If BRitain can do it, why can’t Taiwan?
RE:
Britain Cracks Down on Nasties Like the ‘Neighbor From Hell’
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Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government is cracking down on antisocial behavior, everything from truancy to drunken brawling on the street…
I could not help but notice this message. I too have a neighbor from hell. She moved in three months ago and I have not gotten one night of uninterrupted sleep since. She returns at 3:30 to 4:00 a.m. each and every night drunk and arguing with whomever she has taken home for that night. I can hear her yelling into her mobile phone before she even gets off the elevator. I live in a nice building. The walls are thick. This woman just really is THAT loud.
Bringing this to the attention of the useless management resulted in but you are both tenants here and we cannot say that this is right or wrong. We can only bring it to her attention.
But I understand that if you call the police and get a few reports you can go to Taipei City Hall and they will install a noise reader in the area and this means the all important “fining” can begin. I believe the fines start out low at NT$800 but move rapidly up to the NT$2,000 plus range for repeat offense. Now, how or whether these can be collected is something else, but… it’s worth a shot.
I hope the noise stops as a result of the steps you’re taking.
In the meantime, I would suggest wax earplugs as the best hope for a good night’s sleep. Wax is really the best – the foam or plastic ones just aren’t as good. The best kind I have found are the globular, rather than tubular ones (of course you have to mould them with your fingers anyway). I don’t know where you can buy wax earplugs in Taiwan but there must be somewhere in Taipei at least.
[quote=“fred smith”]I could not help but notice this message. I too have a neighbor from hell. She moved in three months ago and I have not gotten one night of uninterrupted sleep since. She returns at 3:30 to 4:00 a.m. each and every night drunk and arguing with whomever she has taken home for that night. I can hear her yelling into her mobile phone before she even gets off the elevator. I live in a nice building. The walls are thick. This woman just really is THAT loud.
Bringing this to the attention of the useless management resulted in but you are both tenants here and we cannot say that this is right or wrong. We can only bring it to her attention.
But I understand that if you call the police and get a few reports you can go to Taipei City Hall and they will install a noise reader in the area and this means the all important “fining” can begin. I believe the fines start out low at NT$800 but move rapidly up to the NT$2,000 plus range for repeat offense. Now, how or whether these can be collected is something else, but… it’s worth a shot.[/quote]
I’d urge you not to piss off this woman, Fred. If she’s coming home at that time with different people, she’s likely a hostess or a prostitute, meaning she’s well ‘connected’ . Even I wouldn’t like to hear that you’d been ‘done in’ by a psycho.
You should move to Lotus Hill, where we have laws about such “disturbances”.
Shops that sell swimming gear often have them. Not wax, though – silicone. They work well.
Because Taiwan is different. Because Taiwan is poor. Because Taiwan is small.*
*The excuses you get whenever you complain about some local stupidity.
Anyone else have a problem with renovations? My neighbors were at it for months with the whole works - drills, jackhammers, ball peen, you name it. Thud a cracka ratatatatat couldn’t hear myself think. Then for a month, relative quiet. Then it appears they sold and moved out, because new tenants moved in and immediately began undoing everything that had been done. Crackacracka ratatatatatatatatat what? what did you crackacrackaratatatat.
We have that up here right now. At least the community is strictly enforcing the “daytime only” rule.
You’d better not go out and remonstrate with her, Fred. She sounds awfully like the woman in the case of that murdered American technical writer (working in Hsinchu, living in Taipei, if my memory serves me correctly) a few years back. Do you remember? She often came back drunk in the small hours and disturbed him with her terrible din. So one night he went out and told her off in no uncertain terms, to which she responded by going into her flat, picking up a kitchen knife, and reappearing to stab him to death. 
Be careful, old chap, but I hope you manage to get the problem solved very soon.
A foreigner who was feuding about noise levels with a female neighbour several years ago got stabbed in the back with a kitchen knife. Died on the spot.
Well, move. That way you maybe solve your problems.
Noise? What noise? It’s when it’s really quiet that I start to get nervous! 
CK
Our neighbours have two dogs, when they go out for the day they leave said dogs out on their balcony. The dogs have been known to bark for 12 hours straight with maybe 30 second breaks. We have resorted to taping the dogs and taking it down to the security and playing it, it seems that the dogs haven’t been left out for a few weeks. Here’s to hoping it doesn’t happen again!!
Embarrassment, done anonynously may work well.
However, do it safely.
New communiites have all gone through reapeated drillings as people move in . God. We had 3 sets done on our floor alone, plus upstairs and downstairs.
Got our revenge, though. We started doing our apartment now! Ha!
And you thought people did the appartment renovations for decorative purposes, it’sjust out of anger at their neighbors.
Kenneth
You should get a sign in Chinese that reads “Fragrant meat noodle soup. Buy one get one free.”
You sound like a reasonable and nice guy. She is the dreg of Taiwan society. She’s like the ghetto 'ho in the USA. Would you get yourself involved with a ghetto 'ho if you were not in Taiwan. Other people have given you the right advise just keep her at arms length.
You should get a sign in Chinese that reads “Fragrant meat noodle soup. Buy one get one free.”[/quote]
Rude!
I love where I live. I’ve been in this apartment for nearly three years, and my roommate about six now, I think. It has all the tiny alleys, a couple of temples, colourful neighbourhood dignitaries, 24h construction, zoo of strays etc.
There is the Betel-nut Chewing Squatter, caterwauling with the assistance of one of those karaoke boxes outside the Mom-and-Pop store on the corner. Often, he is drinking beer at 8.30 in the morning. He says “Hello! Where are you going?!” to me each time I walk past, and laughs, regardless of my answer: “I’m going home! I going to kill a man! I going to take your daughter!”
The Garbage Lady stops us on our bi-weekly (I mean once overy two weeks, not twice a week. Maybe I should write ‘twice monthly?’ Okay, that’s still a stretch. Once a month is more honest) trips to the garbage truck. She takes that which can be salvaged, and delights at going through the Costco bags we store our recycling in. She has also been known to stand next to the trucks, directing people, while the guys on the trucks take a smoke break.
(we have a blue push-cart for garbage transportation, commandeered from outside the KFC a few years back when they said we could take whatever we wanted that they were throwing out. This is also why we have a Colonel Sanders statue in our lounge - people raised eyebrows at the stupid fuckers pushing this thing down Heping East at 11 o’clock one night. The cart was very useful at Chinese New Year, when we basically emptied out apartment of all the old shit. The people who ransacked the dump where we left the stuff made off like bandits - one time, a box of my shoes, and a stack of porn was taken in the ten minutes between trips
)
But our direct neighbours are awesome! I wouldn’t change them for anything!
In the building opposite, there are The Fighters, who are a married couple who seem to be in their fifties, and a father-in-law. We will peer at them through slightly-cracked-open windows, watching as Husband throws fists, Wife throws plates, and Father-In-Law gets thrown. The last time the police were called, to my knowledge, was about two years ago, but they were about as effective as a hole in a lifeboat when it came to stopping the rumbling. We’ve seen the Old Man tumble down the stairs before in a drunken state, and one morning I watched Husband drive his scooter into Old Man and start punching him in the chest.
In the same building, live the Screaming Child, Precocious Teenager, and Weary Mom. Screaming Child screams for everything, and always seems to be at home doing it (I know this, because I hardly leave my house because of studies) and Precocious Teenager shouts at everyone. He gets home in the afternoon, sits down in front of the TV with his PS2, and hurls abuse in this guttural, throaty bellow. The Screaming Child also has a Duck Call, which he has been using this morning. It’s pleasant. Weary Mom has a very big bucket it seems, and it takes a lot to make it overflow. But when it does, chaos reigns.
The Sneezer shakes windows with his efforts; The Piano Player goes non-stop during the Festive Season (which, apparently, begins in August for her, and requires practicing unnecessarily intricate sections of “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” over and over and over; there used to be The Meat Slapper (literally, a woman who rose in the wee hours of the morn to tenderise meat for her foodstall - 4 in the morning, WHACK WHACK WHACK for a couple of hours at a time), but now she has been downgraded to The Plastic Packet Crinkler, which also happens early in the morn, afore the sun has rised! Packets make an amazing amount of noise once you have noticed them.
The guys upstairs play power-ballads during the day (and sing along as well sometimes - we hear you!), and seem to have a problem with their front door, which is slammed with force enough to wobble my monitor on my desk. And they drop change! All of them! All day! And night! tinkle tinkle tinkle!
My roommate belches like a whale, and tries to be creative with it, I giggle like a banshee and play my music too loud (I guess so - if I can music from upstairs, then they can probably hear mine), and we shout at each other in weird hybrid accents, when we play networked shoot-'em-ups or Need For Speed, just because we can.
I can’t complain about my neighbours, because I like things just the way they are. I’m just as bad as they are. I have absolutely no intention of moving as long as I’m here. All the noise used to bother me, but now, it’s eerie when it’s too quiet.
In Cape Town I lived next to the railway line, and weekends were too quiet when there weren’t trains every 15 minutes. Maybe I should clean my ears or something, and then I would notice all the noise.
Anyway, I have exams in two weeks, maybe I should do something constructive with my time now, instead of these self-indulgent little (?!?!?!) posts?
Awesome post Kahna. Do clean out the wax, but save it to make candles with for use during the next power surge.
Post of the week for sure. You should work that up into a newspaper feature. Get some pics together – its a cracker!
Kahna,
That sounds so cool. To be a student again…
Last year there was some jerk behind us that renovated three floors, took them three friggin months!
Our upstairs neighbor stays up until 2-4am everyday, cleaning, or whatever. They have kids too, no matter what time of day it is we can usually hear something coming from there. I am so tired of them. They have been warned several times, unfortunately in Taiwan it doesn’t do any good.
Please also see [forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.ph … e+arrrrrgh](Noise! ARRRGHHHH .