'AITA for telling my neighbor it’s not my problem her newborn wakes up to noises coming from my apartment?'
"AITA for telling my neighbor it’s not my problem her newborn wakes up to noises coming from my apartment?"
I recently moved into a one-bedroom apartment that had been vacant for a while. The unit is great overall and I really like living here.
I have a two-year-old goldendoodle. He will occasionally bark when he hears something outside my door or in the hallway, but I work from home so I’m almost always there and I correct the behavior when it happens. It’s usually just a couple of alert barks.
Tonight around 7:00 pm I was having dinner with my sisters when my neighbor knocked on my door. She told me that my dog’s “constant barking” has been disturbing her newborn’s sleep and that this has apparently been going on for weeks. She also said she has two dogs and that she educated them not to bark, so I should be able to do the same with my dog.
The thing is, my dog wasn’t even barking when she knocked on the door, and I honestly don’t believe he is barking constantly. Since I work from home, I would definitely notice if he was.
I told her I would try my best to manage it, but also said that I can’t control the fact that the building’s sound insulation seems pretty poor.
I can hear her baby crying through the walls quite often, but I’ve never complained because that’s just part of apartment living. Babies cry and dogs sometimes bark.
Now the whole interaction has made me really anxious and hyper aware. If my dog barks even once, I immediately worry she’s going to complain again.
AITA for telling her that the building’s thin walls aren’t really something I can control?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Dog owners are almost always oblivious to how much their dog barks so Im inclined to side with the neighbor.
This, 100%. And I've met so many doodles that bark at every noise/movement. I have a golden (non-doodle) and we spent months ensuring that he does not bark at anything unless it's truly an emergency/terrifying. It was hard work, but worth it, and we live in a stand-alone home! I've lived in apartments with barky dogs and it's such a nightmare. It's like the owners grow immune to it.
No judgement. I suggest you audio or video record during the day, so you can prove to the landlord how often your dog actually barks in case she puts a formal complaint in.
NTA. I'd rather hear your dog bark than her baby cry.
I question how honest OP is being about being home all the time. Surely they aren’t home 24/7 and there dog may very well be barking the entire time they’re gone.
To add, unless OP has put in extra training or thought into it (but it sounds like they haven’t) WFH dogs are normally the worst when it comes to separation anxiety and barking. They’re used to not being alone 90% of the time and when they finally are left alone they lose it and don’t know how to chill while their owners are gone.