maebates's Profile

Wow, amazing house. Amazing art. Adorable ginger pets. I want to live there!

How frustrating! It sounds as though you have made reasonable accommodations; I'm not sure there's anything else that you can do beyond getting the landlord (if there is one) involved. But at this point, for your own sanity, you need to have a very straightforward talk with these neighbors and indicate that you can no longer receive daily missives from them, and that they need to consider the possibility that living in a downstairs unit will simply entail a certain level of noise. You can be apologetic but firm: "I just don't think there's anything more we can do."

We live in a middle unit and hear most of our upstairs neighbor's daily activities, but we've all lived in the city for a long time and understand this is par for the course. We have a preschooler who isn't the best sleeper in the world, so we don't really feel we're in a position to complain. We also hear our downstairs neighbor whose amorous encounters always seem to be extremely high-decible. Earplugs come in handy.

Great tips! I generally keep a de-facto garbage bowl (or container--sometimes an empty milk carton) on the counter for compost scraps, but didn't realize it was a cooking technique! This inspires me to formalize it and make sure to have a container ready every time I cook.

I'm looking for a specific kind of cutting non-slip cutting board and would appreciate any leads: an approximately 4" thick, somewhat large slab of solid wood with four non-slip rubber "feet" on the bottom. Our family had one of these when I was growing up, and it was so handy both to use and to wash/dry. It occupied its own spot on the counter and wasn't moved around much, and was thick enough that food could be swept off the surface into a (shallow) bowl. After lighter jobs, the surface could simply be wiped clean, but when we washed the whole thing the cutting surface would dry fast because it would be standing on those little feet with cutting surface up.