Ma'am, I'm Going to Have to Ask You to Stop Banging Your Cane Against the Wall

As I mentioned last month, we have been receiving noise complaints. We got a letter from the management office, and I wrote a nasty letter back and I thought we had dealt with this, but now I have received another letter from them, stating that we have to have a meeting about the matter. The complaints are about loud and prolonged hammering and banging noises. I know we’re not making these noises. In fact, although there were hammering noises a while back, I haven’t even heard the noises in at least six weeks (the manager sent the original letter to a bunch of different apartments, so I’m guessing whoever was making the noise decided to cease and desist). Usually, when there is a complaint, the front desk calls us on our house phone. We haven’t received a call since late March (and one complaint came when we were in Spain, so, ummh, hello, we couldn’t have been making noises), and the assistant manager told Lord Kissington that it’s a woman who is insisting that we are making the noises, and she claims that whenever she hears it, she bangs on the wall with her cane and the noises stop. I have never heard anyone banging on our wall, so given that we haven’t gotten any calls, I’m guessing the noise problems are happening during the day when we’re out, because, you know, we have jobs. I am amused at the vision of a cranky old lady banging on the wall at sounds that aren’t there, but I’m not so amused at being blamed for something that we’re not doing and that may not even be happening. (I wonder if she has cats, because I am totally picturing that crazy cat lady from The Simpsons. I don’t know which apartment she lives in, but I would be scared to knock on her door in case she answered it and started throwing cats at me.)

In the latest letter from the management office, we were told to contact them immediately. Of course, they delivered the letter Friday evening after the office was closed for the weekend. Lord K called the office Monday to set up an appointment, spoke to the assistant manager (who seems like a nice guy and seemed inclined to view this as a nutcase who is hearing things), and left a voicemail for the manager with his work and cell numbers. She called him back at home during the day on Tuesday so we didn’t get the message until after the office closed for the night. (Sigh. Again, did I mention that we work outside the home?) He called her back on Wednesday and she didn’t call him back. Her voicemail says that she will call back within 24 hours. That’s a pretty large time frame. Given her lack of response, they don’t seem too concerned about these complaints. We’ve asked them to provide us a detailed list of the time/date of the complaints, so I’m hoping we can resolve the matter by proving that we weren’t at home during these times. In the meantime, I have become completely paranoid about noise, to the extent that I cringe anytime I drop something, because I’m expecting Crazy Old Lady to start banging on the wall. Or throw a cat at me. And that’s got to hurt the poor cat.