Tapping*

R, my reclusive neighbor who lives in the apartment directly above mine, had a late afternoon male visitor yesterday. 🥶 It might have been K, the maintenance supervisor for this senior and disabled, independent living housing complex because I have never hear R to have a visitor, much less a male visitor. (I myself have never been in R's apartment.) Whoever it was growled at her for about half an hour. He seemed to be telling R what to do. She responded with three rather loud, aggression yawns but I didn't hear her say anything at all, which was kind of amusing! 😁

It is several hours into this morning and R hasn't tapped* on the metal skirting of the radiator pipes as is her daily habit, not once. I do worry about her when I do not hear her incessant tapping above me, as she is quite elderly. She did not start tapping when I said good morning to my cat Achilles, nor when I ran water to brush my teeth and wash, nor when I prepared coffee in the kitchen, nor when I lay back quietly into bed to watch the morning news, at low volume on my tablet, as I recovered from the exertion of beginning my day. What a blessing it would be if R stopped tapping entirely. 🙏🏼 I have known her to tap on the metal skirting of the radiator pipes for ten to twenty minutes at a time, sometimes slowly, sometimes furiously. Wonder what goes on in her mind to carry on that way? 😕 Is it entirely in response to hearing me move within my apartment, breathing aloud in that annoying way that I have. 😂 Is it an odd hobby? Or a cruel compulsion? It is almost musical, torturous music telling me to SHUT UP. 🤫 😶The irony is that I am by nature a very quiet person. It is very surprising that R is able to track me from room to room, tapping to shut me up as she follows me. But then I am able to hear her cough, sneeze, talk on the phone, open kitchen drawers, walk around. The last she does in what must be some sort of wooden clogs, because they rattle loosely against her wooden floor. 😬

I wonder if M, the very elderly resident with the handsome, younger, well-dressed brother, who several weeks ago moved into the apartment next to R, had the clout 🤔 to get management to finally tell R to stop tapping on the radiator pipes? I have heard M yell at R through the walls that she should be quiet, stop the infernal tapping on the radiator, stop dragging furniture around. 🤬 I have never yelled at her because I did not think it would be effective and yelling at neighbors is not how I want to live my life. ☮ She has always refused to talk to me face-to-face, literally running away whenever she sees me outside. How odd.

Management was unable or unwilling to stop her tapping, saying almost fondly, "Well, R has lived here for a very long time." The first time that R saw me, when I moved in here two-plus years ago, she called out to me as I walked by on tour with the manager, saying, "I feel sorry for you living below me." 😳 So R is very much aware of the endless misery she causes. Still, somehow I have the ability to ignore her tapping, as if she were stones rolling down a hill, or a branch outside scratching a wall, or a demented animal. 🤪

How am I so certain that it is R, that it is she tapping, not some mechanical problem like, for example, the radiator pipes "burping" as they sometimes do when malfunctioning.  I know from common sense of the patterns in her tapping; and because an experienced maintenance worker at this complex listened to her tapping above my apartment, and then he ran outside into the breezeway and began yelling up at R to, "Cut the Cr@p" over and over. This was early on in my residency here and I was mortified and I begged him to stop yelling at my neighbor as it was embarrassing and she might not even hear him as she was inside her apartment at the time.  I did not know then what I know now. 😟 That maintenance man no longer works here, he quit a while back.

Oh dear, I am afraid that this morning she is simply not at home to do her tapping routine. It's only 9 AM, but maybe her visitor from last night took her somewhere this morning? Will he bring her back? How do I feel about this? 😕

I was luxuriating in the idea of how wonderful it would be if R stopped her infernal tapping, after more than two years of torturing me with it. Then suddenly she was back home and back at it: tap, tap, tap, tap, tap ... on the metal skirting of the radiator pipes. 😱 But now she "whisper taps" softly on the sides of the radiator as far away from M as she can get and still know that I hear her.  Lunacy.

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• "Tapping is a common form of self-stimulatory behavior (stimming)—repetitive physical movements or sounds—used to self-regulate emotions, sensory input, or focus, often associated with autism and ADHD. It can be tactile (tapping fingers/objects), auditory (rhythmic tapping), and serves to reduce anxiety, calm down, or express joy." Source: random internet AI

My notes on days prior.

10-17-24, by 11:26 PM There has been no tapping noises in my bedroom all evening, it has all stopped after R was talked to by management today.  I did hear her door slam when she got home, then it sounded like she threw the sofa around, thump, thump, thump on the floor.  And a few chairs clattered.

10-18-24.  R was tapping over my bedroom ceiling at 9:50 AM.  Then R got out of bed and put on hard-soled shoes. She is clomping around on my ceiling.  R can hear every sneeze, word, and movement that I make in my own apartment.   Sometimes I imagine her on her knees above me, with ear to the floor, listening for her next cause of outrage.  I am weary of this.

Tapping On The Metal Skirting Of The Radiator Pipes

by Annmarie Throckmorton, copyright 2026

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