My name is Wanling, and I am a research assistant.
Throughout university and my PhD, I lived in student dorms
Now that I have been working for almost a year, I am renting a flat.
I usually have flatmates, or at least neighbours living on the same floor as me.
I am Jiahe, a magazine editor
I live quite close to my office.
We bought an old apartment over thirty years old.
I am Sofie, I am Yinshan, I am Yinying.
I am Mengde, I am French.
and I have lived in Taipei for two years.
I teach French
I live around the Shida area, close to Yongkang Road.
One time it was really unbearable,
My university classmate's shoes, they smelt so awful.
And I got really angry with him so I said
"Can you please go wash your shoes and feet?"
After that I was always very careful to avoid him.
If it's unbearable for me and it's something I can do, then I'll do it.
Since then, I have used this method to resolve
any problems that become unbearable when living with someone else.
So I will just solve the problem for them first.
Below my apartment there is one of those traditional Taiwanese karaoke
bars where young girls will keep you company and drink with you.
Actually they aren't too loud, but old apartments have bad sound-proofing
so sometimes after 12 am you might hear sound coming from below, singing noises.
But it's not very loud, so I've never complained to them or reacted to it.
When we have a party, the neighbours sometimes complain.
Last time I had a party, my neighbour complained at 11pm.
"Since September you have had 3 parties, it's now 11pm, you are too loud!" etc. etc.
I said sorry to him, but he didn't want to accept my apology.
He said: " Don't say you are sorry, I don't accept your apology"
There was a construction site next to th place where I used to live
and they were building an apartment.
Their working hours were ridiculous
They sometimes started work at 5 am and finished at 12 or 1 am.
The neighbours form of protest at that time was to shout at the workers
and tell them not to work any longer but it didn't really work.
Eventually, somebody called the police.
But the police just came, had a little chat with them and then left. It's no use.
They already had an agreement with the government, maybe they gave them some money
Some neighbours said it was pointless. We just put up with it till it was finished.
I live in one of those old apartments.
The neighbours have some very strange habits
They have a leak, I don't know if it's water or something else,
and it drips down from the balcony.
They are not watering flowers, so I'm not sure what it is.
I complained to the neighbour about it
he said he doesn't think it affects me in any way, so he doesn't care.
We are the kind of people who keep problems to ourselves,
we don't like to spoil the relationship with our neighbours,
so usually we complain once but if we don't get any response we drop it.
I always live in rented apartments
We have someone next door, I don't know what their job is
but one time at 2 or 3 am, he got home drunk and couldn't get into his house,
maybe he didn't have his keys; he was kicking the door and it was really loud
I live next door to him so I could hear everything very clearly.
I was home alone and my dog was just lying asleep on the floor
so I called the 24-hour security guard and asked him to have a look,
and we found out that the man had been drinking, and he took care of things.
I wouldn't go to him directly to complain, because he is probably a man.
Because when he was drunk that time, he must have been strong to kick like that.
The next day when I went out I saw the door was completely open so he was strong.
So, I didn't want to confront him.
Smell can be a bother, but sometimes it's hard to determine the source
I think it's because I spend all my day working away from home.
So when I get back sometimes I think, "the neighbours are cooking something"
but usually after a whole day's work I don't have energy to deal with this.
As long as it's not frequent.
If the smell is there for a week or a month I will do something about it.
But if it's only on a certain evening I understand that it's probably
just that they burned the food when cooking, or something is broken, etc.
I think you have to put up with it, because people live so close to each other
Even though you don't know them and have probably never met them
you still assume it is an accident and be tolerant towards them.
Yes, you could call my behaviour passive-aggressive
because I'm not happy but I will use an indirect and roundabout way to
avoid people sending my hostility.
I kind of use encouragement as a means of communication.