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I'm not sure if it'll work on an old wooden bed, but supposedly baby powder get rid of the squeaky wood floor. Give it a try. What do you have to lose.

You can use it as firewood, winter is upon us. No but seriously, I have no idea. Sorry. Someone please help her!!!

-Your Neighbor Downstairs

If it's a rocking, don't come a knocking. Hahahaha! Sorry I know, terrible humor :-(

I keep a trusty pair of earplugs for just these sorts of occasions. They lower sound by 26 decibels, enough for me to establish a neighbor-free mental zone.

Your neighbor should do the same. It's best to try to minimize other people's impact on you.

Do you have a rug down in your bedroom? If not, get one.

Oy, do I know this problem. Two things to try:

- the baby power trick. (Caveat: it has worked for me on chairs, but I've never tried it on a bed.)

- Screwing your slats into the rails. I know you're worried about the bedrails splitting, but securing the slats to the frame is the one thing that kept my old bed from 1) making noise and 2) falling apart. It strengthened and stabalized the frame, it seemed. (Of course, I'm no woodworker, so I don't really know...)

Also, do you have your bed on a rug? I know some of the noise my old rope bed used to make was due to the posts moving on the floor.

...I feel like I've just shared far too much information with a bunch of internet strangers.

Anyway, good luck!

I have an old wooden bed too. Mine has a Frank Furness/Philadelpia Academy of Fine Arts flower thing going on. I don't what style it is.

Back to your problem:

For you, I would suggest saying "Hi" and being as friendly as possible. Maybe, your neighbor will bring up the reason for her glares. It probably has nothing to do with the bed squeak. She probably saw you do something "unlady-like" and now thinks you're a woman of questionable morals. Why else would she glare at you? She's judging you for something that you've done. If it was just the bed squeak she would approach you and say, "Would you oil that bed? It's squeaky and keeping me up at night."

Try using paraffin or wax where wood pieces join. Rubbing a piece of bar soap on the wood in those places is also a possibility but is more likely to contain chemicals which may discolor the wood and that might not be desirable on such a beautiful piece.

I think graphite powder is supposed to be a very good dry lubricant.

http://www.google.com/products?q=graphite powder&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&sa=N&tab=wf

Ugh. Comments screwed up my link. Try this:

http://tinyurl.com/3xvxor

I suggest contacting someone who restores antiques. They'd be able to tell you what would work best for your type of wood.

Otherwise, a few suggestions:
-You might try stuffing some old pillows between the headboard and the wall, right about mattress-level. Wedge them in there really tight so you have some extra stability.
-Rubbing a bar of soap on wood can act as a lubricant. If you can take the bed apart and rub a layer of soap everywhere one wooden part touches another, that might stop the squeaking.
-An alternative to the soap (which shouldn't but might damage the finish) is to use felt. Get some good, thick, undyed felt from a craft shop. Take the bed apart, and insert felt "washers" between each piece of wood that touches. You could also cut long strips to line the rails, then lay the slats on top of the felt. Be sure your felt comes up the sides enough to cover the ends of the slats as well.

Oh, and you might slip a card under your neighbor's door, letting them know that you know the bed is a problem, and asking them to bear with you while you figure out a solution.

This might work...

If the squeaking is coming from the slats you could
get some of that anti-skid rubber matting from Bed Bath and Beyond. (They make it to put under throw rugs and in smaller pieces to keep stuff from sliding around on trays.)

Here comes the boring part: cut a piece to fit between each slat and the bed frame. If you can, jam some into the parts where the bed frame gets put together. This would keep the wood from rubbing against more wood.

And, get a rug for under the floor, as the other Patrick suggested.

HeHeHe

Celibacy. It's the new Green.

I know that rubbing soap (hard bar soap) is how my grandmother stopped the wooden dresser drawers from squeaking, so maybe it would work on a bed too. You'd probably have to take the joins apart, rub with the soap, then reassemble.

Like barbara suggested, get some rubber and put between anything and everything you can as you put the bed back together. Basically make a bunch of rubber "washers" to put between everything.

I love the questions we can have fun with.
"my downstairs neighbor hates all of us" - hmmm just how many consenting adults are involved here?

perhaps the universe is inviting you to have fun in new and inventive places?

we have a similar bed frame inherited from my partner's parents-the frame did not seem strong enough to hold us and was pretty creeky!! we got an Ikea mattress and boxsprings on legs and basically have the old bedframe standing around it...does that make sense...the Ikea boxspring on legs holds all the weight whereas the antique head/foot board and rails cover up the ugliness of it-( if you look under you can see the metal feet of the boxspring) but it holds no weight at all( so therefore doesn't creak!!( we just got rid of the old metal inside frame that would have originally held up the boxspring-be sure to double check all measurements of inside of old frame and new piece(don't go by manufacturers dim as they usually round up or down-measure a floormodel piece if you can)

I have an antique bed, too, and ran into the same problem. I solved it by screwing the slats to the rails and used large rubber washers over the prongs at the end of the rails, where the prongs connect to the headboard and footboard to provide a cushion between the two. To prevent the rails from splitting, pre-drill the holes for the screws. Good luck!

Hello Creaky Bed,

The temporary solution of powders or continuously screwing the bed together is no fun or practical. I have a metal bed that had that this same issue. And it drove ME insane. This just may be your fix for this old wooden bed. Michael's carries sheet foam for the extravagant price of (around) ¢.79. It comes in black and brown and whatever color (you believe) you need. Unscrew all of the bed parts that are wood to wood, one at a time. Measure the ends of the sideboards and or/any mating surfaces. Transfer these dimensions to the sheet foam (www.michaels.com) It takes nothing more than a screw from the bed to pierce through the material or a matte knife to make small X cuts for the screws to pass through. Assemble all foam parts between all mating surfaces and bingo! It should at least lessen the squeak. You can also try black rubber washers as well. Just slip them over the screws and screw them back in. Please let me know if you try this and if you are successful!

EB.

Yeah, I'm still not sure the glare is related to the bed situation. How do you know the two are related?

The other Patrick is right. How do we know it's the bed? Perhaps it's WHO IS IN THE BED that is bugging your neighbor. Give your lover a background check and make sure it doesn't lead to the neighbor downstairs.

Also, try rotating yourselves 90 degrees. It may not work long-term, but it stopped the squeaking for me (us) once in a time-share.

OK, those all sound like good ideas, and that's a handsome bed, but I want Mr. Dangerous to show us a picture of his Frank Furness bed.