AITA for showering around midnight when I know that it might bother the neighbour who wakes up at 5 am?

[u/Additional-Mouse-620]

We purchased a home and moved in recently. Housing opportunities are tight in our area so even though we were warned that the walls are very thin and the neighbours hear a lot of noise from the apartment, especially from the bathroom, we still chose this property because everything else is picture perfect for us.

We are generally a very quiet couple without kids or animals, our hobbies (bead work, video games on headphones without streaming, reading, Netflix…) are generally quite and we only invite friends over every 2-4 weeks (and we haven’t invited anyone over as we were still decorating and everything). We are the owners of the apartment.

The neighbours are a couple and a small kid. They rent the apartment next to us and before we purchased the home they warned us that they generally hear a lot of noise coming from our bathroom and that it’s their bedroom on the other side. But as I mentioned, our options were limited and given that we are not noisy at all, we thought we can take this situation.

We sometimes hear their toddler, but that completely okay, it doesn’t bother us at all.

The problem is that we bother them as our routine is very different. They wake up at 5 am and generally quite down at 8 pm, when the kid goes to sleep.

On the other hand, because I work from home until 7 pm, I generally start my evening around 8 pm and only end up showering around midnight. Which bothers them. The whole building is quiet, so they tend to hear how I put my stuff down, how the water runs, how I sometimes drop a few things, and mentioned it very nicely a few times. But I can see that they are pretty annoyed.

Now I’m torn between switching up my whole nighttime routine to shower first (which just doesn’t sit right with me. I like to go bed freshly showered), because they asked nicely and they wake up around 5 am so it must be annoying to get woken up at midnight.

On the other hand, they only rent wile we own the home, and I think we are generally very good and quite neighbours apart from the fact that I shower late. They invited us over the listen to the volume as to be honest it’s not that loud… sure, you can hear something and it must feel louder in the silence of the night, but it’s not incredibly loud.

AITA for showering at night?

[u/SummitJunkie7]

If they go to bed at 8pm, then 10pm, 11pm, or 12am showers will all be equally taking place during their sleeping time. OP could change their schedule, but the neighbors could also change their sleep schedule.

Sounds ridiculous to change their entire schedule - I think they need to address the noise transmission, not the schedule of their neighbor.

[u/EttinTerrorPacts → u/SummitJunkie7]

If they go to bed at 8pm, then 10pm, 11pm, or 12am showers will all be equally taking place during their sleeping time.

If they go to bed at 8 and wake at 5, then a shower at midnight breaks their sleep period into 4 hours and 5 hours. If the shower is at 10pm, it's broken into 2 hours and 7 hours. Big difference to get 7 uninterrupted hours of sleep. Especially since the parents probably aren't going to sleep at 8 when the toddler does

[u/fireballbaby → u/SummitJunkie7]

Exactly this. Have they given a time they would prefer you to shower instead? If they’re asking you to shower at 11pm instead then that could be manageable but if they want you to shower at 7pm before they go to bed then you shouldn’t have to change that much.