Yes. That IS the single Most Annoying Thing In the Entire World. I can't *stand* blasting music next door. I lived with it in the dorms for four years, but the worst was the 1995-1996 school year, the first year of my Master's degree. Dave and I lived next door to each other then, in a group of five apartments on the second floor of what was then an arcade and is now a hair salon. You'd think the arcade noise would have been problematic, but you could only hear it if your ear was to the ground and it was dead silent in the room.

All the apartments were single room studio apartments except for #5, which had a couple of rooms and a kitchen. I lived in #4, and those of you who are good at deductive reasoning have already figured out that Dave lived in #3.

These guys were total blithering drunken morons. They used to crank their stereo so loud, that if I happened to be listening to *my* stereo at the time, I COULDN'T HEAR it. Sometimes they had their stereo "turned down," which meant only the bass notes got through, but they actually caused tangible vibrations in the walls and ceiling. When it was "turned up," it was deafening. I don't know how they were even able to function as organic beings, being in the same room as the speakers.

They used to do the same thing. Sometimes they'd play it for long periods of time, but sometimes they'd blast about thirty seconds of a song, then shut it off. Then turn it back on again two minutes later for two more. It was as random as the stock market, so there was *never* any feeling of "relief" when it stopped, only tense hoping that it wouldn't start up again, which was not any more conducive to sleep than the music blasting in the first place. I went out to Home Depot and bought enough three-inch thick styrofoam to layer the wall we shared between us, but it didn't really do much.

I'll never forget one time they just plain infuriated me. They blasted it, all of a sudden, the loudest I think they ever had it, around 3am, jolting me from a sound sleep. I threw my clothes on and tromped out the door (ignoring the drunken rowdiness emanating from their open door, and all the garbage they had strewn about the stairs) and headed for Leen's dorm room half a mile away. (I forget why I didn't just knock on Dave's room and ask to sleep in there, but I'm almost sure it was on a weekend and Dave had gone home for the weekend.) Leen was asleep, and the dorm was locked up, and I couldn't find anybody to let me in, though, so I tromped back, and by then they had stopped.

I asked them to turn it down I don't know how many times, but I already told you what their definition of "turned down" is. I started going to my landlord and bugging him about it, and he was accommodating but couldn't get them to stop randomly cranking it any more than I could. Finally I called the police on them, and wouldn't you know it, they turned it off a few minutes before the cop showed up. He took the call seriously even so, asking me questions and then going over to them and talking to them.

I think it lightened up for a while after that, but they still kept it up. Once I called my landlord (who worked in a pizza place right next door that either he or his family owns) when they were being really loud late one night, and either he or someone he sent came up to bang on their door and tell them to turn it down. Moments later, one of them knocked on my door, cigarette butt in his hand. I answered. "Did we do something to offend your rights?" he asked. I almost died. Duh! Like, my right to SLEEP AT NIGHT?? "Are you gonna call the cops?" he asked.

Gah. I mumbled something and shut the door. I just couldn't deal with it. Dealing with obnoxiousness committed by obnoxious people is doable. Dealing with obnoxiousness committed by nice people presents difficulties, but they're surmountable. Dealing with obnoxiousness committed by self-absorbed numbed thimble brains that lack the intellectual capacity to comprehend why denying sleep to someone at 3am could possibly be the least bit irksome to anyone is just impossible.

The condensed version of the above post is simply, "I feel your pain."