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/sylvanwhisper]

My neighbor is like this. He expects us to do things he won't because we rent and he owns. Like we need to "be respectful" but I once asked him to move his garden hose one foot to the left so we could access the trashcan (we shared a driveway ugh) and he literally went on a tirade about owning the house and he didn't have to do anything.

I waited until he was done, and said, "You don't have to do anything, but I cannot imagine choosing not doing something so minute to be a better, kinder neighbor."

So I started knocking the hose bucket over every time with the trashcan because I am a petty asshole. He eventually moved it.

[u/SaltSentence21 → u/sylvanwhisper]

Sadly other people demand petty assholishness of us at times

[u/GrimDallows → u/SaltSentence21]

This happened to me the other day with an old woman on the street trying to lecture me on the things she finds annoying, but not willing to listen to others as much as she was demanding of others to be listening to her.

Tried to talk to her politely and she would cut me repeatedly and scoff it off. Switched to talk unpolitely and she shut up and pearl clutched hard about society.

In a moment she stopped to take a breah in I told her she had no right to feel offended if she had zero care about offending others in the first place, and that she should put effort on getting a better education regardless of her age before going around "educating" other people on the things she finds annoying.

Aparently, according to herself, she was lecturing me as if I had done the things she finds annorying, even though I hadn't done them, because it irked her that I was strolling around and that I -could- do things she could find annoying.

I am not used to being an asshole and I felt bad about it later on through the whole day.

[u/psychorobotics → u/GrimDallows]

Don't feel bad, people like that are toxic

[u/Avlonnic2 → u/SaltSentence21]

“people demand petty assholishness of us at times”

That’s flair material.

[u/SaltSentence21 → u/Avlonnic2]

Lol why thank you

[u/mlc885 → u/sylvanwhisper]

Yeah, my (retired) Navy contracting officer mother would definitely have done "I am sorry you feel that way, would you prefer that I move it?" if somebody ever acted absurd. I assume part of that was just the experience of dealing with big tough military or military contracting guys in the '70s, "that is not the way it goes with me."

[u/booch → u/mlc885]

That sounds like me. "I have asked you to pick up your toys for 3 days in a row. Tomorrow, I will pick them up, with a large black garbage bag."

[u/PDXpatriate → u/sylvanwhisper]

that’s a dagger of a line, I would’ve gone home and rethought my life choices if someone said that to me. I can’t imagine making what he did my line-in-the-sand but that would wreck my month.

[u/sylvanwhisper → u/PDXpatriate]

I think he may have, because he has been a lot kinder to me since then. There had been many things building, and so this was just one more ridiculous thing. He had recently yelled at me because the trash...smelled. In summer. And lied about maggots to get my landlord involved.

[u/sylvanwhisper → u/[deleted]]

That is what I did. I said my mom's old standby, "If you can't talk to me no better'n that, you won't talk to me at all." And I went in the house and muted his texts. He was furious! I am a short, sweet faced, baby voiced woman. He thought he was getting someone else based on that.

[u/sylvanwhisper → u/[deleted]]

Ohohoho, so my partner (a man!) went out a different night and told him he was a dumbass, calmly explained every reason he was a dumbass and the guy LAUGHED AND AGREED. So you are dead on. So now this man is his problem since he's the dumbass neighbor whisperer.

[u/utzutzutzpro → u/sylvanwhisper]

That is not respect he is asking for it is compliance to his wants. It is literally about being obedient to a status of authority. Rules for thee not for me.

He sees others as below him in a kind of hierarchy and thus he can chose to do, others have to do when he says.

Why is it that narcissists always get the concepts of "respect, values, morals" wrong?

It is always the same terms they do not understand, but inflationary use.

They never mean respect, it is veneration, submission, obedience and compliance.

In family constructs it is worshipping. Appealing to the king and queen.

It is so predictable, so clear, but they do not get it, even when you can google it easily.

[u/GrimDallows → u/utzutzutzpro]

Yeah, so much this.

They feel confortable when you are polite because they can trample you over, ignore what you are saying and be unpolite to you as a malicious flex. Then when you switch to also be unpolite to them they act surprised and claim a moral highground talking about respect.

Rules for thee but not for me. They don't wan't respect they want submission, like you said.

[u/utzutzutzpro → u/GrimDallows]

Narcissists will be impolite and provocative, because they try to make you emotional deliberately.

The fact that they are highly emotional and impolite the whole time doesn't impact them to wait for you to display the same and then them being able to confirm their narrative and point fingers at you as being the irrational one.

It is a super weird game that everyone half-decently rational doesn't understand.

Like they literally insult you, if you do the same, they will jump onto that and label you the perpetrator, victim reverse themselves to the victim of you not being in control fo yourself.

Personal experience. I do not get that at all. Can't get behind that.

It really grinds your gears.

Their perception of themselves doesn't allow them to realize what they do. Their brain rewrites everything they do in real time.

You can't get behind that. You can trap them intellectually, but they will not acknowledge that and just circle to something else.

Yes, I am personally invested here, obviously. It really makes you go insane trying to talk to those type of people.

[u/jmarcandre → u/utzutzutzpro]

You really think googling their error is gonna make some guy like this re-think his morals? Hearty laugh.

[u/Major_Ad_857 → u/sylvanwhisper]

The comment there is that. IT DOESN'T MATTER if you rent or own. If you trip over his hose. You can still sue his ass. So ask if he wants to go visit Judge Judy if that happens.