Depends. If they were arguing for a few minutes and then it stopped, I wouldn't have bothered. I would've called the cops if:

- Argument lasted too long or stopped and then started up again. About a half hour or more.
- Heard screaming or phrases like "I'm gonna kill you!".
- Items crashing, breaking, constant pounding on the walls.

Nuke. Orbit. Sure.

Awesome.

I think that was about the appropriate response.

As was already stated, unless you believe there is going to be physical harm done there really is no reason. Besides which, someone will inevitably call. On the other hand, if it does look like something major do not assume someone will call it in!

I would recommend not getting involved directly. Domestic disputes are some of the worst calls. Quite often what you end up with is both sides wailing on you.

Just makes me appreciate having been married all these years to a sane woman.

Actually....

Most cities have disturbing the peace ordinances exactly for that purpose. I'm all for celebrating, but there is a point where you have to consider your neighbors.

Also, my general philosophy is that people out after midnight are rarely up to any good. Granted, my buddy and I used to just cruise around town till 3am in the morning, but we avoided most any human contact because the other people out at that time of night? Maybe best not to interact with is all I'm sayin'.

I have a situation that haunts me still where i did nothing and the girl was hospitalized because of it. I promised myself from that point forward that i wouldn't allow it ever again. Couples/married or not, right or not, i'll always jump in to seperate a man hitting a woman. Luckily i've outmatched everyone i've had to do this to so far, and not ended up hurt or worse.

This would be an every other night occurance with these new neighbors. If i hadn't already known i'd be leaving soon i'd call them already.

This made me laugh out loud....at work.

Personally, I would call the cops for exactly the same reasons that LobsterMobster suggests. However, don't call 911 unless it's an emergency. Know the dispatch number for your local police station/precinct and call them. They tend to appreciate it even though a lot of the time they don't seem like it.

Wife just about called in a domestic next door, but she peeked outside and the cops were already on it. Next night an officer stood out on our neighbors balcony all night. I'm guessing she did the right thing by kicking her boyfriends butt out, and putting a restraining order on him. She moved out not too long after, hopefully to get things right again somewhere else.

I've come close to calling the cops twice. Once when I was woken up in the middle of the night by some horrible crashing sound from the upstairs apartment (renting the lower half of a house, the upper and lower halves were separate "apartments"). This was where one of the guys upstairs had a habit of beating his dog. Complicated story, but the guy was the co-renter of the place, the other renter was my landlord's brother-in-law (landlord was a buddy of mine), and I brought the concerns up to him first and he checked up and said there was no issue. I later learned that yes, I was right about it, the guy WAS beating the poor dog, because they caught him beating the dude's cat a few months later. Anyway, the crashing upstairs that I had heard was the crazy animal-beater smashing his roomate's acoustic guitar over the guy's head while he was asleep.

I showed up the next day to find the cops arresting the guy for outstanding warrants.

Other time I almost called the cops was when there was a fairly disturbing shouting match going on across the street at the last house I rented, where there were routine fights between the two divorced parents and their kids in the yard and street. This time it had spilled into the street and one kid was crying and trying to block the mom's car or something, and they were all shouting at each other and who knows WHAT the hell was going on. But the neighbors were on top of it (had talked to me about it in the past) and had already called the cops. That was just a weird situation.

Well, yeah, definitely don't call 911. Was that an issue I missed in the original argument?

To me, when someone says they had to call the police, that means that had to drag their poor ass out of bed, find the phone book, and look up the local seven digits for the precinct's number. That's why it's such a pain in the ass when people are being loud. Because it makes you have to read fine print in the middle of a REM cycle.

Worst noise any of my neighbors ever made was from a constantly arguing couple above us. She smashed his CRT monitor on their floor/our ceiling.

I once came home from work to find 5 squad cars in the parking lot and one of my neighbors (different from the above ones) face down in my parking spot getting cuffs put on him. I parked in one of the visitor spots and quietly walked past everything to the door of our building