:00. My wife, of all people, just scoffed at this and said it was a waste of time; said I should just go back over and cut the bloody plug-ins off the machines. I really don’t want to set the example that petty vandalism is the solution to the problem; enough of that around. Gonna have to hide the bleach away from my wife though, to keep her from spraying the clothes of the next late night washers.
For now I’ll just have to wait and see how the new sign works; though the next time I call the police at 3am I’ll be sure to also call the building manager as well to wake up his ass to share the pain.
That’s actually a pretty good idea. Tell him you’ll do it too (once you’ve got his number of course :p). That might encourage him to actually do something about it in advance.
That’s actually a pretty good idea. Tell him you’ll do it too (once you’ve got his number of course :p). That might encourage him to actually do somthing about it in advance.[/quote]
I don’t get it. I don’t see perusal in there at all.
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