One complaint that all students at EWU may have at any point during their time as a student is that we have neighbors that are simply too noisy.

In fact, I have that complaint nearly every Friday and Saturday night. I have a part-time job that requires me to commute an hour into north Spokane. In order to get to work on time, I have to wake up at the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. on the weekends. Thus, I prefer to get at least seven hours of sleep.

My upstairs neighbors have other plans for me, though. They like to have parties or play toss-things-around-room at all hours of the day, but particularly on Friday and Saturday nights, when they seem to invite their equally loud friends over.

Generally, I’m a tolerant person. I don’t mind if you decide to throw a bash over my head every once in a while. I’ll admit that I’ve been one of those people who may have been part of the problem at one time or another. But I have to draw the line at having multiple parties in a weekend that all last until 3 a.m. Especially if I am peacefully sleeping through the ruckus until everyone decides to sing a chant and bang on the table, waking up every single person in my apartment.

What do I do in that sort of situation?

Well, there are two options that I can think of. One would be to go up to those noisy neighbors and politely ask them to turn down their music. However, there are a couple issues that I have with this option.

First of all, I don’t quite like the idea of confronting, even politely, a group of loud, raucous and, quite possibly, drunk people. Who knows what may come of that situation; they could comply, or they could get angry and try to fight me. And we all know I have no idea how to fight.

The second option is to wait until the noisy neighbors have delayed sleep so long that it is going to affect my productivity the next day and then call the Cheney non-emergency dispatch. These nice people are here when there is no on-call number for your apartment complex, or if it seems too sketchy to go confront the noisemakers.

While filing a noise complaint against those pesky neighbors may seem like something a person with the personality of Maleficent might do, it’s a somewhat easy solution to a touchy problem. Most people will receive a warning, which usually queues a calming of the party.

I admit, I have done this to my own noisy neighbors.

While I understand that it’s hard to control noisiness when you’re caught in the throes of a good party, it’s important for all of us to do our part in not disturbing others’ sleep.