Help Noise complaints in apartments; how loud am I allowed to be?

[Anxieyote]

I really enjoy singing, and on my days off while I am cleaning my apartment, I will sing at a moderately loud volume to help make the time go by faster. Within a few minutes, I hear my 70-year-old neighbor stomping around above me. If I continue to sing, she follows me around with her feet and stomps in succession 3 or 4 times to indicate her frustration. And if I keep going, eventually I will hear a "SHUT UP!!!!!"

Singing is very important to me, and it helps me calm down a lot. So it upsets me when this happens, because I feel like there is no safe place in my immediate vicinity to bare my soul. What I have been doing is going outside to sit in my vehicle and singing there, but it's not as comfortable, and sometimes people will pass by while they are walking their dog and I get embarrassed when I see them looking at me.

I have gotten noise complaints, and the cops have shown up to my door a few times which is terrifying when I see 3 or 4 of them on my doorstep with guns in their holsters (this is a small town, so oftentimes, multiple cops will respond to minor incidents).

Is singing just something that is going to be out of the question while I live in an apartment complex? It really seems unfair that the only solution for this that I have been offered in the past is to "just make more money and buy a house bro, you can be as loud as you want there", which is not going to be feasible anytime in the near future.

The level of self-expression I should be allowed to engage in in my own home:

 

[Darkover]

i get my neighbour knocking at my door for just walking around my flat, she says she can hear it and i've been doing it all day long, she has writen 3 latters and post them to me asking me to stop pacing around my flat, i'm going to get her done for harassment from my neighbour if she continues disturbing my peace

there's not much you can do unfortunately except move to a bigger better place
it's absurd that you can't even sing in your own apartment without having your neighbour complain

 

[kazewoatsumete]

she can't do anything about it. check your town's noise ordinance, you're probably not doing anything wrong. if the cops don't say anything but "just tone it down" then they really had no reason to be there. shes wasting police resources and you could probably claim she's harassing you and complain to your landlord considering you're not making excessively loud noise. she shouldn't be harassing you for singing which is a normal activity