Deep breath
Landlord came by tonight. He’s still here, in fact, fixing the dryer, or trying to.
He said he’d speak to the people upstairs, about the door they keep leaving open (it helps that the basement is full of water, almost certainly due to that), and also about the noise. It is, after all, in the lease: all activities of tenant . . . are to be conducted in a quiet, dignified manner so as not to annoy or disturb the owners or occupants of other neighboring premises.
With luck this will work. After all, the people upstairs know as well as I do that the rent for these apartments is at least 300$/month less than it would be in any comparable apartment. (I don’t quite get why the landlord does this. But I won’t complain.) It’s big, it’s in a nice neighbourhood, and the landlord is a reasonable guy. I’m still scared, but I’m hoping this works and it all goes away. Of course that’s what I hoped all this time before and it didn’t, but now at least the landlord knows.
I actually ate some dinner; if I’m not sick soon, this will have been a successful evening.