Abusive Neighbor Advice?

[kirs10]

This may be a long shot but I was just wondering if anyone had any advice on how to deal with a very problematic neighbour.  To summarise, pretty much everyday my boyfriend and I have to overhear our downstairs neighbour scream for hours on end, sometimes until the middle of the night, at his hysterical child, coupled with thumps and screams that suggest it’s not just yelling that’s going on.

As is the way here, everyone in our community seems to turn a blind eye with the frustrating belief that family matters are not their business to meddle in.  We’ve lived here 4 months and it’s a constant occurrence so I can only imagine how long this has been going on.  The guards must be well aware of what’s going on as you can hear it throughout the community but nothing is done.  We’ve taken the passive agressive and very non-Chinese route of stamping on the ceiling and shouting ‘Bie han le’ at regular intervals which has earnt us a few yells of our own (yet he’s weirdly polite in the stairwell) but otherwise has little effect.  My mandarin is non-existent otherwise I would try and talk to him about how distressing it is and failing that, call the police to report him.  Without being able to speak the language though this is pretty impossible.

I’m not sure if anything really can be done or if we just need to make like the rest of our building and try and block it out.  But I was wondering if there was some other service that we could report it to.  From what I’ve read online, even if I could cobble together enough mandarin to  call the police it’s unlikely that much would be done.  Any advice much appreciated.

Failing that our lease is up in 6 months so we can just suck it up until then and move!

[Charlie]

That really sucks. I would try:

1. Telling your landlord that an abusive neighbor is making your living situation difficult. The landlord can almost certainly help, fingers crossed that he or she will be receptive to offering it
2. Talk to the guards (or 门卫) in your building and explain that yelling is making you want to move away. They may intervene on your behalf
3. Get ear plugs

I agree that the police are unlikely to help. I think your understanding is accurate – they will not want to get involved unless they absolutely have to. In my experience, police are useless here for anything involving foreigners – they just go through the motions that are required of them and don’t seem to care at all.

If neither of the first two options above work, I would confront the neighbor and demand that they shut the fuck up. Having your boyfriend do it will prevent them from a catastrophic loss of face by “being told” by a female expat.

Good luck!

[Chris Ziich]

Record the incidents over a period of time on video.
Try to capture his and child’s face.
Show your foreign faces on camera for added effect.
Upload to youku.
Hope to go viral.
Let the Chinese white knights of the internet take care of the rest.
(???
Profit?)

[kirs10]

kirs10 wrote:

This may be a long shot but I was just wondering if anyone had any advice on how to deal with a very problematic neighbour. To summarise, pretty much everyday my boyfriend and I have to overhear our downstairs neighbour scream for hours on end, sometimes until the middle of the night, at his hysterical child, coupled with thumps and screams that suggest it’s not just yelling that’s going on. As is the way here, everyone in our community seems to turn a blind eye with the frustrating belief that family matters are not their business to meddle in. We’ve lived here 4 months and it’s a constant occurrence so I can only imagine how long this has been going on. The guards must be well aware of what’s going on as you can hear it throughout the community but nothing is done. We’ve taken the passive agressive and very non-Chinese route of stamping on the ceiling and shouting ‘Bie han le’ at regular intervals which has earnt us a few yells of our own (yet he’s weirdly polite in the stairwell) but otherwise has little effect. My mandarin is non-existent otherwise I would try and talk to him about how distressing it is and failing that, call the police to report him. Without being able to speak the language though this is pretty impossible. I’m not sure if anything really can be done or if we just need to make like the rest of our building and try and block it out. But I was wondering if there was some other service that we could report it to. From what I’ve read online, even if I could cobble together enough mandarin to call the police it’s unlikely that much would be done. Any advice much appreciated. Failing that our lease is up in 6 months so we can just suck it up until then and move!

Thanks Charlie!  We’ve contacted our landlord whose agreed to have a word so fingers crossed he pipes down a bit!  Failing that I have a stockpile of earplugs 🙂

[Author]

Posts