I moved into a building where my neighbor was in his 80's and was very quiet. After two years, he passed away and a young guy (20's) moved in. He refuses to carpet his hardwood floors, which would eleviate much noise. And also he makes phone calls to Russia - in thier time zone, so around 3AM my time. Lastly, there's his sexual activity. Well, he's young. LOL! I spoke to him twice when it got too loud. The third time, I used a broom to my ceiling. It's been quiet since. KNOCK WOOD!

My downstairs neighbor frequently calls and talks to his cat in a very high-pitched falsetto that carries quite clearly into my apartment. I've been too timid to mention anything to him or my landlord because I think he'd be embarrassed if he knew he could be overheard. At least he more or less stopped doing it after midnight on weekdays.

I can hear the neighbor on the other side of my bedroom wall snoring at night, it's truly an ungodly sound. It's not super loud, not enough to wake me up from sleep, but I can definitely hear him when I'm in the room and it's quiet. So I put on a fan every night to create some white noise, and that helps. I'm also hoping once I get some art and such up on the wall it might create more of a muffling effect. (wishful thinking?) We always walk barefoot to avoid being noisy, and our units actually require carpeting through the living & bedrooms to muffle noise.

I've only experienced the extremes: really considerate, quiet neighbors or crazy frat boy neighbors who throw daily parties so loud that the furniture in my apartment rattles.

I live above a bar and when they have live music, it's very loud. I have found that having a loud fan and this app on my ipad: whitenoisepro made the magic combo to put my to sleep! the app is great because then when I'm sleeping somewhere else (like on vacation) if I have my app, I always have the whitenoise that I'm used to!

Part of the reason I'm leaving my current apartment is neighbor-noise-complaint related, but my noisy roommates never bothered me, as I started sleeping with earplugs soon after I had first moved in here, because there is a lot of traffic noise. They've become a nighttime ritual habit type thing- I don't feel right sleeping without them in.

I am moving into a building with 20 units- the largest apartment building, and therefore the most neighbors, I have ever lived in. I'm hoping that the earplugs will be just as effective there. And if they play annoying music during the day, I can way out-annoy them with some Le Tigre or something. :D

Emmyl, we have neighbors across the air shaft in our building who talk to their French Bulldog in the most high-pitched, silly voices. It's not necessarily annoying, but I feel like they'd be mortified if they knew someone could hear them, haha!

My neighbors bang on the ceiling at me.

When things like...my young son trips and falls on the floor. Once it was when he was sleeping on the couch, and he rolled over and fell off. And another time it was when he had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

So yeah. Not so fond of my neighbors.

Generally I'm pretty patient with my upstairs neighbor, who seems to be mostly nocturnal, as they stomp around around 11pm and then of course there's the 3 minutes of loud sex everyday between 11p-12. (Personally, I'd go for quality over quantity, but whatever.)

The one time I couldn't take it anymore was when they were apparently doggy-sitting and I don't know what the dog was doing, but every other minute or so there would be a THUMP and a SCRABBLE SCRABBLE SCRABBLE across the floor. Silence, then repeat. All night long.

After the third day/night of this, I lost my patience, yelled, "AW HELL NO," grabbed my broom and banged on the ceiling as hard as I could. That shut them up.

We're not allowed to have pets in our apartment building anyway. If they continued I would've reported them to the landlord. Hmph.

eta -- generally, though, I listen to audiobooks on my ipod w/ noise-canceling in-ear headphones when I go to bed, so noises at night don't really bug me, unless it's egregious.

We used to live in a townhouse next door to a family (with young kids!) who would play loud (so loud that if we had music or TV on at a reasonable level, we couldn't hear it over theirs) rap music at all hours of the day and night. I talked to them, talked to the landlord, talked to the police, but they kept doing it.

One day, after knocking on their door (they didn't answer) I lost it and pounded on the wall of the room I thought it was coming from. A few minutes later, the woman came over to my house and yelled at me for being rude for pounding! I was so happy to move away a few weeks later.

my last upstairs neighbours used to fight like cats and dogs ... they finally got evicted after numerous tenants had to call the police during a 2am domestic argument. charming!

my apartment building supposedly has a strict "quiet clause" but my landlord is never around to enforce it and the building is quite old and very poorly insulated. everyone can hear everything. i mean, EVERYTHING. my new upstairs neighbours sometimes thump on the floor when i roll over in bed and my bed squeaks ... meanwhile i can hear every sordid detail of their relationship without thumping back. i never really know how to deal with it in a way that doesn't come across as passive-aggressive.

Have always slept with a fan on to muffle any street/roommate/neighbor noise. When that doesn't work, I go speak to the neighbors in the friendliest way possible. When I lived in a loft and the lease holder would go out of town for work, he'd leave his stoner 20-something nephew to dog sit. With him came death metal at 2am and a girlfriend in stilettos who likes to pace A LOT. They all ended up getting evicted some months down the road.

I'm ashamed to confess, I used to be the neighbor hitting snooze for over an hour (or totally sleeping through the alarm). I was always sleep deprived from long hours at work, so I sometimes needed a backup alarm, even. Once someone told me they could hear my alarm every day, not only did I feel terrible about it, but it was a good clue that I needed to get a better grip on my sleeping (and working) habits.

Unfortunately, my boyfriend has used the banging-on-the-wall option before I could use any other method for my neighbors who insist on stomping up the stairs, which happen to be attached to our adjoining wall. My pictures have almost fallen off the wall, and the "counter-attack" only seems to quiet them for about 20 minutes. But, I would much rather take the stomping over the pot smoke seeping into my apartment through the bathroom vents. I am very close to calling the police over the matter, but I'm not sure which of my neighbors it is.

We live in the basement of a house next door to a 24-hour gas station. With my housemates, we're pretty respectful and try to stay quiet at night. But they do occasionally elephant stomp us. I've provided multiple rugs upstairs to dampen noise and have a place for shoes.

With the gas station, the workers and managers love us, but sometimes a little rudeness goes a long way with getting their unruly customers quiet at 3 or 4am (that does happen occasionally), but we've had very few problems for the most part.

Our last apartment had very thin, poorly insulated floors and ceilings. The gentleman who lived upstairs was quiet and respectful, but the family downstairs caused a lot of problems for us. Almost every day over the summer the whole family would invite lots of people over and they'd all hang out on the front porch and listen to loud music. Only their radio was inside the apartment, and they'd crank the bass waaaaaaaay up so it could be heard down the block. It was really unpleasant to live right above them, and I'm a stay-at-home mom with an infant son. And they would only play their music during the day. Not at night, so police would not be able to do anything about it.

One day I approached the lady who lived downstairs and asked kindly if the music, or the bass could be turned down and she called me a racist. She said my baby needed to get used to noise and that we were breaking their light bulbs... what???

After that interaction I felt there was no way to make this living situation any more tolerable. I'd written a formal letter of complaint to the landlord and nothing was done, and the family downstairs continued to be excessively loud. We ended up moving and so far so good with the new neighbors, and we're so much happier now!

Oh lord, I have ten years of hell stories to tell. Renting is horrible. We own now so I can sleep at night. But sociopath dog owners let them bark all the time and crap in our yard. My new policy is to videotape the dog barking for an hour than call the police. Nothing shuts them up faster. This was after I tried begging for 7 years directly to the dog owners. I learned these types if dog owners are infantile jerks. The other best method is revenge. Simple. They wake you up, you wake them up. Solves it real quickly.

Smithratliff, I loved hearing your anecdote since I don't know anyone else afflicted with this particular neighbor quirk! Since my neighbor stopped doing the earnest and loud pet-talking during the wee hours, I find it more silly than annoying. No one believes me until they hear it! The way we act when no one is around....

Ah, I upset some of my neighbours recently when I was using the communal washing machine at like 11pm.. The people in the flat next door to the laundry must find it pretty loud, and go to sleep early, so they left a very eloquent note on the machine saying simply to f*** off. I can completely understand the annoyance, it's not something that you always realise, but at the same time the note could have been more ..pleasant!
I had been working late a lot so washing my clothes at night was kind of the only option, and besides I've heard people using the washing machine at 12 or even later, so I'm not the only guilty one..

Otherwise, I wouldn't have a clue if I'm a noisy neighbour or not. Generally my little apartment block is fairly peaceful though.

I live in a new building that has double-studded walls. I've never once heard a neighbor. Let me tell you, it makes an incredible difference. I love where I live.

I was patient when living with shared walls/ ceiling / floor and got on my noisy upstair neighbor's early morning schedule. But as soon as I did this, my downstairs neighbor became furious with me for being awake early and walking around. She came up and pounded on my door . She screamed, I apologized. After a few weeks of complaining, (Even my taking a shower bugged her ) and my trying to tiptoe around ,she got used to it. You can't win-- All people gotta live ! . Now I live near drummers who have drum-fests. I just try to move to the beat of their drums - it makes them happy, that drumming.

I live in Athens, Greece. My neighborhood is not the quietest but I could handle it, till the day a new neighbor, few meters away, brought a dog, which he almost all day leaves at the balcony. From the first day all you could hear was a large dog barking and crying to get inside the house. I was polite, I was rude, I was angry, i called the police two times in a row and they somehow treated the poor thing in a more human way. But all night the dog was back at the balcony. Barking precisely at 02:30, 04:30 and 07:00 when they woke up. No matter what, they never did anything. Now they have a new one. 3 months ago the street was a mess. A dog barking all afternoon, people shouting at them, police too many times. They put the dog in for a while or a few days and back again. Now it's winter and the dog is still out all afternoon but since the last police call not at night. But the barking is still annoying even if it's less due to less activity that would make it upset. But my nerves can't handle not even a "yap" at this point and can't sell my apartment due to the crisis here. And it's been 3 years now!!!
My point is that be nice once, be nice twice but noisy people are people who don't respect the others. Who think high of themselves. So after the polite period passes, just call the police as often as necessary or do whatever has to be done. Don't be patient. It will blow back to your face. And certainly don't change your way of life with earplugs or whatever because of a noisy neighbor. I used to love dogs, now I can't stand them because of one............. (this is a nice site and I can't swear)

I've been on the other side of this. I have an unfriendly downstairs neighbor who refuses to make eye contact or speak to anyone else in our building. She has complained to my landlady several times about my "loud parties" where it sounds like my guests and I are "moving furniture" and "dropping bowling balls."

My parties are of the cocktails-and-dinner variety, always with fewer than eight guests, so I've always found this pretty bogus.

I've gotten the pounding-on-the-wall thing a couple of times recently, I guess for daring to walk non-silently in my own home after 9pm. I ignore it, because I don't want to be pounded for every minor infraction. (Also, it's like... lady, you're entitled to peace, but if you are antisocial and you hate noise, maybe don't live in a first-floor apartment, in a building full of young couples, in one of the most densely populated cities in the country.)

Wow, where do I begin. I had new neighbors move in and immediately the bass from their surround sound system began thumping through the wall. At first I understood, close quarters sound was to be expected. One day I was napping on the couch and I woke up with a start. My chest was pounding. I thought I was having a heart attack. It was the bass thumping in my chest. I talked to them and they said they had a right to have the sound at any volume they want. Then the dogs arrived; need I say more.

The neighbors did attempt to fix the situation by sound abating the living room common wall. That help, but the kitchen was on the same wall and the sound came in there.
Then last year, with my tax refund, I did the same to the common walls in one bedroom and the laundry room. Their front door is on the other side of the laundry room and the dogs do most of the barking there.

It has helped, that I more than three years of constant “training” (talking, yelling, banging on the walks, contacting the HOA), it is better. We at least acknowledge each other in the courtyard now.

Oh, the sound abating was very expenesOh, the sound abating was very expensive, thousands of dollars. Was it worth it? Yes, with knowledge that both of us have tried to fix the situation I am more accepting when I do occasionally hear them.

Netslaveone, I am so sorry you have that problem. We do too and it is infuriating. We should start an anti bad dog owner club!

hmmmmmmm, notes; a sure way to piss off your neighbours and prompt passive aggressive retaliation. i say deal with the problem face to face!

it occurred to me this morning that it was the first morning in months that my upstairs neighbor has not forced me awake btw 5 and 6am dragging furniture around his place. for some reason he was fairly quiet, which is amazing because i've been on the verge of full-blown meltdown for weeks now. sunday was the worst. he woke up at 5:15. started dragging a chair across the wooden floor (as usual), ran the appliance that makes his breakfast (blender? coffee grinder?), ran a carpet sweeper (not a vacuum) over what must be a tiny rug. about 7:45 he turned on his opera music. the rest of the morning he must have spent at a desk b/c his chair legs scraped back across the floor intermittently. i went to mcd's for breakfast as an alternative to going up to start a vicious confrontation.

last time i mentioned this on this site, someone called me a pill. geltab, capsule, chewable, whatever. my position is the same.

it isn't his fault that the noise travels so loudly into my apartment, but neither is he considerate. you can't decide to turn up your music at 7am on a weekend and not know it is disturbing to other tenants. you can't drop freeweights on your bare floor and not know it is disruptive to the person downstairs. you may not realize that when your feet touch the floor the downstairs tenant wakes from a dead sleep. i get that. i do.

but my lease says that 80% of my floor has to be covered by rugs. and obviously 80% of his floor is not. over the years, i have become quite accustomed to the noises of his daily routine. but this daily movement of furniture has gone from (apparently) closing up a daybed to so much more. i'm thinking of having the super come in and listen so i have a witness to how loud it is. my friend thought it was thunder. thunder.

in my considered opinion, anyone who is getting the broomstick treatment should try to put themselves in the other guys shoes. literally. maybe your toddler fell off a couch, but how's the neighbor going to know what that was? you obviously don't know how much the sound was amplified on it's way into her home? why not try to find out what the other guy is talking about? talk to them about a simple test. you turn up your tv to your usual level and go over to their house and see how loud it is on their side.

i'm sure if we could see the other side's point of view, a lot more consideration would be happening on both sides. as it happens, i am overly considerate and do not complain to my upstairs neighbor. except about the weightlifting. but it was 3.5 years of that before i took up my broomstick. and he was huffy and bitchy to me for quite a while before he finally cut it out. if he could hear it from my side, he'd be more thoughtful. i like to think.

@ TWISTEDDREAMR

We are having the same issues in my apartment! We already filed a letter of complaint to the management company to put a notice saying we are aware someone in the building is smoking pot and that it needs to stop. We have had to open our windows just to get fresh air when the pot steam rolls into our apt through openings/vents and mind you, it is cold these days!

Our next option is to call the police, but don't know how much that would do since they need a warrant to even get into the apt we suspect it to be coming from. Keep me posted with what you end up doing at your place to address the situation.

We have every right to breathe in clean air in an apt we pay for every month! Good Luck!

I lived in the apartment from hell one year in grad school - and I tried all of the recommended things without success. I had this girl living above me who was a part-time DJ and would frequently "practice." Finally one afternoon when I had just gotten everything out to study, she started up again, making my apartment literally sound like a nightclub with pounding base trance music, and I had had it. I took a deep breath, went upstairs to knock on her door (really bang for several minutes until there was a lull in the music when she could hear me), and said calmly and very politely that she might not realize how the noise was traveling, offered to have her come down to my apartment to hear for herself, and asked her to please keep it down, etc., etc. She was very nice, said sorry, sure, no problem, and the music stopped.

Great, I thought. Wasn't that easy. Until...the next day I found a letter in my mail box from her. Which basically said that I'd taken her by surprise, and that now that she'd had more time to think about it she realized that she had every right to play music as loud as she wanted in her own apartment, and that I was a total uptight b**** for even asking her to turn it down. So the music continued, louder than ever, and every time I ran into her after that she would roll her eyes, glare at me, and flounce off.

This was coupled with guys two floors up who would play music so loud in the middle of the night that it would wake me up - even though I was already wearing earplugs. It was loud enough to vibrate things off the wall two floors down. I talked to them too, they did not care, and a couple other tenants and I complained to the landlord, who did nothing. I absolutely dreaded coming home to that apartment every night.

The broom method is the best. We tried to be nice to our loud tv neighbors, but they will not come to the door and talk (instead they talk to each other that the guy has to quiet down--probably not aware we hear every single word). So, the 2nd time we banged the door, third time use the broom. Seems to help.
When we ever to have kids; that's when it's payback time and I get the broom treatment...I know, LOL! Well, that's how I learned about it, when I was a kid and neighbor downstairs had to use it daily to shut us up....

i don't call my upstairs neighbour Stompy McStomperson because she's quiet.

she wears shoes in her apartment, clomping on the squeaky hardwood floors. she moves furniture around almost daily. she got a squeaky mini-trampoline/rebounder and it sits right above my television. (not noise related, but i'm on a roll: she gardens on her balcony and the slotted floor allows all her floral debris to litter mine.)

i'm just glad that my apartment is above the laundry room. phew.

All houses are very close together in my neighborhood, and sound really carries! I don't really mind as I like the usual neighborhood sounds, but my next-door neighbor has a girlfriend that is a SCREAMER. and they do it several times a day.

I haven't said anything because I don't want to spoil their fun. When my husband and I hear it, we just turn the TV up and laugh it off.

I live in a four unit house with two apartments on the second floor (one being mine, a large studio) and two studio units downstairs. The neighbors across the hall from my apartment have a main floor and two bedrooms upstairs with one of the bedrooms being over top of my living room/bedroom and they use it as a family room. They have a surround sound and he plays a computer game which entails driving noise and shooting. It was so loud one night that I knocked on their door and he was kind enough to give me his cell number to text or call when it was too loud. In one year's time, I have had to text him 17 times (saving all the texts of course) most of the time he would turn down, sometimes he would ignore me. They also run up and down their steps sounding like friggin buffalo and my furniture shakes. The last straw was when they turned their sound system up so loud that one of my pictures fell off the wall and broke. My landlord said he has spoken to them, it helped for a little while. So now when their music is bass thumping obnoxiously loud or the car game with shooting sound is too loud, I take my fits and pound on the wall to the beat of the music, they would turn it down to listen and I would stop, then they would turn it back up, so I continue to beat the wall to the music. I think It totally has confused them ha ha. It has since stopped and they are eerily quiet. YAY! My next step if it continues will be to call the police.

My former neighbor -- well, she was vocal. In bed. With her boyfriend. You get the picture. She was vocal, usually, between 11:30 pm and 12:00 am, every other night (they were a young attractive couple). And not just at the end, but all throughout. It was very predictable really... With some embarrassment, one evening, I offered my new boyfriend a running play-by-play. He started mimicking her and wouldn't stop until I stuffed a pillow in his face. The last draw -- a Saturday afternoon, in my kitchen, cooking -- she started again. Believe me it was not a suitable soundtrack for baking cupcakes. Enough I said to myself and turned my radio up -- she stopped, but only for a minute. I came to the conclusion that it was part of her repertoire. They recently moved out. Another young attractive couple moved in. Thankfully, they are discreet or perhaps celibate.

Signed 'Finally sleeping in Ottawa'.

I have neighbors who insisted on throwing backyard parties that started at 11 pm (on a weeknight) and ended at 2, usually puncutated by screaming laughter and some kind of beer pong games. So after several tries at screaming at them to shut up (to no avail) I figured out which apartment had garden access, then rang the bell at 9 am the next morning. I told the groggy 20something guy who answered that, since I would already be up to go to work, every time he kept me up at night I would lean on his buzzer the next morning. Oh, and I called the building's landlord, whom I found through propertyshark.com. Solved that problem real quick.

We were actually praised by our downstairs neighbour as being quiet - mind you, he was a slightly deaf singing teacher with a constant stream of students, two pianos, and organ, a booming voice, an inability to close rather than slam doors, and a laugh that could wake you up...

We mostly put up with it, as he didnt really know, and some of the music was nice - it was the smells that got to us: burnt garlic every weekend & the night he roasted 10 chickens in a row.

Oh God, Loud Sex People. The girl above me is fully audible in the lobby downstairs and the parking lot outside. (Our building is an old mansion with eight units.) When confronted, she proclaimed that she had the right to have sex in her apartment! Okay, I thought, therefore I have the right to listen to music in my apartment. My favorite genre is Scandinavian metal.

A few sessions of songs like this and she got the picture.

I love hearing people's comments here, makes me realize I am not alone. As for talking to people, when I rented I always introduced myself the first day and was generous to neighbors. But people who make noise are SO often narcissistic. I gave several renters near me chance after chance, basically apologized for bothering them and begged them to just limit the noise to 1 am so I could get 6 hours of sleep. Nope. Some lied and said they would, others told me to move. BROOMSTICK. Thumping noises are terrible because tenants deny they make any noise but it can scare you to death at all hours and is really annoying when you're trying to work or study. Advice to people who want quiet: MOVE TO A SECOND AND/OR TOP FLOOR APARTMENT. It is so much quieter.

I try not to be the bad neighbor, but I did purposely get a top floor apartment so that I didn't have to worry about noise overhead. However, I also know that since my hours don't match up with other peoples' (I work 2nd shift), I try to be courteous and don't do things like run the vaccuum at night (I'll do laundry and dishes though I try to run the dishwasher earlier in the day). I haven't had anybody pound any walls but I also don't know how much travels.

@ 'Finally sleeping in Ottawa'.

That story sounds like the start to a good Penthouse Forum submission...

Neighbor from hell moved in downstairs when we rented in a double. I had a baby, she had a 9 yr. old son. His bedroom was under my baby's room. He would bounce a basketball off his wall from his bed like a bazillion times in a row, early, late, forever.
She cooked. Nauseating, smelly, greasy noxious things. Left them frying and pass out from her drinking. The smoke alarm wouldn't faze her but the fier department busting down the door did.
Then she met a guy. A loud abusive 24 hour a day weed-smokin' guy. A throw furniture, slam doors, scream, squeal the tires out of the driveway and break off the hose faucet guy.
They got a dog. He was allowed to poo in the shared foyer because they were too lazy to take him out.
Yes we called the landlord, the fire department, the police...
Then we moved.

Tip #8... call the police...

After almost 12 years of apartment renting, I have finally experienced horribly noisy neighbors. They keep their bed pushed against our connecting wall and decide to have really loud sex at 3 am every couple of weeks. And I mean really loud sex to the point that it sounds like they are in my bed. Besides the sex, they have a baby in the same room that cries for hours constantly and if the baby isn't crying they are fighting and screaming at each other (I almost called the cops one time because it was getting way too out of hand). They do all this in the middle of the night, too.

On Thanksgiving my next door neighbor had a loud party from midnight to about 4am. My son was just getting over a sever lung infection so I made the decision to go out there and ask them to quiet down. One of his very drunk guests yelled down at me that I "should have thought about it before making the decision to have kids". Yes, because the main factor in my husband and my decision to have children was loud, drunk idiots next door. A few weeks later he pulled the same thing again, a loud party with screaming girls at 4am. After once again going down there 3 times to ask for some quiet I gave up. The next day I reported him to our leasing office. Thank god he's moving. Now we just have to deal with the family who stomps around upstairs, has loud sex and recently flooded our apartment. Got to love apartment living.

Not that I wish neighbor annoyances on anyone, but it's SO nice to know I'm not alone with them.

The neighbors below me moved in and, several weeks later, started having the kind of sex that lasted almost an hour and rattled my windows and shook my walls (whaaat)...at 3 a.m., then 5 a.m. Multiple times a week. Mortifying.
I eventually took it to my landlord who, without mentioning which, told them a neighbor had heard "loud noises" in the middle of the night. It has since quieted, but I now have to sleep with ear plugs every night just to be on the safe side. Woof.

Yeah, I've been there - on both sides. But I actually tend to think that unless someone is doing something really egregious or that can be easily fixed, we're really obligated just to deal, and maybe get a pair of earplugs. One of the realities of apartment-dwelling is that people living life (walking around, showering, waking up early, having sex) makes noise; it's just a reality that we have to adjust to.

we are on the first floor but are lucky enough to have 9.5 ft high ceilings... occasionally i hear some footsteps but rarely. the one downside is that anyone in the laundry/basement storage area can hear EVERYTHING in our kitchen. literally. i was doing laundry one day and heard my cat start meowing above my head, clear as day, as if she was right next to me.

one nosy neighbor in the building (it's really just a big victorian house, so frankly, i know who it is.) was kind enough to leave a pamphlet about embracing jesus under my kitchen door (opens to the back hall which goes to the trash and laundry) when the night before i'd had a conversation with my boyfriend about, basically, birth control. so the whole thing is a bit too close for comfort.

PS. to my previous comment. my current situation is MUCH better than my last, with the multiple families sharing an apartment above my head and kids that shook the walls to the point that things fell off. they also flooded my apartment by breaking both their shower and their toilet. good times! oh, rentals.

Brian Eno's "Ambient 4 On Land" It's an album of basically one peice of continuous near-sound effect-like, new age music. If you listen to it on headphones or at a reasonable volume on a stereo it can somehow manage to drown out almost any background noise including thumping music beats. Kind of like a loud indoor fountain. Saved my sanity for many years.

Also, -don't torment yourself or be stubborn any longer than you absolutely have to. Just move already.
Especially don't listen to your bf who tells you that you need to be more tolerant because he sleeps like a log regardless of the mental guy who screams obscenities in the middle of the night right outside the building,...and well, you don't. It won't get better. Do what's right for you and get out those rental ads tonight, or you may be nursing a long term case of post traumatic stress disorder long after the relationship has ended, yow.

Wow. All these comments reminds me how common the experience of noisy neighbors is in this city. We've all experienced it, and it can be pretty frustrating, both for those being annoyed by the sounds of others, and for those being accused! Might I suggest that if the situation becomes difficult one way to resolve it might be to seek mediation to help you find a compromise/solution. I know an organization that could help. Check out http://nypeace.org/. These guys are really good at resolving exactly these kinds of disputes. Contact them to arrange a mediation or just for advice. It's a free service, and trust me, it works!

I never wear shoes in my apartment, but every floor board in my bedroom creaks no matter where I step, regardless of rugs and pads. I'm sure it must drive the downstairs people bonkers, since I work from home, often until 2 or 3 a.m., which mean I end up creaking on the floors when I have to go to bed. But then again, they often have very loud sex at 3, 4 and 5 a.m....so I figure it all equals out in the end. (Although I have been tempted to leave a note...more so because I can't help but think the woman's theatrics mean she's faking, and I'd love to tweak them about it.)

My husband and I seem to always end up next to retired people who stay up really late, and who's living room walls always seem to be shared with our bedroom. In our last building, our elderly neighbor used to fall asleep with his tv BLARING and I'd wake up at 3 or 4 am being able to hear word for word, the insanely LOUD magic bullet infomercials that seem to never end. Knocking on his door didn't wake him up, pounding on the wall didnt do it either, notes went ignored and we ended up moving, and I became a solid investor of those neon orange construction grade earplugs. At least now we are above a store and have nobody above us! But man these stories strike home! :)

We live next door to either a community service house or government owned house.

When we moved in the woman was a single mother who was quiet, then we discovered everytime she got a boyfriend there would be all night screaming matches starting from midnight until 7am, and when she has a partner and they are getting along, they have people show up to smoke and talk outside their house all night long (because who needs to sleep at night when you don't have a job?).

Somewhere along the line the children seem to of been taken away from her which has made her worse, because now she doesn't have to worry about waking the kids up.

They also were left with a friends adult untrained dog at one point that they totally ignored and would constantly bark. I ended up setting the trigger hose up on the fence so any time it barked I'd run out and hose it down while yelling shut up. While you can't train awful neighbours, I trained their awful dog to shut up when I told it to.

After the awful experiences I've had with neighbours, I can't wait to buy a house on a big block and surround it with high fences and hedges so I don't ever need to interact with my neighbours.

I work as a property consultant in France and always advise people to check out the area, the building (for sound insulation) as well as the property itself before buying or renting - preferably at different times of day or night. Among the problems here are bar customers spilling out onto the street due to new non-smoking regulations.

Within most co-ownership buildings (condominiums) there are strict rules about noise (especially after 10.00pm), DIY at weekends, dogs, smells etc. In my block we took legal action against restaurants on the ground floor, forcing them to install proper ventilation and extraction systems, with grease traps, after cooking smells got into our domestic ventilation ducts.

There are criminal and civil penalties for disturbance, particularly at night, and the police do come when called and will not hesitate to arrest offenders. Condo rules also forbid wearing stiletto heels on hard floors, dragging furniture across floors etc.

Finally, if you have the choice, a top floor is generally preferable as noise from below is generally less intrusive and easier to control. And my advice is to do something and not suffer.

I read a story online about someone having a problem with noisy apartment sex neighbors -- he renamed his wireless router "We hear you having sex" and within a week they quieted down.

I had a problem with a barking dog, and researched remote anti-bark technologies. There are devices that can be hooked up outside up to 50' from the dog that emit a high-pitched tone (people can't hear) that distracts/interrupts the dog when it barks. I arrived at a different solution so I don't know if it really works, however.

It's funny, but neighbor problems are what led me to AT 5 years ago. My first was a chain smoker who thought I was making up that her smoke filled my place. Then, Mr Loudy, who I dealt with for 3 or 4 years. I started with a note, and we did talk (he wouldn't answer the door if I went down...his response the one day was "oh sorry, I was completely naked." TMI. ) he was always very nice, even if I got a little testy. But would always be just as loud after a day or so. One time, my friends were over and he had Alanis Morrisette on...and they started singing. He turned it down then! He was just all over loud...tv, sex, music, and just general banging. This is all compounded by the poor building construction...I try to be sympathetic until its ridiculous. He eventually gave me his email and phone number, which gave me another outlet. my next neighbor has her moments. And I'm pretty sure she is genuinely crazy (she told another neighbor that there were men in masks sitting outside our building.) Something to keep in mind...most times, neighbors are rational human beings, but sometimes they are axe murderers...so tread lightly and use your better judgement!

I lived in a stylish new building with a good floor plan and plenty of space... but thin walls. When moving in I heard muffled conversations between two neighbors in their bedroom. One night they were playing music around 11:30 p.m. and I gently knocked saying, "Is that your music I can hear? You're typically good neighbors so I'm not sure but if so can you bump it down a little." They were kind, turned it down/off... and I never a problem since. Street noise was highly audible (with windows closed) so I decided not to pick on every little thing. But these good neighbors got engaged and moved.

The family who moved in made me move out. A little girl, 3 or 4 yo, would scream bloody murder for an hour and then kick, bang, and beat on the the walls every single morning around 6 a.m. She would should, "Don't close the door. Daddy open the door. Nooooo daddy." I thought she was being abused for a while and notified my management that I would be calling the police (thought she was being beat locked in a closet).

The family had a smaller toddler who wailed occasionally, and dad would wail back and sing nursery rhymes loudly to the kids who would tap the walls in harmony. All this constant noise scared my 10-year old nephew who vowed to never spend the night again because it sounded like a "murderer next door."

And wasn't just in the apartment! Every morning after screaming for an hour inside the apartment the daughter would scream in the hallways as they took the elevator. I had surgery, couldn't sleep -- even on Oxy. I had filed complaints, called the appropriate people, and finally knocked on the door. Dad said he was having daughter evaluated and he was "miserable too". Really?

BUT IN TWO MONTHS A NEW BABY CAME... plus the mother-in-law (this is only a 2-BR unit). The new infant cried during random times, as infants do, but was profoundly quieter than anyone else in the apartment.

Needless to say, I moved... to the other side of the country. I loved the sound of children playing and living life before they moved in but afterwards, sound of children's voices gave me chills for a while. It was like water torture.

I just thought about this but maybe a way to approach a noisy neighbor is to ask them if YOU are being noisy and if they can hear YOU. Maybe this is an easy way to bring up the conversation of noise in general, mind you I've never tried this. Who knows, maybe they will ask you the same back. If it seems random to do that I guess you could set-up a scenario by playing your music a bit loud and then going over to ask them so it doesn't seem out of the blue or passive aggressive.

This is the only way I can think of doing this without coming off as obnoxious. In my mind, no matter how noisy the person is being if you go over and tell them to be quiet they are going to think you are an annoying stick in the mud.

We own a terraced house in northern England, where the walls are very thin. We've never had a problem with noise though until our old man neighbour moved out and in his place came a young couple with a toddler who are renting. They're SO loud - they run the hoover at midnight, play their music loudly enough that my own mother can identify the songs when we're on the phone at my place, etc. So, when I finally broke down and left a note, I made sure to mention that we love music, kids and dogs, too, and that while we completely expect that a certain amount of life noise will always filter through no matter what, we'd appreciate it if they'd keep the time and volume in mind. They've been a little better since but I am still counting the months until their contract is up, hoping they leave when it does.

To a degree, when you live in an apartment, you just have to suck it up with the noise. My current place has thin walls, so I do hear my neighbors common noises, but thankfully, they're usually respectful.

One thing that seems to have helped, if possible, is to pick a place with people who don't have kids and are older (presumably more mature). It also seems that in places that are more expensive, people tend to be more respectful to the property and each other. Where I live now, there's not many kids and mostly elderly people. It's great.. except for the thin walls.

I sleep with a fan on to drown out any typical noises and the garbage company that likes to empty the dumpsters at 3-4 AM. WTH.

I lived in a tenement building with beautiful terrazzo and hard wood floors. The apartment was absolutely gorgeous--1500 sq feet with a sun porch, fireplace, dining room, 3 bedrooms, original *everything* in an old but kinda bad neighborhood. So gorgeous that I fell in love with it immediately! I still wax nostalgic after so many years! But wow, did sound carry on those terrazzo floors.

Eventually our neighbors below us accused us of having a parrot (which we could never figure out). We did, however, have a dog and 2 cats. Maybe a cat howled when we were gone? I'm afraid we were the obnoxious neighbors (although not intentionally at all!).

Now I live in a detached home with no neighbors to speak of and can't imagine anything else. ..except maybe cohousing...

My new neighbor (a "decorating blogger" according to another neighbor of mine) is too weird to fully explain here. Her weirdness does extend to her noise though. She only plays 4 to 5 songs a month - meaning, one song will be played with the repeat button taped down for an hour or so, a few times a day (is that an OCD thing?), and she will play it at a ridiculous volume on top of that.

She doesn’t answer the door when I knock on it, but she has enough sense to know why I'm knocking and turns the music down. She also doesn't speak in elevators or hallways (which is, again, part of her weirdness) but that's ok with me as long as she keeps the corny music down (no offence to Wham!'s "Last Christmas", but any song that gets played 12 times in a row gets permanently slapped with the corny label in my book...oh, Wham!)

My heart goes out to all of you. I suffered noisy neighbors, jumping kids and barking dogs years ago. I am now happy to report I live in a completely detached house in almost a quarter of an acre in downtown Frisco, Texas. Very, very quiet. Can't really tolerate noise of any kind. Good luck, everyone..

I am having trouble with a noisy neighbor right now. His living room is right beside my bedroom which makes it impossible for my boyfriend and I to get to sleep(this can go on until 5 or 6 in the morning). We've talked to him before asking him to politely keep his volume down but this guy is very stubborn. He even told us one time that he upgraded his sound system. We've tried the superintendent route and they've written him down at least five times. Recently, the bylaw officers have also been involved. He hasn't shown any signs of stopping. I'm determined to stand my ground and get him evicted eventually.

I can't believe this guy is a grown 40 year old man and yet i'm 22 and much more mature than him.. what a shame

My building is not a quiet one, but usually people have been considerate. I've lived here for over 20 years and now, my most recent neighbor next to me (we share a wall) is the loudest most inconsiderate neighbor I've ever had. She is one of those annoyingly loud talkers, always shouting in her whiny, nasal, upper-east-side-spoiled-bitch voice. The problem is she doesn't know how to speak in a normal tone of voice, and she's often talking on her phone with her caller on speaker. So I hear the whole convo. I know her website URL, her phone number, and how much money she makes because of her loud voice. And yes, she's always on her cell phone in the hallway when she's coming in and out too. AND she never shuts her door properly - always lets it slam behind her - and leaves her shoes, umbrellas, and shopping bags outside her door, which is directly across from mine (about three feet away from my door) and leaves me no room. I am always tripping over her crap!

I am not going to move, but I can't take it anymore.

By virtue of luck I have always lived on the top floor of the building. However, this is my first apartment, and after reading this I decided I should be more proactive and slid a note under my downstairs neighbor's door with my number asking her to text me if it's late and I get noisy. I do live here, but I spend more time away at work than I do at home so it shouldn't be a big deal. Also, the building is new and from what I understand has 14" of concrete between floors.

My husband and I live in a large apartment building and we complain about having to live on the top floor. I now see it is a blessing. We share only one wall and our neighbours are normal I guess. We only heard them having loud sex once ( I thought it was coming from the street and was ready to call the police!!) My husband has a drum set in the living room but he hasn't played it in the 7 months we have lived here so as not to disturb anyone.

BUT, somewhere on our street is a bird, we believe it to be a speaker, on a building, that is so loud, and goes off every 40-60 seconds. Any ideas as to what it is and/or how to stop it? It's more annoying than any neighbour I have ever had!!

I am so glad I am not the only one with this problem! I have been living in my Garden Apartment for 2 years. My former upstairs neighbor and I cohabited with ease. We had similar taste in music so when he would blast it I generally enjoyed it, if it got on my nerves I would just shoot him a text. Every once in a while he would drum on Fridays after work and I didn’t mind one bit. I was even able to tune out when he and his girlfriend were making their own music. But in the 2 years he lived there I never, never, never heard him walking in his apartment. Cut to my new upstairs neighbor who walks so loudly I don’t just hear him, I feel him. It shakes my walls and vibrates my furniture and gives me a raging headache. He stomps so fiercely that even the people ABOVE him mentioned it to me and he’s not even wearing shoes! The worst is on the weekends when he gets up early and is home all day. He usually makes phone calls while pacing back and forth, back and forth. I have hit my ceiling out of anger/frustration when woken on weekend mornings, but not in a way that sends a message. I finally couldn’t take it anymore and began revenge with 30 min to an hour of my workout music at block party volume. It was clearly purposeful and inconsiderate and timed in conjunction with this phone calls. He finally got the point and he has begun to walk like a human being. Sanity has been restored.

Right now my roommate and I are having trouble with our next-door neighbors banging on our wall loudly if we even make the slightest amount of noise. We don't throw loud parties or play loud music, but we do get up early to go out walking. The neighbor bangs if we even whisper past 9PM. After several reports on him to the landlord, who just says she will talk to him, with no result, we decided to just be as quiet as possible and ignore any bangs. Earlier this evening, about 6:30PM, my roommate was exercising and the downstairs neighbor banged. We're feeling like we're trapped and we're not allowed to do anything in our own place that we pay rent for just like these two jokers do. We can't afford to move, so we're stuck with these crappy neighbors who talk loudly about us outside our door.

I lived in a 24 unit apartment building, wooden construction, circa 1930's where every unit was a studio. Well, one night at 3 a.m. I was woken up by a woman moaning, really ,really loudly. I figured, put in the ear plugs, no problem. Well I could still hear her, yuck. This continued every single night at 3 am for about two weeks. I had no idea which of my neighbors it was, because it could have been the renter or the renter's guest. Finally the building manager sent a little note about being quiet to the everyone in the building and it stopped.

One method you might want to reserve for the REALLY annoying noisy neighbors is the VACUUM ON THE CEILING technique. We had "sisters" living above us in what had been a very QUIET two family old house--so quiet in fact that we didn't KNOW there was some one living up there and the first time we HEARD him I called the cops thinking we had a burgler!

These girls were SOOOOO loud you could hear nothing in our area. . Landlord pretended to speak no English and so one night a friend who was visiting grabbed my old heavy LOUD Hoover and used it to vacuum across the LR ceiling. They were so laoud after that that they caused the glass dome of a ceiling fixture to fall. We moved shortly thereafter and left---with landlords permission--a few pieces of furniture for our families to pick up and store for us. These were on an enclosed porch out side our apt. When they went to pick them up a day later the "sisters" were dragging them up the very steep stairs and claimed that they were THEIR pieces. Never tell a COP who actually BUILT that furniture that these were NOT his son's items!

I would have paid money to see the looks on their faces!

Now we live waaaaayyyy out in the country---and I do mean COW COUNTRY---and we STILL have noisy neighbors even a full acre+ space away. For some reason we can hear EVERYTHING from their house and yard. On the other side we had a working dairy farm and now a nice horse farm and can hear NOTHING. Weird!

My upstairs neighbor puts a handful of marbles on their slightly un-level counter before he goes to bed. Slowly throughout the night each one rolls off the counter and drops onto the concrete floor above where I sleep.

What else could that noise be?

My fiance and I are currently dealing with a ridiculously noisy neighbor as well. (I can hear him stomping and crashing and banging as I type this.) We've tried politely asking them to be quieter at 1am and they were very contrite, but nothing changed. At night it's as though the bars empty into their apartment, and during the day we hear crashing and banging and loud music. When we aren't treated to one of those irritations, we get to listen to them (We think that the man is the one who pays rent, but his on-again-off-again redneck girlfriend spends most of her time there too) either having sex or breaking up. It has literally shaken our walls before! Every other apartment has also complained to the landlords about them and we are at our wits end. I don't understand why they aren't evicted already. It wouldn't be hard to find another tenant given the desirable location of our building.

Why is it that those who are bothered by rude people have to be polite and urbane when bringing up noise-related issues? Why can't we be just as bad-mannered as our neighbors? Yes, you guessed right, I am tired of the noise coming from above. We have a kid who runs, stomps, bangs and scream for hours every night. I have asked the parents to take him to the upper floor (their apartment is on two floors, I live on the first, they have the 2nd and 3rd floor) but for some reason they never do it. The argument "kids will be kids" works for me only up to a certain point, until it becomes "noise is noise no matter who produces it". So I beg all those parents out there, have some respect for those of us who have to listen to the constant and continuos noise from your children!

My favorite neighbors ever was a LARGE family next door. I expect that there were actually way more people living in the apartment than were on the lease. As a result, they were the quietist neighbors I ever had. Never heard a peep out of them at any time of day. They did occasionally cook things that were pungent, but it was rare, and I worked second shift at the time, so I didn't have to deal with it.

Too bad at my next, much nicer and more expensive apartment I had a neighbor who was very loud during certain activities, and we shared a bedroom wall. I left them a note after the third time they woke me up and it stopped thank goodness.

Dealing with our noisy upstairs neighbors has been a huge issue. We moved to a new building in a nice neighborhood on March 1st and have been living in hell ever since because of the family upstairs. I’m born and raised in NYC (Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens) and have lived in apartments most of my life and have never dealt with people quite like this.

I am posting the letter I wrote to the management company, and for the sake of anonymity I am replacing the real family name with “A-hole family.” To keep this in context, this letter was written after my wife and I had a polite face-to-face conversation with the A-hole’s. It worked briefly but soon became worse than ever, and I wrote this to management…

---For about a week after our face-to-face talk on March 28th, the A-hole family upstairs had kept the noise at a mostly “reasonable” level. As I mentioned in my previous e-mail to you, the A-hole’s were polite, but they did attempt to blame the bedroom noise on “their” neighbor’s hallway (which is impossible since the noise is coming from directly above us). Sadly, again, the noise has become quite loud and unbearable.

For the past two weeks, we’ve “grinned and beared” the noise level that varied nightly from moderate to loud. But having not slept Tuesday night due to loud noises, last night was the final straw. After dozing off in the master bedroom about 10pm (I get up for work at 5:45), I was awoken by heavy footsteps around 10:30. I fell back to sleep and was awoken again by loud footsteps at around 11. I fell back to sleep and was awoken yet again by loud footsteps at 11:30. So, I banged on the ceiling to get them to stop.

The noise stopped, but moments later Mr. A-hole rang my doorbell, and when I opened he repeatedly lunged at me but Mrs. A-hole kept pulling him back insisting that they are not making the noise, and that it is noise from their neighbor’s hallway. I told them that given that our apartments are identical and that the heavy footsteps are going from the master bedroom to the bathroom/dining room/kitchen, that it had to be them. Mr. A-hole asked, “so I can’t go for a drink of water?” To which I asked if they had a carpet or area rug in the master bedroom. At this, Mrs. A-Hole got upset and said that we were imagining the noise and just wanted to be troublemakers. After a circular argument of finger-pointing for roughly 5 to 10 minutes, I said goodnight, and closed my door.

I was clear with the A-hole’s and to be clear here, we have not, and would never, complain about the loud “kid” noise until 10pm in any part of the apartment. We understand that having a large family isn’t easy. Our complaint focuses on the loud banging and heavy walking in the master bedroom after 10pm. As I explained in my previous e-mail, the noise is so loud and pervasive that my I-pod with earphones (at a high volume) is not enough to drown out the heavy footsteps and banging.

For your information, during a conversation with our neighbors a couple of weeks back, we were informed that the previous residents this apartment moved out (and apparently broke their lease) specifically because of the noise from the A-Hole’s upstairs. We do not want to follow suit as we’ve already painted, renovated and really love the apartment. Additionally, my wife and I paid $700 for wall-to-wall carpeting in our kid’s room and have area rugs elsewhere to be in compliance with our lease. And, in a further attempt to share in “quiet enjoyment” and “warranties of habitability,” I am going to Modell’s today to buy earplugs.

Bottom line, there is no way the A-hole’s have carpeting. Having been on a co-op board for nearly 10 years and having dealt with situations like this on behalf of others, I can say with confidence that “muffled” footsteps would be a welcome relief and sound completely different than those from an apartment without carpeting (even a simple area rug).

Since I have tried unsuccessfully to address this, I am respectfully asking the management company to speak to the A-hole’s, and please ask them to carpet the master bedroom in accordance with their lease. Any help would be greatly appreciated.---
The management company contacted me at my office an hour after I sent e-mail this. The person I spoke to said she would contact the A-hole’s and verify that the apartment was appropriately carpeted. Looks like something happened because the noise (while still pretty bad) is less than it was before.

So now (a month later) when the A-hole’s cross the line, and yes, they still do, I simply call 311 to file a report it as it happens. Does 311 really work? Who knows! Some of the retaliation ideas posed here are pretty good, but we don’t want to retaliate because it sets a horrible example for our kid, and theirs. That vacuum on the ceiling idea posted by JERSEYGURL is pretty cool and if I were single I would do it in a heartbeat!

While I believe the heavy footsteps of Mr. A-hole, and the constant furniture rearrangement and banging are things they simply don’t perceive as problematic, this might be the best we can hope for. On the bright side, the management company told me that the A-hole’s are looking to buy a house. Good luck to them!

And good luck to all of you having to deal with your own A-hole’s upstairs. You have my sympathy and understanding.

I was hoping for some suggestions...I have an upstairs neighbor & her 19 year old daughter who I've been having on-going issues with since August of last year. Their kitchen is above my son's room and they decide to constantly slam cupboards, stomp and what sounded like moving furniture well after 10 pm. I tried talking to them, talking to my landlord, the condo association and even the police..I even put up a sign in my son's window begging her to stop waking me and my young son since she would act like I wasn't there when trying to talk to her. All this effort was for nothing and she made it clear that she thought she could do what she wanted...even tried to convince me that the I was wrong about the noise I was hearing and my son was just confused as to what the noise was...I'm beyond frustrated and am looking for any suggestions that would be helpful. Thank you! :)

My gf, daughter and I live in a three story apartment complex. When we first viewed the apt. the landlady said that a quite little lady lived above, which was true. For the first 3 or 4 months everything was fine, ideal even, until her grandson moved in. Since then it's been nothing but stomp stomp stomp, him and his friends are slowly taking over his Grandmothers apt and the worst part is he just got an annoying little dog that barks and barks the whole time when its left alone. I noticed he had also taken to slamming the stairwell door into mine (the result of a bafoonheaded design) so one day I asked him very calmly to be mindful that my door is right behind the stairwell door and that I have a young child and pregnant partner to care for, his response: "It wasn't me man, but yeah ok, but it wasn't me.", liar couldn't even look at me when he was talking. A-type typical liar. This kid got kicked out of school, has no job and even his own parents kicked him out ( I know b/c when he first moved in he was locked out and I spoke to him for a bit, even gave him a smoke and offered him water while he waited for his Granny to return). I haven't spoke to him or his grandmother about the inside noise yet but I'm going to soon, any advice on how to keep my cool and stay level headed?
-A concerned parent, soon to be University graduate and frustrated neighbour

I live in an old Brooklyn studio apartment on the top floor. I thought I was winning the lottery being on top since I had so many horrible partiers living above me in the past. Rent is not cheap in this building for newer tenants because the neighborhood is considered "up and coming" by real estate folks.

A few times a week my current neighbors play mariachi music at full volume at totally random times of morning/day. It's loud enough to wake me up (I work part-time at completely random hours, and often work late at night on my own music...with HEADPHONES, so I don't bother anyone). I can usually feel the bass from their music in my apartment, and if I happen to be listening to my own music or watching tv when they do it...well that's over, because it's drowned out. I've tried talking to them nicely (they pretended not to speak English the first time), I've tried talking to them pleadingly, I've tried having the super talk to them and calling the management company. They just don't care. I now blast Bad Brains when it really starts to get to me, but it only helps for a bit and I don't want to make the other tenants suffer too. I realize not everyone likes punk music, just like not everyone likes mariachi music (I used to, but not anymore).

Now that it's summer, along with the loud music the babydaddy next door has taken to opening his window to smoke joints. His window is 2 feet upwind of my closest window, and the smoke goes into my apartment regardless of whether the windows are closed or open thanks to old construction and my window air conditioner letting air in. I do not do well with pot or cigarette smoke in my home. It makes me nauseous and, frankly, angry. I've asked him nicely to please do me a favor and smoke out another window (they have several) because the smoke comes into my apartment. He nodded, and kept smoking. I've asked him again and again. Today we had an argument out our windows about it, and he was clearly drunk as the smell of that was also wafting in (not the first time for that either). I begged him not to make me go to the super because I didn't want it to escalate. Again, they have a baby, and there are four of them living in the place not just this one punk, so it could go bad for a lot of people. He said, "Go ahead, talk to the super or the cops or whatever, it's my window, I pay rent, I can do what I want." What a great dad.

So I guess that's what I'm going to have to do. We share a fire escape so I hope he doesn't decided to retaliate, but I'm done playing games at this point. I've been wanting to move but couldn't afford to break my lease and pay all the crazy renter fees to find a new place, so maybe this would help me get out of the lease part at least.

My next neighborhood will be "already up and came" if I can help it....

I know I'm late to this party, but my upstairs 46 year old female neighbor is driving me nuts. I have lots of siblings, lived with snorers, live near a train, etc., so I can sleep through anything, except her getting up at 5:00 am for no reason at all. The apartment I live in is old, so the floors are very squeeky and creeky, and she gets up early and it seems, likes to walk around the bedroom, opening drawers and closet doors, closing them, other side of the room, opening, closing...you get the idea. If she was getting ready for work I'd do my level best to be forgiving, but she doesn't start work until 10:00 am or later.

We have a clause in our lease that clearly states that "quiet time" is betwen 10pm and 7am. She does not believe this rule applies to her. or her boyfriend when he is here. I've talked to her a few times, the manager has talked to her a few times, and she stops for a little while, then it starts up again. I couldn't take it last week, I wrote her a letter, copied the manager and the management company. I clearly reiterated that the lease has a designated quiet time, and that was all I was asking her to consider, with the exception of if she had to get to work or other things that cannot be helped. She responded by saying she was a prisoner in her aparment, afraid to even move at any time of day, that she'd like to nap at 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon but sometimes I have music on or I am cleaning, during the day, so why should she be quiet?

Some people just do not get it. I don't care what she does 16 hours a day. The 8 hours that are outiined clearly in our lease is all I'm asking for, and on weekends, I'd give people until midnight, as long as they're not waking me up at 5:00 am, which she and her boyfriend have done, repeatedly. She then accused me of things I never did. I'm considering, if I wake up to go to the bathroom, taking my bat and pounding on the ceiling 10 times just for spite, but I know that's just dumb and stooping to her level of inconsideration. Like most here, I cannot believe someone her age would be so ignorant about sound.

I've lived in apartments and houses, and have never, ever had a single complaint from anyone. I believe in consideration for my neighborrs, too bad some don't feel the same. The management company owns many other apartments, one in which I lived for 3 years and never heard a neighbor. I'm seriously thinking about continuing to put my complaints in writing, then asking them to pay for me to move, since if it continues, it is they who are refusing to enforce their own lease.

Anyway, while I hope all of you are getting good sleep now, it's nice to know I'm not alone. Some of you have a lot more to deal with than me, I hope it gets better for you!

There are a few things anyone can do should they come across an unreasonable neighbor, such as:

- Leave home with your stereo on, and a looped recording of white noise...or another very subtle but perceptible noise

- Start banging doors...everyone does it by accident if you know what I mean

- Shout to yourself in a different language...it will make them confused

- Do a Karaoke event with friends and make sure to sing bad songs in a bad tone, then laugh a lot

- Whenever you have to make some more noise than usual...such as for example cutting a bone steak, be sure to really hammer it loud

- If they come around knocking on your door, do not open it. After all...you "do not" know they can hear you....

- If they comment it when they see you....say that you also have experienced noises from them....maybe you can then reach an agreement of where noises come from, and how they should be reduced

- You can also install 10 alarm clocks around the house just for fun.....and have them go off at different times during the day...or the night if you cant hear them...of course

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i need advice - like 9-1-1 on the double advice. For the last 6 months - my neighbors have gotten progressively worse. I live in a luxury 1 bedroom apt - they are across for me. i have no neighbors on either side only in front...THEM. There is an mother (50ish) living with 3 young adult kids (look like 18-23 years old) PLUS an untrained barking dog! They are in and out of their home, LOUDLY closing doors for periods of 1-2 minutes, 12-20 times in three hours when I get home (around 6pm to 9pm). I live in a f-in train station! I've asked them on about 3 occasions to shut the f-up (but very nicely) and they seemed sincerely apologetic and were in fact quiet for a few days...and then back to the old. The super hates them - as they don't work (like NONE of them, not even go to school!) and apparently always making demands to him and "act like the own the buiding". I've written a letter to building mgmt, they issued warnng letter, and they were quiet for a few weeks (so it is possible). Now what? Is there any legal options i have - seriously how can 4 adults plus animal live in a one bedroom *around 850 sq feet). my super says they lied on lease that it was son and mom only but clearly things have changed. any ideas are most appreciated! i pay the same rent as them and just because there are more of these beasts, they get to do whatever they want? i deserve to enjoy my apt too! this is total bs! thanks for reading!

For months I've had to deal with the next door neighbors in my apartment complex,(with him I could talk to), and the next door neighbor who lives in a house. This guy bangs on his drum set trying to immitate some successful someone but has no talent. Who suffered? Me. I bought a boom box and decided I'd retaliated by playing Catholic radio LOUD. It worked but the banging continued. Today was different. He was just taking a slight break when I yelled out in my Brooklyn, N.Y. tone: I can hear you. It was then that it stopped. See I didn't say shut the F up which I would have in my earlier years I said I can hear you. In a very ominous tone. Like a mother scolding her child. If he starts again I might not be so nice. It's a matter of common decency something most American kids,(meaning, teens, 20, 30 & 40 year olds), lack these days.

We have an "entitled" neighbor, a well-off couple who want everyone to endure whatever they do. They drive nice new cars, wear nice clothes, their kids go to gymnastics. But they allow their kids to run and jump all day and night, shaking the ceiling and walls. They stomp like elephants. They litter constantly, sometimes just leaving bags of garbage outside their door and wherever their cars were parked. All they ever say to to us or management is "we're not going to tiptoe in our own home". We are simply going to move, even though we were on a waiting list to get into this apartment.

I live in what was once a large victorian house which has been converted into three parts . Me and my ten year old son Jacob reside in the whole of the spacious upper floor and have 2 double bedrooms , then below there are a one bedroomed flat and a bedsit . I am now on my 9th lot of neighbours with regard to the 1B ! I've even endured a 15 hour bang up due to the complete inconsideration from a pair of breeds that used to live there when I just flipped my lid one night ! Noisy neighbours completely stress my melon out . I hate them with a God Damn Passion ! When the last neighbour moved in I was overjoyed , an elderly gentleman in his 60's . Bliss ! Until it became apparent that he was a speed freak ( talk about yappin on all night ) with a bad phlegm problem too !! . Oh my days . I may as well have been tucked up in bed with the old coughing up git for what I could hear when getting my head down for the night . Gross ! How I have suffered ! He is being evicted now because he had the neck to show my landlord the door . Some folk hey ... phew ! Anyway , gonna play a pearler now because my dad is going to take the tenancy on . Laugh out Loud . You will win this war Page Read . We'l have the run of 7/8ths of the building then . Then we'l rid out the other menace . Talk about stomping ground .... has this Specimen ever heard of tip-toeing ?? !! Sounds like a flippin Dinosaur walking about the heavy footed git ! Just gotta remember that Rome wasn't built in a day . Cant wait for the ignoramuses to just ... DO ONE :)

Just wait patiently for them all to sling their hooks and make sure you already have someone lined up for the property when it becomes vacant like a friend or a family neighbour . Ya gotta box clever . Recommend them a few bigger premises but be subtle ! They might take a hint Laugh out Loud . Good Luck x

I could write a saga based on our bad renting experiences. People make me laugh when they say just move into a house if you want quiet. Don't you think I would have a house if I could afford one? We have lived here since May 2011 and it's been a horrible place. Our apartment is one of a building of 4 up, 2 down. They are attached to other apartments next door. Well, let's see--we have a bad complex full of idiots who tweak all night and day (starts 4:30 am with the motorcycle jerks going "somewhere" revving the bikes, warming them up). In our building we have had some winners. Our smoke addicted neighbor moved out a few weeks back (he was a chain smoker and it flooded our apartment) after the noisy family (now evicted) let their kids wail and whine and screech all night. The father stands outside (like many of the inmates here) and chats on his cell phone in front of the building at all hours.

Their baby WAILS and fusses and just SCREAMS for hours. Their other 2 kids encourage brats into the building who ripped off our railing 2 times.

The family downstairs has a teenage son who does nothing but tweak and smoke and ride his bike around bothering people. He sleeps all day and plays all night, not caring who he bothers (everyone) with his loud noise/talking/drug induced commentary till 3 am.

People are spiteful here. The guy next door had his music booming at 5:30 am. The people below me are shouting to each other despite it only being 6 am, and the evicted idiots were moving stuff until 11:30 pm.

We also have a college gaggle of girlies who are loud but usually shut up by 11. And the newest neighbors have 8 or 9 adults plus ? kids in a 2 bedroom apartment. They go in and out at 6 am dragging something and it sounds like 6 people leave opening and closing the door.

They are pretty quiet for 10 people or whatever they have living there.

I hate it here and we have had numerous disagreements thanks to sh***y neighbors.

I read the coments here last night as my neighbours enjoyed their new sound system. I live in Britain in a tiny terraced house that is basically like living in an apartment- terrible sound insulation which was okay until new tenants moved in next door. They are two guys who walk like elephants - I shouldn't be able to hear it but cos of the bad sound insulation I can. Like some of the other people mentioned here, they bang about and seem to drop weights on the floor. Cannonballs maybe. They've woken me up a few times but I decided to do nothing because they didn't blast music. I now wear earplugs because of the noise they make at night.

Now they've put a speaker on the living room wall that we share and the bass pounds and shimmers while I can feel the reverb through the house. Last night they were on playstation (I guess) and the bass was super loud at 2am and I could hear it loudly in the bedroom. It was the same a few days ago as well. They probably don't realise how bad the sound travels. I don't have any audio-visial equopment against our shared wall and I don't play music or tv or whatever loudly anyway. I have lived here for 12 years (I 'm an 'owner') and I adjusted my behaviour to the situation. I sat and read this forum last night and felt a bit better. Then they blasted music this afternoon, too. I know I'll have to talk to them, ask them to turn the bass down but I have a feeling it might not go that well. Only someone who was inconsiderate wouldn't try to keep the noise down in the type of housing we live in. Because I live alone I feel a bit vulnerable if things get nasty and the noise gets worse. But I'll have to give it a go. The area I live in is really quiet - people move here because of that. I can't afford to move (now wasting money on lottery tickets...) and fear that these guys will stay for longer than the year of their lease.

O, how nice it is to know I'm not feeling this alone. I stay in South Africa and purchased my first property.
When I came to view the flat, the complex was so quiet and the tenant said that they dont have noise issues. So I bought the place, moved in, only to find out that a few apartments in close proximity to mine had newly moved in tenants too.

The noise levels in this place is ridiculous. My direct downstairs neighbor decided that it was her right to keep parties till the early hours of the morning and she installed a huge flatscreen with surround sound and sub woofers!!! One night I just had it. The party died down after 3am. At the crack of dawn, about 6am I got up, put on my heaviest highest heels (clogg like) and jumped allover my flat. I ran for about 15-20 minutes straight, doing froggy jumps and stomps. Needless to say, they haven't had an early hour party again. I did though once go tell her that I'm tired of waiting for them to go sleep to switch off there TV and I had a headache and wanted to sleep now. She apologised and said she didn't realise that her TV was loud..? (Surround sound and sub woofer and you dont realise it would be loud????).
Thats just one noisey part of the complex. The downstairs neighbour opposite, this guy has the loudest voice! Him and his wife always feel they should start their conversations in the corridor, and it trebles up. They dont speak, its like they shouting.
Then there are the children...constantly shouting and running up the staircases. Riding on those wheelie type things that shake the building when they ride on the paved side walks.
O, and dont forget about the pigeons. Constantly cooing at the crack of dawn and at sunset.
The trustees have done nothing to control and uplift the complex and the changes are slowly happening now that im on the board. But Im getting a lot of resistance from the longer standing trustees, its like they dont want to hear or know that there are issues in the complex.
So now, I use ear muffs, ear plugs sometimes both together. I feel that if I can be considerate by not walking hard, putting my shoes on only when i leave, close the sliding door when im watching tv, and keeping my noise levels moderate to low, THEN WHY CANT OTHERS BE CONSIDERATE TOO!
I wish I could soundproof or afford to sell this place and buy a freestanding home in a good area.

I am just keeping up with recent posts on this thread . I am home alone and I do apologise for having to waste energy but yes I really do have to sit in the dark and keep all three televisions on in the three rooms plus radio in the kitchen and computer set up in the utility room and also the gas central heating on in all the rooms too .Such a waste of energy but what is a girl to do ? Its quite cosy to be honest slinking around like a little Fox . But I've got to confuse the enemies below as to what room I am enjoying . Stategic planning from the wise one to outwit those dumb breeds . Cant wait to move out into a lovely rental ... not before old gits eviction kicks in Thors Day though ... oh no . This I just have to see through I'm afraid . Chins up everyone ... plan , plan , plan :~) x

erica first, not sure where you live, but in NYC, most residential leases have a clause that require you to have carpet on the majority of hardwood floors. Not doing so is a violation of your lease.
Second, you might find it "bogus", but why don't you have a a single friend come over and walk around while you go downstairs and listen, most likely you will hear with your own ears that its not bogus at all. Also, some people need to get up early, and if the noise is at 11, well then its time for you to shut up.
The reality is that if you were my upstairs neighbor and acted that way, not only would I sue you and get you evicted, I would also sue you for what is called constructive eviction, and then you would also be liable and paying my rent on top of legal fees and your own rent. Then try getting a new apartment to live in with that on your credit report, landlords here put people like you on a blacklist.
Most people don't take things that far because they don't have the legal knowledge to do so, but I do, and I sure as hell would, so be warned that you and your crappy "bogus" 'tude will possibly come back to haunt you.Grow up or go back to Ohio.

We had a cop, his wife and two kids living above us for a couple years and they were quiet. You could hear the toilet flushing and the odd time the wind slammed the door shut but these are just normal everyday noises. They were great neighbors. Next, two brothers moved in when the cop and his wife sold the condo. One brother was quiet and you could very rarely hear him. The other brother stomped across the floor and stomped his feet to get off the chair/couch or bed and paced till 4 AM or so. I asked them politely to not walk so heavy. The one brother was nice and the noisy one tried to start a fight with me. I was all for it by then and he backed down. He got worse, so I wrote complaints every time we heard him and I gave him a hard time whenever I saw him. He would not answer the door. So, they moved out and we had 11/2 years of bliss. Then they sold it to a large bus driver lady with her yappy dog which is barking as I write. She has been friendly to us but is totally clued out as to how much noise she makes and her dog makes, esp. when it is put out on the balcony. I'm trying to convince my wife to agree to sell and move to the country where I am from. No luck so far. The elephant gets up at 3 AM and works a split shift, stomping in and out each time. Some days I feel like I'm going to go totally postal. We have a dog, and I trained her not to bark unless someone comes in the front door which is not often and she lets out one bark only. We are on friendly terms with this woman and I would hate to become enemies with her as she has told us stories of revenge on other of her neighbors.. We can't leave any windows open and get fresh air. I wear earplugs which help somewhat when my wife isn't home or headphones. I have a feeling there will eventually be a confrontation. She also has her brother living there, but he's quieter than her, but she's used him in past as her pit bull, he's a boxer and built about 6'2" and 250 lbs (yet he's quieter than her, figure that one out) Good luck to all you other sufferers out there.

Our upstairs neighbor has a 4 yr old who screams constantly, rings our doorbell @ all hours & runs/jumps on the floor so hard our tv's shake & we have developed a large crack in our living rm ceiling. We have tried baked goods, asking her politely to please ask her son to stop stomping on the floors for the safety of our tv's & ceiling, even @ one point of frustration hitting the ceiling with the end of a mop (which only made our crack worse) & finally speaking to our landlords who unfortunately did nothing. Our advice from everyone "He's a kid, learn to live with it."

On the upside, she is now is the process of moving out so we are praying for a better upstairs situation in the future.