Making me into someone I don't want to be

I recently read an article about noise that bleeds through apartments in Japan. The story talked about how piano playing in particular is an enormous problem because of the vibratory sounds traveling through floors, ceilings, and walls and how disruptive they are to other tenants. You can not only hear these sounds, but you can feel them so doing things like using ear plugs or playing other sounds to mask them is not especially helpful. The story talked about how this sound pollution was so maddening that a man murdered a woman and her daughter who lived in the apartment below him because of the noise.

This is on my mind because I live above an old couple who apparently have hearing issues and need to listen to their television at bombastic levels in order to hear it. What is more, their sound system is incredibly "bassy". That means that the loud noises are sending not only sounds, but vibrations up through the floor. I can feel it when my feet rest on the floor. I can sometimes even feel it through the sofa/bed when I sit on it.

I had noisy neighbors in Japan, but I lived on the ground floor. Sometimes there would be stomping around or slamming of doors. Not infrequently, I would also hear people dropping heavy objects on the ground. It sounded like they were hefting concrete blocks and dumping them to the ground. I also had a couple of old people who lived about 10 feet from my living room window who would stand outside and have super loud conversations about nothing in particular for about a half hour quite frequently. None of that is as bad as what I'm dealing with now.

I didn't appreciate how tolerable the intermittent noisy experiences were until I started living above people who play their T.V. with a loud and heavy bass for extended periods of time. What is worse than their doing it in the daytime is that they also were doing it at night for some time. For months, we tolerated it because they'd eventually lay off around 11:15 to 11:45. When they started extending it to after midnight and nearly 1:00 am, we asked them nicely to stop doing it, but they said it was not them. They protested that their T.V. was not that loud so it must have been coming from another unit.

Initially, I believed them; when I complained to the property manager, I told him that they said it was not them so we'd have to track down the culprit with the loud, late television viewing. It became clear, however, that they were enormous liars and eventually the property manager walked by late at night and could hear their T.V. He told them to use headphones and to cut it out.

For awhile, they settled down, but in the past several weeks they've been ramping up the volume during the day and dragging the clock later into the night and earlier into the morning. In the past two weeks, they've had it on and loud before 8:00 am and after 11:00 pm. Our contract says that people are supposed to be quiet after 10:00 pm and I'd wager before 9:00 am (I haven't checked that end). These people seem to be limit-testing us and I hate it. In fact, I hate them. I hate them so much that I wish one of those ancient people would shuffle off the mortal coil each time I feel my floor vibrating and hear their bassy T.V. blaring. They're liars and they're selfish and rude. They know they're disturbing us with their behavior, but they do not care about anyone but themselves.

The thing is that I don't want to be the sort of person who hates others. I definitely don't want to wish that two useless wastes of oxygen who seem to exist to do little more than watch T.V. and potter around with plants in front of our building would just end my suffering by ending their useless existence to spare me from having to be a complainer and to suffer the physical and emotional difficulties their behavior imposes on me. These people, by showing a great lack of consideration and limit-testing my tolerance, are making me into a person that I don't want to be. They're making me petty, angry, and intolerant. And by lying about their behavior rather than asking for my understanding and reaching some sort of compromise (like allowing me to come down and adjust the sound on their set so it is loud, but not vibrating), they close the door on any sort of amicable arrangement.

One could say that I need to learn to be more tolerant, but my body has a say in this. Being exposed to loud sounds and unpleasant vibrations coursing through your body is like being in a room where someone is dragging fingernails on a blackboard. The nervous system of human beings was not designed to tolerate that on a regular basis. It's the reason that man in Japan murdered people who kept playing piano. It drives people crazy to be subjected to that. While I'm very, very far from flying into a murderous rage, I am often gritting my teeth and wondering what sort of small animal needs to die in order for God to step in and smite their deaf asses (or at least make their sound system lose its robust bass control).

I know that people often don't mean to upset others with their actions. In fact, most of the time, they are just being incredibly selfish, but it's not like these people can't pursue other options, especially late at night. Wearing headphones is not out of the question, though it isn't as convenient as blasting your T.V. and drooling while sitting unencumbered on the sofa. They just clearly do not want to do anything that mitigates the discomfort their behavior causes us and they have no problem with making my husband and I suffer for their convenience.

The thing that bothers me most is that I don't want to be the sort of person I'm turning into. I call and complain repeatedly to the property manager. I have complained to them directly which I also don't like to do. I feel myself filling with tension and eventually anger when I hear and feel their noise. I've been trying to manage my reactions using cognitive techniques (relaxing, reframing, mindfulness), but it is honestly exhausting me to tolerate this on a regular basis. This really isn't about my lack of patience or understanding. It's about their lack of consideration.

I want to be a good, kind, and tolerant person. I want to be the kind of person who understands that old people have issues that make them do things which are disruptive to others. There are all of these good things that I want to be, but I can't be because what I'm feeling in my body is like being subjected to Chinese water torture. I can't be as good a good person as I'd like to be when I live near people who are selfish, dishonest, and callous toward my feelings and interests. It's hard to respect people who clearly do not respect me.