It really sucks living in an apartment

[Pancreas]

but I don't have another choice. Houses are way too expensive in Florida and I could never afford one by myself, especially with my subpar credit. I couldn't afford the payments either.

I'm lucky enough that my parents love me and they let me live in one of their apartments. I live here with my brother and our names are on the property. We do not have the power to sell the property, unless our parents pass away.

We pay the the maintenance fees and utilities, but the apartment still has a mortgage. Once my mother retires in 5 years, we will be in charge of paying the mortgage (as her income will reduce) since the apartment will be ours eventually. My brother doesn't make any noises most of the time and he always has his door closed, but sometimes I can hear the neighbors upstairs dropping things on the floor or stomping, it doesn't happen very often.

My brother doesn't get in my business, but I would much rather be alone

I'm grateful for that, but at the same time, I wish I had enough money to own a house and have privacy. I like being alone and if I was rich, I would probably buy a house that is very far apart from other houses

It's probably never going to happen. For now, I just focus on improving my living area, where I installed a solid core door and had a second wall with insulation installed on top of an existing wall that faces the neighbors, as I was hearing the guy snore, which was ridiculous. I don't hear it anymore.

I would like to have a subwoofer but I'm concerned is going to disturb the neighbors, even though at times, I hear a subwoofer from a neighbor at 101.

I'm at 103 and I can sometimes hear a very low subwoofer playing, doesn't happen often though. Can't imagine what the guys at 102 hear.

Sound proofing is very expensive for small results tbh short of rebuilding the whole place, there is not much that can be done like installing concrete walls, decoupled drywalls, etc. I gave up on that already as is a waste of time and money

 

[rank]

Achtung ! It's political !
My partner wants me to buy a shack 80 km from home because you can find one for $10,000, but I'm hesitant.

 

[jp4573]

Always can be worst.
Someone living in Switzerland wrote that in the apartments there is forbidden to flush the toilette after 22:00.

 

[Matias]

Looking at the bright side: it has never been a better time then now for IEMs. For very little you can get top quality sound in a portable system that allows you to isolate from neighbours and listen as loud as you want without interfering with others.

Get a lossless subscription like Tidal + a quality dongle DAC + 20-50 USD IEMs and you are done.

 

[TonyJZX]

i'm lucky i have family wealth but i have lived in older apartments.. say 50yrs old and they used thick poured concrete walls and i didnt have an issue with sound inasfar as bass did not travel thru walls... also this building has only four apartments in this block and I live with an old retired near DEAF lady, a semi retired male teacher and an italian couple with no kids... so... PEACE!

but yes apartment living does suit well with me

i hated parking cars outside and with everyone else

i didnt like how my garage was on the basement but i'm living on the penthouse suite and two beds isnt really enough... but even this layout is $500,000 where I am!

new apartments are 100% ripoff here with paper thin walls

but i now live in an old house.... at least 70 yrs old post WW2 and its a lot better... BUT this house is $1.5 mil here.... (yes we have dumb house prices here... just like Canada)

unfortuntely llving in a house in a city that is regularly top 5 expensive is a luxury people do not have

ie. house is fully owned, i do not have a mortgage

saving for a 20% deposit while paying rent then having to commit to $3,000 $4,500 or more a month mortgage for 30yrs!

this isnt possible

 

[Somafunk]

Okay, I’ll try and highlight it in other ways that do not mention neoliberalism (elephant in the room?) and are purely apolitical in nature

Wealth inequality in the United States

Visualising wealth distribution in America 1990 to 2023

 

[TonyJZX]

also there's APARTMENTS and there's apartments

where I am I can see a high rise in the next area code that has something like... 100 units in there? some with 300? I heard as high as 500?

think about the logistics of living with 100 people?

the cars all parked in the multi storey underground carpark - think about rush hour

so my experiences are only on the level of 10-12-16 apartments in a block - they dont like to make these any more as there's not enough money for the developer to make it worthwhile

we're going from medium density to high density

nah to that

also in my past life I have worked for construction companies that built these things... projects from $50-$150-$250 mil. and UP

and on the property management side too

its kinda in my blood but i dont like it

 

[Chr1]

I am kinda lucky that way. Though I live in the city centre, my neighbours don't seem to be bothered by my music. I am in Edinburgh, Scotland. Solid 19th century Georgian building, so solid walls, high ceilings etc. Got what used to be a Starbucks below me, which is now vacant. My neighbours upstairs are in Holland most of the time and my other neighbours have my kitchen and bathroom between my living room and themselves. It's definitely not an affluent area, mainly young people renting, but I think the age of the building helps. Most modern buildings are not particularly well insulated re audio.
Anyhoo, I have a pretty loud system involving AVR/Surround, pro-audio Tannoys, KH310s and twin subs.
I play pretty loud and thankfully am yet to get a complaint (that I am aware of. lol)
All good in da hood here.

 

[JeffS7444]

USA's ginormous, and many areas are sparsely populated, so I think your dream of owning a more isolated house may be more do-able than you suppose. But houses need maintenance, and sometimes the "natural" environment only seems pleasant to us because humans have tamed it to some extent. And in a tropical climate, vegetation can grow really fast! Some of my mom's neighbors seemed to spend an awful lot of time whacking weeds.

 

[TonyJZX]

the flipside is that apartments have strata fees or what Americans would call... HoA - yeah real ho's

and so the 'norm' here is you are paying something like $500-$1,000 $2k every quarter for building maintenance

can get sticky in that there may be an emergency fund raising to complete major construction work

if you live in a high end place with pools gyms lifts concierge then you will pay for that too

if you're a home owner then maybe your water heater goes bang and you need to replace that

and then home insurance! when i was living in an apartment i never bothered with 'home and contents insurance'

 

[Pancreas]

I'm 40, so I'm too old for that now. I'm also on the spectrum, so all my life, I've had difficulties even tho I'm high functioning, I was unemployed for many years and only started working continuously since 2014. I made a lot of mistakes along the way, didn't go to school cause I don't do well under pressure.

I only make 45k a year, which is not enough to buy a house and pay a mortgage including all extra costs here in Florida, but at least, I have a place to live and isn't too bad.

My parents are loving and have helped us.

It could be much worse. The money I save, could be used towards other things. I'm single and will probably never marry, as is not something I look forward to.

I also don't see myself having a kid. I can barely sustain myself, plus, there is a high chance, he or she could be autistic and more severe, I wouldn't like to see him or her suffer what I have in my life, or worse.

I just do the things I like, my hobbies and focus on just being happy the way I can.

 

[Chester]

I just do the things I like, my hobbies and focus on just being happy the way I can.

Nothing wrong with that my friend, more people need to think like that instead of trying to compete with everyone around them.

 

[Chr1]

Indeed. There's enough stupid sh** out there in the world. For sure.
Music definitely helps to keep me sane.

 

[jeffaegrim]

I feel you - I am in the same boat, although slightly younger, which is the only reason why I haven’t given up on the idea of home ownership entirely just yet.

Re:apartments - I live in one. The house, however, is very new - built maybe 15 years ago - and until 22:00 or so I have no problem listening at up to 96db. For the sake of my ears, I don’t - but I could, potentially. Sound isolation is really good in these new buildings, I feel. Only works when the bass is cleanly EQ‘d, though (no boosting, no large peaks, etc.). Bass waves travel much better through walls afaik.

Anyway, my speakers have 15“ woofers and I have three smaller subs placed around the room. Living in an apartment hasn’t put a damper on my high SPL ambitions. Plus there is the possibility/hope of moving out one day.

I only had one neighbour complain in my 10+ years of living here and that person was very confused, opting to call the police straight away before seeking dialogue with me. Thankfully - or, in other situations, detrimentally - there is very little legal recourse vs a loud neighbour in the country I live in (@center of Europe).

 

[JeffS7444]

Okay, I’ll try and highlight it in other ways that do not mention neoliberalism (elephant in the room?) and are purely apolitical in nature

Wealth inequality in the United States

Visualising wealth distribution in America 1990 to 2023

But in the USA, the means of acquiring wealth, aside from inheritance, are pretty egalitarian, and really large inheritances are subject to taxation.

"Poor" people in the USA fret over how they're going to make their car payments, while the rest of the world wonders "You have a car?"

 

[BlackTalon]

Houses are expensive in the DC area. Yet where my sister lives in Michigan houses are 80% cheaper than around here. You can have a 3 bedroom house and some land up there for $100k. There are definitely places in the US where single family housing is afforadable.

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I like apartment living. I've had several houses and enjoyed the space and the distancing but not the responsibilities or the isolation.

 

[mhardy6647]

Back in 2011, when we were getting ready to have the house we now live in built, I showed a photo of what would be the view out of our kitchen windows to a colleague at work.
His immediate response:

You're not much of a people person, are you?

To which I replied:

Dave -- you know me!

No. No I'm not.
I am one of those people who is completely comfortable making a presentation to 50 or 500... but put me in a party to mingle with folks I don't know, and I'm in search of the nearest corner to stand in (or the food).
EDIT: Yes, I'd rather stand in the food than mingle.

 

[Chrispy]

I feel for you on the apartment thing....but if it has a mortgage I'd call it a condo. I last lived in an apartment in the late 70s, didn't care for it at all. I bought a house that was just not a good decision right after that and got out from under that after only a coupla years (and was at super high interest rates at the time, makes today seem a bargain). I stuck to renting houses with roommates for quite a while. Some housing markets are tough....I used to live in the SF Bay area (in SF primarily)....but never found a good time for my income and housing prices to quite match up. I found a nice community with good prices to retire in and is relatively quiet overall, except perhaps when I crank it up (which I don't do nearly as much as in the past, trying to be nicer to my ears these days .

 

[Kal Rubinson]

I feel for you on the apartment thing....but if it has a mortgage I'd call it a condo.

It's either a condo or it's not, regardless of the existence of a mortgage. In my case, it's a co-op and the remaining mortgage is trivial. Does that make it more or less than a co-op?

Perhaps you can think of it as a gated community but stacked vertically.