So as many of you know by now, we have moved to Houston. I know, right? It’s crazy! Not only did we move to Houston, we moved into an apartment. Not only did we move in to an apartment, we moved in to a second floor apartment in a three story building.
This has led to some interesting dynamics, being as we’ve become unaccustomed to having someone live above and below us. Primarily above us.
These people (I’m assuming it’s people, plural. Either that or an eight-legged man) have some sort of an interesting ritual where from the hours of 3 am and 6 am, they wake up and make a lot of noise with their feet. I know this because their room is directly above ours.
The first morning in our new apartment, we awoke at 3 am to the creaks, groans and stomps. We lay there in bed, blinking in disbelief. What was this sorcery?
We tried to figure out what could possibly be going on up there. “Maybe they are moving, and that’s them packing to go,” Casey said. “Maybe,” I said, ever hopeful.
They were not moving. The next morning, it was the same thing. Three hours of intense stomping around. Whatever are they doing? Why are they doing it? Why us? Why now?
Here is my short list of what the people upstairs are doing between the hours of 3 and 6 am. Feel free to chime in with ideas of your own:
1. Sleep tap dancing
2. Speed Yoga
3. Rehearsing for Rockettes: A Very Texas Christmas
4. Every morning at 3 am there is a colony of ants that appears under their bed and they have to kill all of the ants. Quickly.
5. Putting out tiny brush fires that appear on their bedroom floor every morning between the hours of 3 – 6 am.
6. After having developed a phobia of both treadmills and our 24 hour fitness center, they are training for a full marathon.
7. Clogging
8. The apartment above us is indeed inhabited by a herd of elephants.
9. Sweating to the Oldies, volumes 1 – 6
10. Prancercising
Does anyone else have any experience with this sort of thing? Is it a thing? Some sort of early dawn stomp club?
Yours in really wishing I rented a house,
Bethany
The Unstable Table 
It’s definitely a THING. As a an apartment-dweller since 2002, having upstairs neighbors is all about hearing them clomp around loudly and for your own downstairs neighbors to hear you. For the most part, they probably have no idea how loud they are to you, and if you as a friendly neighb. popped over and let them know that their 3 – 6 whatever bugs you, they’ll probably be cool about it. I hope!
But, as an apartment-dweller who has had some of the worst neighbors ever, I just want to warn you – if they’re doing weird shit at weird hours, maybe they’re crazy? We had upstairs neighbors once who started the party at 3 or 4 am (on weekdays) and were flabbergasted that we were upset by this. Like, I literally did one of those movie things where I’m asleep in bed and sit up screaming because they popped on the DJ club beats at full volume. Bad! They started straight up lying to our faces, denying that they were playing music at all (while the beats were pumping from the room we all stood in), and started verbally harassing us through our windows, only to play innocent for the police. They were also all 20-some year old, skinny, hipster-looking type girls who I could have kicked the asses of if I were that type of person. In short, it was the worst living experience of my life. But, we moved and it’s all good now!
I think if it really starts to bug you, then approaching them with caution, but friendliness, might be a good option. I think most people are probably oblivious to how their neighbs see them and would be embarrassed to know they were being heard all over the building, especially if it’s crazy sex on the floor. In that case, tell them how lucky they are! Good luck!
Yes, but it wasn’t stomping, it was something else entirely. Either way, it was a lot of banging.
Do they have pets? I know that is about the time my cats go ape shit…racing up and down the hallway, batting at anything they can possibly find, rolling balls around on the hardwood floor…