Moving, and wondering if an apartment is a bad idea...

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My son yells a lot, and sometimes screams at the top of his lungs. My daughter kinda eggs it on.

My son is newly diagnosed, so none of us really have a grasp on what works best to calm him down.

My family and I are moving soon, and wondering if an apartment is a bad idea.

Does anyone else have experience with this?

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Mother of a 4 year old who was diagnosed with HFA on 1/6/09. I'm just here trying to understand, and soak in.

I would say so. I have never lived in an apartment but have seen so many people complain about noisy kids, etc. For the peace of everyone else I would say no.

Unless you are moving into an apartment specifically designated for the "adult community", you have every right to be there with your kids. Most apartments are rented to families and young singles. Screaming kids, loud music, spousal fighting, fire alarms, cooking smells, barking dogs - it's all part of the deal. People know this when they move in.

I live in an apartment with my two kids. The crazy old lady downstairs had a problem with us walking around and tried to make a deal about it. I put down carpets. She had no grounds to make a complaint because legally, noise levels aren't regulated until after 11pm. My kid goes to bed at 8:30pm.

Two problems I've had some difficulty with -which you might want to consider - is;

1) the smells in the hallway, stairs, and elevator can be downright disgusting. Your ASD child may not be able to handle it. and

2) there is no way to anticipate, or regulate the volume of, the fire alarms. We have drills usually once a month. They can be testing from 7am -5pm sometimes. As well as whenever someone burns a pizza and opens their apt door to let the smoke out (last weeks incident ) . Or some wise kid bulls the alarm for kicks. The fire alarm is REALLY loud, so that any potentially deaf people can hear it. It physically hurts my ears, it makes my son scream, and there's no way to turn it down (landlord refuses). When it goes off, it can take 30-40 minutes for the firefighters to arrive, check the building, and turn off the alarm.

Any time. No warning. -HEADS UP!

I don't know why anyone would choose to live in an apt rather than a house... but that's another whole discussion I suppose, haha.

Great advice! Thank you!

I would prefer to live in a house, but So Cal is expensive and apartments are all we can afford here. I will be moving to Canada in a few years, so I'm sure I'll have a wide open space then.

My son doesn't seem to have issues with smells so far, or touches.... occasionally the smoke alarm goes off in my house, and he gets overly scared, but he doesn't scream or cry really.

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Mother of a 4 year old who was diagnosed with HFA on 1/6/09. I'm just here trying to understand, and soak in.

I own my home now, but prior to where I live now I also lived in CA and apartments were all I could afford. In my worst experience I was evicted because they couldnt place me in an apartment where my son wasnt a problem for the neighbors. Leading up to my eviction I changed apartments 3 times, at my own expense. All my neighbors were really mean. It caused a lot of headache for me and heartache for my children. Luckily I was able to find a duplex where I only shared a garage and livingroom wall, that worked out much better.

When people rent an apartment they expect to be able to enjoy it - "quiet enjoyment" - same as if they purchased a condo or a house. If you have a child that screams at all hours of the day and night, I would strongly urge you to try to rent a granny flat or a duplex, or the end unit of a complex - perhaps over the office, when it will not be inhabited after working hours - as opposed to an apartment where you will annoy your neighbors. You have every right to live there if a reasonable tenant. You (or your children) do not have a right to be disruptive or to make your neighbors miserable.

Most apartments in SoCal that I've had experience with have had very thin walls - they're built cheaply and to withstand earthquakes, which means they're pretty much chicken-wire and stucco. They aren't typically very soundproof. We own a condo, and another owner in my building rented to a family with children who are absolute demons - they are screaming at the top of their lungs until well into the night many nights each week. (We're talking 10:00, 11:00pm). The "quiet hours" here start at 8:00pm. The people who purchased condos here bought into the complex knowing the rules and regulations - in fact, some purchased BECAUSE of them. We value a peaceful, quiet environment.

The unit owner who is subletting to the family has been hit with several (and escalating) noise violation fines, and I would assume that very soon that family will be evicted as the fines will be approaching $500 per violation soon. We'll all cheer when they get tossed out. Both my daughter and I are Aspies and the extraneous noise is just incredibly painful and disruptive for us. We both get up at about 5:00 in the morning to get ready for work. It's hard to get a decent night's sleep with some kid bellowing at 10:00pm several nights a week. (We're not talking about a baby, we're talking about a 10 year old kid and his brother, who is just a bit younger).

If you rent an apartment and are the subject of many noise complaints, you may find yourself evicted and you would be reported to the central clearinghouse where landlords check tenants for prior damage, bad behavior, skipping out on rent, etc.... This will follow you and cause you problems when you try to rent in the future. Really, do yourself a favor and do try for a duplex or an end unit. Have you considered renting a mobile home? Depending on where you are, you may find some for a very reasonable rent and the space between your home and the neighbors will help with the sound issue. You'll save yourself (and those around you) much misery. If you look in some parts of some communities, you will find places for rent above storefronts. Minimal neighbors there.

I'm not sure about all areas of SoCal, but the rents in San Diego are down lately, and it's a renter's market. You should be able to find something.

Good luck!

Just to clarify - we don't complain about generic "children" noise, just when it's at the earsplitting level or very late at night. The kids can run around yelling like little savages all they want during the daytime and we don't complain (or care, really, unless they are damaging the landscaping). The density of our units is pretty extreme. We have to have our windows open for ventilation and cooling. When the windows are closed and the kids have their friends over and are still so loud we can't hear the tv or have a phone conversation, it's too loud. We all put up with the sound of dishes being washed, normal conversations, the occasional argument with raised voices, etc. - babies have to cry, children occasionally get carried away, toddlers have temper tantrums. There's a mentally impaired child who has the occasional screaming/crying fit. [Occasionally is the operative word here.] That all goes with the territory when you are in close quarters. Our complaints are with excessive, continual noise. Nobody forced anyone to move into this complex - if they don't like the rules here, they are free to leave. We wish they would do so, and save us all the aggravation and the associated legal fees (all owners share in the costs of running the complex).

There are many children in our complex who are well behaved. The batch I wrote above are not. This is a situation where the parents need to be teaching their children that they can't do everything they want to do just because they want to do it, and at least begin to teach them the basics of self-restraint and how to fit into a society. Their "right" to have fun or to do what they want to do ends when it impinges on the rights of the other residents of the complex. This is where mom and/or dad should be stepping in and saying "No. You may not do that. You are too loud. Timeout." And being consistent about it, over and over until the kid gets a clue. How the hell else will the children ever learn?

The parents of these children do not attempt to control them - the parents are usually sitting out on their patio drinking with friends, while the kids run rampant. Or they have gotten tired of having the kids in the house and made them go outside, where they basically swing off the trees. We're having to pay to replace one flowering shrub, two flower beds, and to reseed a large area of the lawn that they they've just destroyed by climbing in/on or running through repeatedly with (we assume) their bicycles. They've vandalized the property, graffitti'd with marker on the buildings.... The parents know what their kids are doing and do nothing to stop it. On New Year's evening the kids were out banging on pots and pans until after 2:00am - a new record, even for them.

We'll all have a party to celebrate when they are thrown out. The kids are close to 10 years old. They didn't get the way they are without the parents being involved in it - they've obviously been given no training or correction for most of their lives. The fault for that is on the parents - who prefer to drink and smoke and have friends over to party than to make sure their kids have the life skills they should have gotten by now. Too bad for the kids, really.

Just know what kind of community you are moving into. For instance, a place of mostly seniors is not good for kids. Personally, I recommend finding a building where young professionals live--they are never home, and may have kids of their own.

I live in Canada, where are you planning to move?

I hope you like cold!! lol

Ironically, moving next to a senior's home might be good. My friend owns an apartment next to one, and they're nice enough, but the noise pollution from the tvs is really bad, as they have it turned up very high! This means that they'd probably not be that sensitive to screaming from their neighbours.

If you have noisy kids, a house might be better, as you wouldn't have to worry about having the police called by neighboring tenants.