How I Taught My Neighbor to Keep the Volume Down

When I moved to a new apartment with my family, the cable company we were used to wasn't available. We had to settle for Dish Network. I wasn't too happy about making that switch, but something on their website caught my attention. For an additional $5 a month, I could have access to DVR. I switched immediately.

This was 2007. DVR was not new, but it wasn't commonly bundled with set-top boxes. TiVo was still the popular way to record, pause, and rewind live TV. We received two set-top boxes, one for each room with a TV, and three remotes. Two remotes had IR (infrared) blasters and, surprisingly, one RF (radio frequency) remote.

After using the RF remote, I wondered: Why would anyone ever use an IR remote again? You didn't need a direct line of sight with the device you were controlling. I could actually stand in the kitchen and control the TV. It was amazing. But with the convenience of RF came other problems that IR users never had to worry about. Interference.

After several months of enjoying my service, one of my neighbors, the loudest in the building, also switched to Dish Network. And he also got the RF remote. This was the type of neighbor who would leave the house with the TV on, volume blasting.

One day, I was in the living room watching TV when the channel just flipped. I must have accidentally hit a button, so I changed it back. But not a few seconds later, the channel changed again. Then the volume went up. I figured my sister must have had the RF remote and was messing with me. But no, the remote was in my hand. I assumed something was wrong with it.

The whole time I was watching TV, the channels kept randomly switching. I banged the remote on the table a couple of times, but it still switched. I removed the batteries from the remote, it still switched. I unplugged the device for a few minutes, plugged it back in, and… it still switched. Frustrated, I went through the device settings and disabled the RF remote. That's when it finally stopped. I wasn't happy with this solution, but it allowed me to watch TV until I figured something out.

One evening, when everyone was asleep and the neighbor was watching a loud TV show, I decided to diagnose the issue. The moment I pressed the power button on the RF remote, my TV and set-top box turned on, and the neighbor's TV went silent. "Fuck!" I heard someone say. I was confused. Did I just do that? The TV turned back on, the volume went up. I walked to the window armed with the remote. I counted to three, then pressed the power button. My neighbor's TV went silent. He growled.

Every time he turned the TV on, I pressed the power button again and his device went off. Well, what do you know? We had interference somehow. Our remotes were set up to operate at the same frequency. Each remote controlled both devices.

But I'm not that kind of neighbor. I wasn't going to continue to mess with him. Instead, I decided I would pay him a visit in the morning and explain that our remotes are tuned to the same frequency. I would bring the RF remote with me just to show him a demo. I was going to be a good neighbor.

In the morning, I went downstairs, remote in hand. I knocked on the door, and a gentleman in his forties answered the door. I had rehearsed my speech and presentation. This would be a good opportunity to build a good rapport, and have a shared story. Maybe he would tell me how he felt when the TV went off. How he thought there was a ghost in the house or something. But that's not what happened.

"Hi, I'm Ibrahim. Your upstairs neighbor..." I started and was interrupted almost immediately. "Whatever you are selling," he yelled. "I'm not buying." and he closed the door on my face. I knocked a second time, because obviously there was a misunderstanding. He never answered. Instead, the TV turned on and a movie played at high volume. So much for my prepared speech.

The RF settings on my set-top box remained turned off. My family never discovered its benefit anyway, they always pointed at the box when pressing the buttons. It wasn't much of an inconvenience. In fact, I later found in the manual that you could reprogram the device and remote to use a different frequency. I did not reprogram my remote. Instead, my family used the two IR remotes, and brought the RF remote in my bedroom where it permanently remained on my night stand.

Why in the bedroom? Because I decided to teach my neighbor some good manners. Whenever he turned up his volume, I would simply turn off his device. I would hear his frustration, and his attempts at solving the problem. Like a circus animal trainer, I remained consistent. If the volume of his TV went above what I imagined to be 15 to 20, I would press the power button. It became a routine for me for weeks. Some nights were difficult, I would keep the remote under my pillow, battling my stubborn neighbor all night.

One day, I noticed that I hadn't pressed the button in days. I opened the window and I could still hear the faint sound of his TV. Through trial and error, he learned the lesson. If the volume remained under my arbitrary threshold, the TV would remain on. But as soon as he passed that threshold, the device would turn off.

Sometimes, he would have company and there would be noise coming out of his apartment. I used the one tool in my tool box to send him a message. Turn off the TV. All of the sudden, my neighbor and his guest will be reminded of the unspoken rules, and become mindful of their neighbors.

Maybe somewhere on the web, in some obscure forum, someone asked the question: "Why does my set-top box turn off when I increase the volume?" Well, it might be 18 years too late, but there's your answer. There is a man out there who religiously sets his volume to 18. He doesn't quite know why. That's Pavlovian conditioning at its best.

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