Housemate reported me for drumming, again...

rmac86

Member
Hi all,

I think I posted something similar a while ago when my housemate reported my drumming to the landlord. I was never playing overly loud (put towels over all drums and didn’t touch the cymbals) or for extended periods. At the time it was agreed between me and him that I would keep it down which I did. I even recently purchased a remo silent stroke for my 13” mapex picollo. Just tonight however I got an angry message from the housemate saying he has reported me again as he was sick of it going on for months. Needless to say I was more than a bit surprised and annoyed, especially seeing as I hadn’t heard a single complaint from him or any of the other 5 people living in the house in the entire time I’ve been living here.

I apologized and tried reasoning with the guy but he is refusing to talk to me. I was going to turn the tables on him and truthfully tell him his snoring has kept me awake for months but I chose the moral high ground. It just annoys me that no one I have ever lived with (a lot of people) have ever had an issue and I tell everyone if there’s anything untoward I am only a door knock or phone call away. He did neither, therefore there’s no issue, right?

Messaged my landlord and explained I had no knowledge there was even a problem but that I would cease all noise including watching TV (yes he complained about that too), and moving stuff around the room (oh yes he moaned about that one too). The landlord was thankful and appreciative that I sorted this out in a timely manner and as far as he is concerned there’s no further action to be taken.

Just a shame that one person is forcing me out of what was a very peaceful place to live.
 
man...that dude would be fearing the days with me around...and not for his life, but for his sanity...I had a roomy years ago who was great to live with for the first 6 months. We had worked together for a year as well, so I thought I knew him.

I come home one day to the place full of a bunch of notes about "how things are supposed to go"...and found things in a very bizarre state of affairs. It was like an OCD bomb went off. Now, I have OCD, and am a pretty big germ-a-phobe and neat freak, but this was creepy. He had gone into all of my stuff, and rearranged things to be be in nice neat rows...matching like a store shelf. All of the stuff in my room, my drawers, closet...there were notes in the downstairs of the house indicating about how the books on tables had to be in line with the edges of the table "with an inch showing on all sides", and exactly how far apart the curtains were to be when they were open...

I would walk in on him and his GF going at full bore it in the living room, and get yelled at, but if I had ANY friends over without "due notice", I would hear it later on. I would be told to "get out of here, we're gonna f**k" all the time....his GF was a gem as well...ugh

Many other bizarre things happened, but needless to say, I started messing with his system little by little, especially when he started making ultimatums and actually throwing things of mine away that he deemed were "too old" or "too used". I would just do little things, like leaving stuff in the fridge with labels turned the wrong way, or leaving my shoes by the back door. The "big guns" were leaving my hockey bag in the back room, partially open, or playing my practice pad while watching tv. That happened when he did the most annoying stuff.

It eventually led him to move out.
 
Sounds like this guy isn't suited for living in a house with that many people. It's a bizarre expectation that he has, to have silence all the time. I have two roommates, and I play my drums (with silentstrokes and l80s) for an hour or so every day and no one seems to mind. I also sing and play piano sometimes too. The washing machine and dryer are louder than my drums. If I were living with this guy I'd probably just do some laundry every time I want to play drums, that way he won't even hear it.

He's being super unreasonable though. It's one thing to have quiet hours (ours are 8pm-8am) but to just say NO practicing a musical instrument at all at any time is extreme. Hopefully you can find a better living situation.
 
Certain people are either born or perhaps have had trauma that make them overly sensitive to loud noises.

It would be great if they realized this about themselves and adjusted accordingly, but then not everyone has the resources to live so independently.
In a study of psychology you can learn that certain people, when subjected to constant noises experience it much like someone who is getting tortured experiences it.

Sucks for you for sure, but this is definitely a reality when considering how we live and interact with our fellow humans.

I hope you can find some way to continue to play. I always kept my drums in a separate studio when sharing space with people. Even the thumping of hi-hat and bass drum pedals on an electronic kit can wear at a person to the core.
 
Why stay?

Not a bad suggestion but bear in mind that I was here at least 6 months before he was. Why should I be forced out when it’s clear that the problem is with him, not me.

Having said that I have started looking for new accommodation but will probably end up putting my drums in storage indefinitely.
 
Are you both on the lease? Buy him out. Make him look for new digs.
 
Good housemates are hard to find. Being in school, forever, I moved around a bit and went through lots of roommates. Some people, by no fault of their own, are just wrecking balls of destruction tearing up stuff all the time- innocently enough, some are slobs others tidy, many like everything loud others prefer silence (though rare in my experience), some like to party others hermits (one hermit fellow but was a great roommate). I'm pretty tolerant of about anything except mates not carrying their fair load or no respect for my stuff. I'm sure it's the kick drum-even if mesh heads it probably thumps through flooring. I wonder if you could build yourself a make shift isolation chamber-to reduce vibrations and sound? Go over and talk to him in person apologizing in an affable manner and tell him you got a plan to reduce the annoyance but need his help to make sure the sound or vibrations reduced. You may find you have more in common bull crapping getting to know him and he may get interested in your project and be more reasonable, seeing your effort, to tolerate sounds better. My experience talking to people in person is always better-people more reasonable and less testy than messaging.
 
Good housemates are hard to find. Being in school, forever, I moved around a bit and went through lots of roommates. Some people, by no fault of their own, are just wrecking balls of destruction tearing up stuff all the time- innocently enough, some are slobs others tidy, many like everything loud others prefer silence (though rare in my experience), some like to party others hermits (one hermit fellow but was a great roommate). I'm pretty tolerant of about anything except mates not carrying their fair load or no respect for my stuff. I'm sure it's the kick drum-even if mesh heads it probably thumps through flooring. I wonder if you could build yourself a make shift isolation chamber-to reduce vibrations and sound? Go over and talk to him in person apologizing in an affable manner and tell him you got a plan to reduce the annoyance but need his help to make sure the sound or vibrations reduced. You may find you have more in common bull crapping getting to know him and he may get interested in your project and be more reasonable, seeing your effort, to tolerate sounds better. My experience talking to people in person is always better-people more reasonable and less testy than messaging.

Good suggestions here. Though I asked him politely to come and talk to me about it but he said this has been going on for months now, to which I said well how come I’m only hearing about it now? To my mind there’s no issue as he didn’t say anything.

With regards to the kit I was only using the small piccolo snare with a silent stroke head. I put a trigger on it so could play through a module with headphones and a bass trigger. All the other housemates had assumed I didn’t play anymore as they couldn’t even hear it. I stopped using the bass drum long before he moved in. I even just used a practice pad on occasion but apparently this is way too loud.
 
Drums and peaceful do not co-exist. Drums are problematic around other people living in close quartears.
It sounds to me the guy was being nice for some time and he snapped. Thus the ragging on all the other ‘noisy’ situations. The responsibility is on the musician and their instrument. They must find the means to compromise with the other folks living within reasonable earshot. It takes special patience and tolerance from others who have to listen to music practice, especially drums.
 
Your "place is peaceful" to you, but not to him. And yes maybe he's using anything as an excuse because he wants you out.
Drums are not peaceful, even with towels on. I'd recommend you get silent strokes on all your drums, not just snare. Move to quiet cymbals too (L80's). You then have an argument that your kit is no louder than somebody doing exercise or cooking with pots. You could even record that and prove it to your landlord.
But as I think was suggested last time, it may be best to just move out. Maybe find a house of musicians, or one with a garage. Even in a new house with roommates, they might tolerate your drumming with silent stroke heads. Those are a godsend for situations like these.
 
We are both renting rooms in the house but don’t quite understand how I could buy him out? Do you mean like rent his room?
I thought you were sharing an apartment. You did say housemate....my error.
 
Sounds like a passive-aggressive jerk for sure, but previous posters are correct in saying that having drums in a shared apartment is kind of a big ask even with mesh heads/L80 cymbals. We as musicians are used to the sounds of practicing, and sometimes have to take a step back and realize that not everybody else is and to them it's often noise.
 
The idea with complains about sound, is oft not at all about volume but much more about how certain sounds are percieved by the other person..

Also the place where the sound is heard is a big influence regarding complains..

For example, an always crowing rooster at 6 am will be much better accepted by a neighbour at the countryside than by a neighbour in a big city..

Same with drumming..

Even when playing on low volume meshheads and cymbals, the constant ticking of a bassdrum pedal can be enough to drive people crazy in an appartment building if they are sensitive to that..

I heard stories from people who moved out of their house, only because there was at certain times a sort of unidentifiable 'zoom' to be heard, that could barely be measured in decibels, but still was enough to drive them crazy and literally take away all their rest and sleep..

Not saying that this is here the case, but for many people such things are not a joke at all..
 
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