For the first time in my life I had to call some cops, to ask them to step and issue a noise violation. It is nearly 11pm, my family had received the most terrible news that day, and I was on hour 60 of being awake. After what has been the absolute most insane emotional, physical and mental rollercoaster of my life, I finally was drifting into sweet slumber the music began. I tried to fall asleep despite it, but it was no use. This neighbor has been loud before and most times I can ignore it, and sleep through, but this insomnia has a grip on me that I have seen in years.
I went down and knocked on his door and was meet with "WHY YOU POUNDING ON MY Door and man aggressive stepping out. I asked him please I have not slept in two days and I cannot sleep with you music on. He said it sound like I had a personal problem and he slammed he door in my face. The music was turned up instead of down, and Hexbear... I cracked. I am a transwoman living alone, I have been on HRT long enough that my muscle density is gone. I have low ciswoman levels of estrogen in my blood. And this man has menaced me before pounding on my door to accuse me of calling the cops on them on a previous time they were loud, when I had not. They said that I had better not EVER call the cops on him
I had to call 911 and ask them to issue a sound violation. I talked to the cops to give a statement, because frankly, this man scares me. He 6 foot something, towers above my 5"9' seems to always a baclava, when not in his home and is ripped.
And now adrenal is pumping through me and I may be to scared to sleep. I don't want the hallucinations Hexbear, these insomnia waking nightmares again.
Oh god.
Edit: I got like 4 hours of sleep. It's not enough, but it's something.
What a nightmarish situation, I'm really sorry you're having to deal with that. You did the right thing, at the right time. I hope your neighbor got the message clearly that you'll stick up for yourself by whatever means you have at your disposal.
You acted in your defense at an appropriate point in the conflict- he violently escalated tensions with you and it sounds like he's threatened you in the past. Menacing and then beating the door is a pretty good indicator that he'd be capable of carrying out an assault. His threats were increasing in intensity either as part of his personal anger freakout routine or to bully and intimidate you. I would have been very worried if you just hunkered down and let it blow over because the next boundary test could easily have pushed further.
Calling the cops was the rational and appropriate action. You couldn't stay and ignore it, you were in no state to leave and find a place to stay at short notice with your sanity hanging by a thread like that and further confrontation would have eventually led to one or both of you losing control, violence and probably the cops turning up anyway to a scene well beyond their will or ability to de-escalate safely.
But more importantly, the fact that you called them despite being aware and self-critical of doing it says to me you didn't have any other options. There was no rational way to safely deal with the situation or you would have tried it. Any other option I can see massively increases the chances that your shitty night AND your neighbors shitty night ended up defining the rest of your lives.
If you had made one of those other choices you would have raised the stakes far in excess of what should ever be necessary over what was essentially some fkn music, rudeness and ego fuckery. THAT would have been the unethical path to take. Dogmatic adherence to the letter of ideology in this case would have likely resulted in a brutally unjust outcome by any rational measure.
By bringing the cops in at a relatively peaceful juncture you've broken that feedback loop of escalation and call me optimistic, but I reckon he'll be a lot less likely to try you like that again. It's gonna be scary cuz bullies are scary, but they usually don't want to ruin their life indulging in power trip bullshit.
Good on you.
(I just realised how old this thread is. My bad- OP I hope things are going alright and that you ended up catching up on the sleep some.)