Sound Equipment To Prove Harassment By Neighbours.
Hi all,
I really need help. We are being deliberately harassed by a Muslim family (This is relevant, as you will see later) who moved in above us a year and a half ago. The noise is absolutely intolerable, and is driving us crazy. They run, jump, hammer their floor/our ceiling deliberately, throw things on the floor. I believe this is a campaign of hate, designed to get us evicted.
My wife suffers from depression and is becoming suicidal over it. In turn, I am becoming homicidal over it. I seriously really want to kill the whole family because of it.
When they first moved in we gave them the benefit of the doubt, as we thought they were doing D.I.Y, and it would all quieten down after a while.
After 3 months the noise was Continuing. I first bumped into the husband in the hall. I politely brought the subject up. He said (by a strange coincidence) not to worry, they were getting carpets fitted that day. Well, that was a lie. The noise carried on. Hard thumping, banging and running and jumping. A couple of weeks later, I went and knocked on their door asking if they could at least take their shoes off as they are old victorian buildings. He said “We don’t wear shoes indoors, look...” and pointed at his feet which did have shoes on. He blatantly lied to my face. I was gobsmacked!
A few weeks later (the noise never letting up) I was woken up at 5am and kept up with it. I am a train driver and responsible for thousands of lives every day. I need my sleep. I do late turns and dont get in until 2am most nights. I dont get up till midday. This day, I was knackered! I phoned up work to see if I could get a A/L day. They said no, as they had no spares. When it got to 8am, I was livid! The next time he banged, I banged back. Did he stop? No! He banged back multiple times, even harder! The next day, on my way to work, I saw him in the street. I went up politely to ask him to keep it down. He just started shouting at me in the street. He actually accused me of banging on his ceiling. I said the only reason I banged on his ceiling was because he had kept me up for hours deliberately banging on mine. He then said he would call the police if I did it again. Absolute joke! I went home and said to the missus that these people are trouble and we are best just putting up with it. For the next year, we didnt say a word about it, despite the continuous harassment. Then, (a year later) out of the blue we got a letter from our housing association. They had put a complaint in, saying we were harassing them. They accused us of the very things they were doing to us. And they said they believed it was because of their race and ethnicity. Absolute pack of lies. Its the other way around, and this just proved to us that it was deliberate. Since then, they have been intolerable! Seriously, its virtually every day, and is intermittent from about 7am until about 9pm when they go to bed. I have complained to the council many times, who do nothing! I have finished work only to find my wife inconsolable and walking along the thames after being driven out of our home by it, and threatening to throw herself in the river.
I came to the conclusion a long time ago that they are trying to bait us. We have a surround Sound System from our old flat (which was sound proof) years ago. However, we never use it. We hardly play music, and we are pretty quiet all round. However, last week, after saying to the missus not to retaliate because they are bating us, I retaliated. The running, jumping, hammering, stamping etc was so bad, I turned on the Surround Sound and put it on loudly for 2 hours. I was stupid! They called the noise people and went silent themselves. Anyway, I have been trying to catch the noise on my phone and camcorder for a year and a half now. No joy! The sound is low frequency and wont pick up. What sound equipment could I use to prove whats going on? I have a ‘Handycam HDR-PJ810’ camcorder. Please help!