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You’ve just unlocked the Empathy skill tree, congrats!
I wish my neighbors acted like they knew other people lived here…
Too late, I think the entire neighborhood might already know us as "Oh, it's THAT family that always have arguments in the house"
The thing is, we're East Asian so this just further reinforce their "Asian strict parenting" stereotype in their minds 💀
(or perhaps nobody cares that much since they've already expected this much yelling due to that stereotype)
You know the walls are too thin when, after sex, you hear your neighbor light up.
She's moaning. I'm groaning. Neighbor is coughing.
You know the walls are too thin when, after sex, you hear your neighbor light up.
I have a question about this conceot actually
So I grew up in terraced houses from the 1900s or earlier, stone walls. Unfortunately, i could hear my parents talking, arguing and boinking from my room - but the last one only seemed to be a thing when i was a teenager. I could also hear the old guy next door walking around, telephoning and opening drawers.
But i was lucky enough to only have single guys who lived alone either side of me the entire time. So I wonder: do most people in terraces and apartments have to hear their neighbours having sex? Is that like a normal part of childhood? Other kids seemed to know about sex before me so I figure that might be part of it.
Or did my childhood home just have bad acoustics + insulation?
I never really noticed, but I might have just been lucky. I heard sex in the same house, though. /shudder
People have sex. Sometimes, there are other people in the same house while that happens. Why shudder?
It was family. I don't want to picture my brother's or my mother's O face.
Is that like a normal part of childhood?
For most of history people didn't have rooms.
For most of history people didn’t have rooms
Yeah, and i find that pretty fascinating. I'm in the "hearing/seeing other people have sex doesn't bother me" camp but most people regard it as a very big deal
SMELL you light up… and smile.
I started making more noise after my neighbors clearly did not realize that the quiet they enjoyed from my apartment was out of deliberate consideration on my part, and not a mutual experience. I started with normal sounds like coughing or laughing or playing some music, but after that didn't work, I started to make noises they would be embarrassed to ask me about. It somewhat worked at reducing their noise levels. I knew they heard me because they stopped making eye contact. But they were also awful people so that was fine with me.
Thankfully they moved and I now have a quiet neighbor who gets to enjoy my silence. Occasionally they'll get a little noise from me to remind them that the wall between my bedroom and their main room is very thin, but I haven't had to escalate it like with the last people, for which I am grateful. My other neighbors are a very quiet elderly couple and I love them, but our shared wall is substantially thicker, which is partly why I love them.
I would never interpret an uptick in noise from my neighbors as a message. I’m autistic and very unperceptive in this dimension so it may well just be me, but I think I’d start worrying about someone if they told me they thought that their neighbor coughing or laughing more audibly than usual was an attempt at communication.
Even the other sounds… maybe you got a new sex toy or developed an embarrassing medical condition. I’d just assume you’re doing your thing, not trying to weird me out.
The message was just "you can hear me" which I hoped would then logically translate to "therefore I can also hear you". The normal kinds of sound just didn't get the message across for some reason so I added the awkward element - it allowed for longer sound duration than briefly coughing or laughing, and made it more difficult to ignore. I'm pretty sure they thought I was just doing my thing.
It's definitely a very oblique and passive aggressive approach to the problem, but it worked well enough that I didn't have to go for something more confrontational, which would have been the next step.
I would get that message, but I’d probably assume that if you’re living in a shared building, you’re cool with sounds of other people doing their thing, have coping mechanisms, or will speak to me/write me a note (could even be anonymous).
Now I just hope my neighbors are and have always been assertive/aggressive enough to spell it out. Except for the upstairs adult neighbors who rollerbladed back and forth on their tile floor for a couple hours a week to build proficiency. I do hope they were constantly annoyed.
They were the only neighbors I've ever had to do this with after many years of apartment living. I am fine with normal sounds, but their noise far exceeded normal constantly, and I have an expectation that shared living needs to come with a level of consideration for others. I know it wasn't just my problem either, there were multiple complaints made to the property managers by other apartments, to no effect.
I chose this approach intentionally to avoid confrontation with obviously aggressive and unreasonable people. They had a reputation for regularly screaming obscenities at each other and anyone else who displeased them. Knowing the exact content of all their arguments, I knew that normal human interaction was likely to direct their aggressive behavior towards me, which would not achieve my goal of sleeping at night.
I think you've overcomplicated the situation. The goal of making more noise is to have your neighbor understand that wall thickness is symmetrical. After that either they will STFU or they won't.
Whether they realize that communication was intended is beside the point. If you wanted to communicate with them openly you could do that through property management. Or by knocking on their door. But if they're giant assholes then maybe that wouldn't work.
I think I always overcomplicate the situation, lol.
I started to make noises they would be embarrassed to ask me about
Go on...
Im also intrested
We can hear our neighbours fuck, they can hear us fuck. I used to hear the TV from the neighbour on the other side, until his mother died, now it's really quiet from there. Kinda sad actually. I can also sometimes hear the kids from below us. I really don't mind those human noises. It's just part of living surrounded by other people.
Unless you're my friend, whose neighbours are regularly loudly fighting at times of day where other people are trying to sleep. I've suggested slipping ads for therapy under their door.
If you have no morals, and if you're in USA, you can give them ads for your local gun shop 💀
(/joke, pls don't do this lol)
That's savage.
I hear my neighbors yell from time to time but our kids are like 2 weeks apart in age and... We get it. We don't do it, but we totally get it. And they tell me they don't hear me singing in a silly voice when they must certainly do, and is perhaps embarrassing on the other end of the spectrum, lol.
We got used to our upstairs neighbour's loud snoring, so it was really weirs when she went on vacation, we couldn't fall asleep. So many times we heard her wake up after we had sex..
Yes, yes they have and you're a giant a****** for not realizing that sooner. But if you keep it in mind in the future then good for you.
Also, if you try to avoid yelling between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. they will notice and appreciate it. So have your fights during normal daylight hours if at all possible.
We called the cops once (CPS told us to). Neighbor (single mom) was constantly yelling and swearing at her kids. And I do means constantly. We could hear her talking on the phone, so when she went ballistic even our cats were scared.
i remember living in the top floor of an apartment and the people below me were so loud sometimes. I never actually seen who they were but damned if I didn't know names and how they stomped when they were upset
Same here lol
this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:
- Both “200” and “160” are 2 minutes in microwave math
- When you’re a kid, you don’t realize you’re also watching your mom and dad grow up.
- More dreams have been destroyed by alarm clocks than anything else
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