apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

The people that live below my boyfriend argue loudly on a weekly basis.. sometimes until 3 am. I worry that one day we'll be whitness to a domestic violence situation.

It's scary because we don't want to get in the middle but we don't want to hear it either. We also don't want to make those people with anger issues even angrier!

scary

Okay, I admit it, sometimes I am the one yelling SHUT UP!! Surprisingly, no one ever heeds my demand, and I end up cracking myself up at my own boneheadedness and it seems much better.

More than just whining about it, does anyone have any suggestions for potential soundproofing? Even just for sound that goes on within a unit, . . . my roommate gets up much earlier than I do and I wake up when I hear her getting ready in the morning- how can I find a way to block the noise?

MC Nicole - I live in an old building without central air - so I have window-unit air conditioners. I found that putting the air-conditioner on "low fan" every night really helps drown out the 24 hour buses and the "colorful" nightlife quite well. It's not the most energy-efficient way to do things, but it's about the only way my husband can manage to get a good night's sleep.

I'm a big believer in fans as white noise as well -- those fancy machines from Shaper Image or wherever just don't do the trick. I think it has something to do with the vibrational qualities as well. I use our little Vornado just for that, even in the winter.

I've been cursed with super-sonic dog hearing, and even with a few feet of concrete separating our upstairs neighbors, every little clunk drives me bonkers. I'm coming to terms with it, slowly, but part of me thinks the only solution for me will be to live somewhere in the middle of nowhere, which really isn't a solution either ....

If it drives you nuts, try to be the top person in a building - we live on the fourth floor of a four story, and while our neighbor noise is minimal, it doesn't bother me cause it's not above me. I've always thought that it's a primal thing - we don't like to think there is someone "in the trees" above us so it makes us jumpy.

I live in a 2 story, 6-family building and am totally lucky to have the same upstairs neighbor for the past 3 years that I've lived there. He leaves for long stretches of time to travel through Europe with his jazz band, sometimes even for the whole summer (he's a Jazz prof at a nearby University). That's not to say that they aren't loud, though! Sometimes I enjoy hearing him play, but other times it seems like every footstep is a stomp and every chair being pulled out at 11 pm is the entire dining room being rearranged.

I am sure most of my observations and ideas about what could possibly be going on up there are totally off base. But we have an unspoken mutual understanding and I doubt either of us would ever complain about the other. It's simply part of apartment living and the day to day stuff just needs to roll off your back.

I usually put on some music if it's too much (like his GF singing in her mezzo-soprano voice), or go to another room so they aren't right above me, and try to think about all the times they may have heard me...well, you get the point!

I live in a two-flat (currently my husband & I are the only occupants until we finish the rehab and get renters) so there's no noise from within the building except rehabbing noice that starts after 9am and stops by 7pm. I have one neighbor who plays drums professionally and practices at home but he's extremely polite and stops at 10pm on the dot. Our worst neighbor is the church across the street. They rent out their basement for parties that sometimes go until 1am with thumpy-thumpy bass-heavy music. Then when the party breaks up everyone peels out of the parking lot while tooting their horns at each other. Finally the people stuck with the clean-up duties finish up around 1:45am. They usually loudly load up their cars/vans and shout instructions to each other up and down the street. I find that periodic calls to the pastor and letters cc-ed to the Chicago Archdiosce get me a few weeks of relief. I'll admit that I have been the person to yell SHUT UP! but I'm far more likely to sleepily open my front door in my jammies and robe and say, "do you mind? Can you keep it down?" That sometimes shames them into toning down the noise level. I'm thinking of adding a fake baby as a prop to up the guilt factor.

in my last apartment my neighbor downstairs was an obese balding sweaty man that always seemed to be walking into the building with a case of beer. around 2 or 3 am EVERY NIGHT he would puke loudly.. sometimes i thought he was leaning out the window, but it was just echoing off the concrete wall 3ft away from the bldg.. in my current apartment i just had to laugh when i discovered that EVERY MORNING around 4 or 5 am my alcoholic vietnam vet neighbor gets up with a hacking smokers cough until he pukes for about 15 minutes. he also is always seen walking in with a case of budwiser.. and he and his girlfriend YELL at each other all the time and when i was home sick one day i caught them scooping their cat litter OUT THE WINDOW. i most definitely yelled at them for that one... i live on the first floor and having cat shit outside my window is just not right.

oh and one more... the other night i was laying in bed watching tv and heard the sound of someone getting hit repeatedly and then whimpering. i turned off the tv and my lights and ran to peek out the window ready to call the cops.. i honestly thought someone was being beat up between my building and the one next door.. its very dark and behind some dumpsters. so, i looked out my window and to my shock it was my neighbors next door! they left the lights on, window open, miniblinds down... it created a very detailed silhouette of what they were up to and uhhhh... well.. there was most definately some hitting (of the spanking sort) going on... and the whimpers were not out of pain! it was extremely obscene! i have never seen them in person and hope i never do! ahahahah

My boyfriend recently moved out of a tiny apartment with paper-thin walls that were subjected to the heavy pounding of the neighbors' subwoofer on a daily basis. He addressed the noise in every way he could, even having them over with the subwoofer on so they could hear how loud it was in his apartment. We were both so glad when he moved out, and made very sure to ask the previous tenant in his new apartment whether there were noise issues ('no, not at all. It's very quiet here'). As we were moving his last pieces of furniture into the new place, we ran into the neighbors from upstairs. The mother introduced herself and her teenage son, and immediately said 'you're our new neighbor? I feel bad for you. we fight a lot'. and then, I kid you not, the son turned to us and said 'and I listen to metal. death metal'.
The music hasn't really been an issue, but the fighting has gotten out of hand a few time. guess you can't win 'em all.

Our upstairs neighbors have two raucous little girls, and we sometimes go up to ask them to chill out a little when our son's just gone to bed and they are jumping off the couch onto the hardwood floors (no kidding). They're cool about it. Evidently it's been a problem in the past because before we moved in the landlord had lost two good tenants in two years so he put insulation between the floors, which is an improvement but less that you might imagine, according to everyone who would know (landlord and neighbors have all been in the apartment when they're jumping, before and after). We get the sense there is some residual hostility all around. But being friendly (we even babysat one of the girls once) has made them very responsive.

We asked our downstairs neighbor to let us know if our noise bothers him when he moved in but so far he's offered nothing. I can only assume that he was out of the building on the day our son found the wrench and started throwing it on the floor.

Oh my god, pdxcarrie, where do you live? Sounds like an awful lot of vomit going on in your neighborhood!

My upstairs neighbour is mentally ill. Mornings and evenings: "I HATE LIFE! I HATE LIFE! I WANT TO DIE!" There is screaming, slamming (of what? dunno.), and stomping; racing to and fro; pounding in and out of the building; door slamming. Talks to self, random outbursts.

I approached my landlord from a safety point of view and was assured that this neighbour is not a danger to self or others. Put in contact with nearest family member who shared the same assurance. But on Saturday mornings at 7 am when it sounds like the upstairs neighbour is revving up to make a run-and-jump from an open window to take a header to the alley below, these assurances mean very little.

It's really stressful for me, but I'm sure worse for him.

I just moved in to a duplex, which seemed really nice when I was looking at it, but the first night I stayed there I realized the bedroom walls are paper-thin. And the adjoining room is my neighbors bedroom. They are so paper-thin that the first morning I even heard him yawning as he got out of bed. Later in the week a phone conversation he was having woke me up and I had to listen to 15 minutes of sports talk. Fortunately he's only one person so there's not a lot of noise, but his TV is usually on late into the night. I've started putting my earbuds in when I go to bed and falling asleep to my own noise instead of someone elses. It's a rental so I can't really do a lot, but I have googled "how to soundproof walls" and even found this: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/good-questions/good-questions-best-wall-soundproofing-company-024199
I really wanted to stay in this apartment a long time, because I've done a lot of work on painting and getting it just the way I want, but sadly I don't know if I'll be able to stand it!

Oh, geesh, you guys -- your stories (hilarious and heartbreaking all at the same time) really put things in perspective for me. I totally applaud those of you who haven't ripped out all your hair and continue to look at the bright side of things and come up with inventive ways to make your lives more peaceful. Next time my neighbors scoot in a chair, I think I'll be less annoyed, just being thankful it's not puke or death metal (or both).

There are two mirror-imaged units on each floor of my building and all our bedrooms share a wall. I was sleeping one night and awoke to the sounds of moaning and poundings. It never occured to me that I could hear my neighbors as I usually listen to music when I fall asleep...but I got rid of the stereo in the bedroom to help me sleep better. A couple days later, I heard it again....and they often go at it in the bedroom still.

After thinking about it a bit more I became embarrased, because I am VERY active in the bedroom myself. I'm doing the do maybe 5 days out of the week and sometimes more than three times that day. I'm also a moaner and screamer and a few of my partners are...umm...very vocal when they've reached their levels of....release. Whenever I see my neighbors now, i run into my unit.......embarassed.

Oh my god PDXCarrie, I can't believe that's happened to you two times in a row . . . I really don't know what I would do if i had to hear that every night, that's probably a worst case scenario for me! I'll take the loud band before the loud vomiters!

I hate the loud neighbors above, below and to the sides just as much as everyone else, the other day though there was an xkcd comic that I want to slip under my "above us" neighbors door http://xkcd.com/316/ pdxcarrie much sympathy.

these comments come at a perfect time; i'm currently listening to my neighbors on the left side go at it, and the other neighbor's dog bark like crazy for whatever reason.

I thought i had it bad, but its usually quite peaceful... let me count my blessings (and knock on wood, or as we italians say, touch iron!)LOL

I'm pretty lucky. My neighbors are all really quiet and polite about noise. I do have some neighbors accross the way who fight pretty loudly and often, but I've never really been bothered by it as it's kind of a Soap Opera I can keep track of. I only recently figured out which neighbors they were when I saw them fighting in front of their car. I suppose that makes me something of a eavesdropper...

I'm torn between loving my apartment and hating the noise. But I'll admit, after reading above posts ... mine's not so bad.

I bought my unit on the top floor because I knew I didn't want anyone walking on my head.
Our building is pretty great as it was built in 1949 in a shape, which means there are four 'wings' to the building... two units per wing on each floor... so essentially everyone has a corner unit. That cuts down on a lot of noise.
The walls between units are great insulators... but the floors are just awful.

My neighbor below is mentally ill and can't be reasoned with. She cranks her music... and makes my dining table shake! She often slams her doors every minute for a solid hour. And these are serious slams... the whole place rattles!

The neighbor below her has it even worse.. since crazy in between us opens up her rowing machine in the bedroom at 4:30am and goes to it.

But what drives me nutty are the people in the neighboring building. My unit overlooks our courtyard... then over the fence is the neighbor's pool. For some reason, people always talk much louder than they need to when they're in the water... their voices bounce off the concrete building and carry over to our windows.
I'm always amazed that people don't know how much voices carry in the summer. The people with balcony units sit out there and talk and I can hear EVERY word. If anyone were planning a murder, I'd know all the details!

And yes, I'm the type to yell shut up... but I've found that the response is better to go out to our courtyard, and call to them over the fence... I repeat some intimate details of their conversation and that usually quiets them down for a while.

ooops... "in a shape" was supposed to be "in the shape of an addition sign." I used the plus key but it didn't show up!!