I thought this would be the best place to ask since so many people here understand how stressful uncontrollable noises can be sometimes. I live below a really noisy couple and their toddler. The house was built decades ago and as a result, there is absolutely no insulation between my neighbors and me. I can hear every footstep, tantrum, or conversation. I can also very clearly hear music from cars or when people arrive at their apartment late at night. I have asked my landlord to ask the upstairs tenants to not let their kid treat the floor like a trampoline, but obviously, it's a toddler and my neighbors don't think about how loud they are (they sometimes play loud movies or low base music).
My ears hurt so much from wearing construction-grade earbuds and earmuffs (might have to switch to something more sleep-friendly). But even with earmuffs, I can still feel the vibration of them moving and jumping. I get triggered by their noise constantly and can't feel comfortable in my own home. I've already asked them to be a bit quieter on a few occasions, but I know they can only do so much when it comes to their kid. During one panic attack, I banged on the wall and that was not very productive. Also, I don't want to be seen as the annoying downstairs grumpy neighbor. This is my first solo apartment and I really don't want to create drama. I just want to feel at home in my own place.
Rent is extremely hard to come by where I live so I cannot move. So does anyone have any advice on affordable ways to reduce the noise in my apartment? Or to manage my anxiety when my ceiling rattles?
Thank you for your time.
Hello I seriously need help ,
Before I begin ,yes we talked to them ( 3 times ) but there is no improvement
And I assure you , If you haven't experienced this level of disturbance you cannot relate and will probably write something like " get an earplug "
Is there is a way to reduce the noise , covering the ceiling with some material or some device that can help us with the noise ?
Our neighbour moved in a year ago , they have 2 kids ( 4-6 years old probably)
For the last 8 months there always has been some kind of noise
Kids are always running/stomping non stop every 2 hours , they are moving desks ,dropping chairs and I cannot even comprehend how a small child can cause that much noise
My family is very stressed about this issue, we have been living peacefully for the last 15 years in this apartment and never once we had to talk to a neighbour about a problem like this
Everytime we talked their response was in the lines of " they are kids ,whatever we do we cannot restrain them " ( they were polite most of the time but the problem continued )
And the last time we went up they almost tried to accuse us for not being sympathetic
It is unbearable
Hello NYC,
We recently bought a 2BR apartment because we needed more space for our newborn. The apartment is the first place we buy and it's perfect, if you don't count the noisy neighbors that run a marathon inside their apartment while we are trying to get some sleep everyday. I've tried several things (white noise machine, relocating our bed, sent a letter to the neighbors, etc.) but nothing helped. I literally can hear every single step they take (all 5 of them). During the day it's not a problem but it's very difficult for me to go to sleep while someone is walking on top of your head till 1:40 AM every single day.
I would sell the apartment but we don't have any equity and selling it during the covid-19 pandemic would result in us losing money and we can not afford that at the moment.
I've been looking into soundproofing the ceiling on my apartment but most of the articles I've read say that the best solution would be to insulate my neighbor's floor (but they don't want to that). Has anyone here has insulated/soundproofed their ceiling? did it work? was it worth it? What did you use?
We would really appreciate any ideas/comments that help us in resolving this difficult situation.
C
Not 100% sure on how to answer "what kind of structure". The house is at least 10 years old, because that's when my roommate bought it. I'm afraid I can't give any details about the underlying structure of the ceiling/floor.
I'm renting, and my room is in the basement of a house. The house's living room is directly above my room, so any footsteps from my roommates are easily heard and keep me from sleeping.
They're so low-frequency that brown noise and ear plugs don't do anything.
The ceiling does not creak at all. It seems to me like it's acting as a big loudspeaker, amplifying the sound of the footsteps (my ceiling is, well, a ceiling - large and flat).
Ideas I came up with myself include putting some of this foam stuff on the ceiling, but I'm not even sure if that would do anything. I just know that in videos I've watched of really quiet rooms, the walls have angled foam.