Sunday, November 22, 2015

Sleepless in Gainesville VA


  • Why would someone deliberately stomp around their apartment in the middle of the night?
  • When they know that their neighbors under them are sleeping (or trying to sleep)?
  • When they are perfectly capable of walking softly?
  • Why would someone deliberately be a pain-in-the-ass towards perfect strangers?
I don't know the answers to these questions. All I know is that the day that we moved to the Marque apartments at Heritage Hunt in Gainesville VA that the person in the apartment above us, who doesn't know us, stomped around and made other noise all through the night.

After three weeks of her nonstop stomping and other deliberate noise-making in the middle of the night (dropping heavy things on the bare floors, moving furniture, washing clothes, slamming cabinet doors, opening and closing the sliding door to the balcony every few minutes, etc.), I saw our upstairs neighbor for the first time when I told her that her noise-making was keeping us awake at night. She said, "we thought that we were being as quiet as possible, but we will try to be better." That was a lie--it only got worse.  
  • Why would she lie to me--a new neighbor who she is meeting for the first time?
I don't know the answer to this question either. I can't explain why she stomps around all night deliberately making noise to disturb us, perfect strangers, from the first day that we moved in. I don't know why she continues to do so--every night--after nearly five months. All I know is that she does what she does. (In one hour, from 10 PM to 11 PM, she opened and shut the sliding glass door to her balcony no less than a dozen times, in freezing temperatures, spending less than a minute on her balcony each time. This behavior alone makes me wonder about her mental state.)

Before we moved to the Marque we were told by the manager that the Marque is quiet at night. 
 

That lie is easier to explain--$. Unfortunately, we have also found out that the Marque's management company, Community Reality Company, Inc. in Greenbelt MD, doesn't enforce its rules and the owners of the Marque apartments, Huntgain Marque, LLC, don't care. 

We still have more than a half-year on the lease. It's a long time to go without sleep.








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