An old retired couple moved into the apartment next to mine. Literally the day she and her husband moved in she could be heard standing on her patio saying “this place is so low class. Scumbags live here” blah blah blah. Just a few days after she moved in, she started pounding on my wall and yelling profanities to my apartment telling me to “shut my kids up”, calling them brats, and threatening to call the cops. For reference my kids are 1 & 3…

Plot twist - we used to be coworkers. Years ago we both worked at the school in our town. She adored me. But since moving in next to me, she’s become my nemesis. I still have contact with some old coworkers that currently work at the school and they’ve told me she goes over to the school to “vent” about me, my fiancé, and my kids. What exactly she has said, I don’t really know. No one has told me expect that apparently she’s under the impression neither my fiancé or I work and therefore think we’re scum bags that just live off the system. We don’t. The only government assistance I receive is WIC. I work fulltime and have had the same job since I quit the school back in 2016…my fiancé was a stay at home dad for about 8 months, but he started a new job about a month ago… not that thats relevant. But anyway - so over the weekend a couple across the hall from us got into an argument - the girlfriend locked her boyfriend out of the apartment and the boyfriend pounded on the door for a while to be let back in.

I did not hear the altercation first hand because both of my kids and I were napping on the couch. We were sick with a stomach bug, so we literally slept from about 2-6 PM. But around 7 a cop showed up to our apartment in regards to a noise complaint because “someone 🙄” complained that we had been banging on our walls. As soon as the cop saw my two small children, he giggled and said “nvm, you guys have a good night”.

Today my fiancé was outside working on our truck and he told me that our neighbor was outside bitching to her husband about something and was heard saying “that’s okay, I’ll just call the cops again”.

Im at a loss for what to do about this. She has not confronted me directly. Our apartment complex is old. Like real old. It was built in 1966. It is not well insulated. You can hear people going up and down their stairs, you can hear water running through the pipes when people shower, flush, etc, you can hear people talking etc. So a part of the problem is not in my control. I will be the first to admit - my kids can be noisy. They’re literally babies. They play, and cry, and throw tantrums, and drop things, and clank toys together etc. I of course try to keep the noise level down the best to my ability. I tell my son not to run or jump in the apartment. I bought a little indoor trampoline for him and tell him if he wants to jump, to do it on that so he’s not making a ton of noise. When they cry, I immediately rush over and try to console them so they aren’t screaming and crying for anymore than a few minutes, I keep our tv down - it’s literally set to 15 24/7. When my fiancé and I watched tv we use subtitles so we don’t have to increase the volume. We don’t vacuum or anything of that nature past 6 PM. And no earlier than 10 AM. When I feel like they may be disturbing my crotchety neighbor, I tell them to play quietly. But again they’re only 1 and 3….ya know I don’t let them just run amuck like hooligans.

As if being a parent isn’t already hard and stressful enough as it is I have SO much anxiety and added pressure to constantly be on my kids asses because I’m worried my neighbor is going to complain to my landlord or continuously call the cops and we’re going to get evicted from our apartment. We’ve been in this place since 2019…we’ve never had noise complaints or really any issues with any of our neighbors. I confirmed that with the manager and I did inform her about the harassment and she too giggled and said yeah we’ll you have small children…so she was on my side - but nothing came of that conversation good or bad, & that was months ago and since then things have escalated. So idk if I should make them aware that now the neighbor is banging on our walls and calling the cops. What do I do?

And don’t suggest move out - I live in NY. I’ve got the cheapest apartment i could possibly find right now - where most even 1 bedroom apartments are going for $1200 a month. I cannot afford to move. Otherwise I wouldn’t be posting this - I’d been outta here months ago, TRUST ME!