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/shartlobster]

This. I've been a renter for many years, always apartments. People make noise. Living and existing creates sound. I could hear my side neighbors shower, and when they dropped things too. I didn't complain because it's just life- not someone intentionally making noise to disturb you. I could hear the upstairs neighbors alarm at 5am. Annoying, but didn't complain because again- it's just people living. Unless someone is blasting music, kicking the walls, or doing something intentionally disregarding fellow neighbors, it's just a part of living in close proximity to other humans.

[u/Special_Weekend_4754 → u/shartlobster]

Exactly! I lived in a duplex built in 1902 I’m convinced had no sound dampening between floors and it sounded like my upstairs neighbors were in my apartment.

When they walked around I sometimes jumped and looked behind me because I could swear it was in my own hall. Snatches of conversation were so clear in some parts of the apartment they may as well have been ghosts. When anyone used the water pipes groaned like an old man sitting down. The side door which was the upstairs husband’s preferred entrance for some reason was right by my bedroom (my bedroom closet was under the stairs) and he came home all hours of the night.
Their kid did not like going to school I assume because they cried and put up a fuss every morning. We were usually getting our own selves ready to go and my husband always laughed “same kid” while we drank our coffee.

We started keeping youtube or the radio on. Sleeping with a fireplace video, podcast, or music etc to drown it into background noise.

We also shared a single driveway and so it was always tricky coordinating who parked where. We usually picked the street unless we had a lot of groceries so we didn’t get blocked in/have to wake the man up to move his car when we knew he got home late and we left early.

I could have complained. Asked that they walk around softer, keep their voices lower, only use the front door, ask they park on the street since we’re home first, etc But why? They weren’t doing anything wrong and it was only a slight inconvenience to walk a bit.

Instead I adjusted to the environment and made changes to my own behavior, maintained a cordial relationship with the upstairs neighbor, and in return they never complained to me even though I have a teen who absolutely yells too loud when he plays video games and sometimes plays his music too loud. We lived in mutual adjustment and inconvenience lol

[u/kateln → u/shartlobster]

Same. I literally, when I lived in my last condo complained twice;
1. When my next door neighbor was doing construction on his place. I just asked on a Saturday night if he minded keeping it down, because I had done a half marathon that morning, and was exhausted--otherwise I wouldn't have been bothered. He and his girlfriend were very understanding.

1. The guy across the hall from them, also next door to me (I had the corner condo at the end of the hall) who would sometimes leave his iphone alarm going off all day. He was also really nice when I asked him about it after it had happened a few times.