Submitted by YuPromisedButtStuff t3_yrkc82 in tifu
I moved into a new apartment in July. The building is brand new. I’m on the 2nd floor.
There is a commercial space below me. They’ve been doing construction on that space for a few weeks now. There’s loud noise from the construction that starts at 7:00am and goes until 4pm most weekdays. Some days they start before 7am (this is important to know.) It’s loud. It freaks out my cat, and makes the daytime challenging.
I work from home. Many times, during business calls, I have to keep stopping my call and muting my mic because the construction is too loud.
The law here states that construction noise must be during the hours of 7am until 6pm during the week. So it’s legal to have the noise during those hours. Sucks, but it’s legal.
I reiterate, I’ve been very frustrated with the noise.
But not just the construction noise. Above me is a dog that barks for 30 minutes at a clip periodically throughout the day. And my next door neighbor has a young child that screams and screams (as children often do, I get it.) It’s all just overwhelming sometimes and very frustrating.
They’ve been starting the construction noise before 7am a few days this week.
Today, at 6:50AM, I had enough. I was tired, I was pissed, and my cat was freaking out.
So I called the NYC complaint line (311) to file a noise complaint since I know the construction shouldn’t start until 7am.
I tell the operator the situation. I’m doing a little venting saying “you operators worked from home during the pandemic, imagine trying to get your job done while loud noise is coming from three different directions.”
So, we go through everything. The operator opened a ticket with the appropriate construction agency to make sure they address the work noise.
She then asks about the dog and the child screaming.
I tell her about it.
Well, here’s the fuck up.
Apparently, the child screaming triggered a mandatory report for a child wellness check. I told her “NO, I didn’t want to do that” but it appears that I said the right keywords or something that they had concerns about child neglect.
Fuck.
I tried to stop it.
Well, the POLICE arrived about 20 minutes ago to the next door neighbors’ apartment to do a wellness check.
I overheard the woman saying “tell me who reported it!” but the police were saying “it was anonymous.”
Eventually, the police said, “Hey, we get it, kids scream but we have to follow up on the report someone left.”
Now, I have my new neighbor probably livid that someone called the cops on her because her kid is “loud.” I’ve never met her. It wasn’t my intention to have the fricken cops come. I just wanted the construction noise to stop.
TL;DR - I submitted a noise complaint for construction and accidentally called the cops on a screaming toddler.