Find out which rooms/areas are the most noisy to them... and then invest in a nice thick area rug to muffle the noise. I had a similiar issue in grad school - university owned housing - the noisy area there was the main living room, not the bedrooms. You're going to have to work with them to try to get the sound proofing right.....

I'd do nothing and live my life. I feel that anyone who lives underneath anyone else has to know that there will be noise. No one forced them to live on the first floor.

I ignore my neighbors. I don't do anything unreasonable, they are just old and cranky. It's not that I'm unsympathetic...I just think they are being unreasonable. I'm not even sure how they hear some of the things they do. One time they banged on the ceiling after my little boy rolled off the couch while sleeping. *eyeroll* I've left them a couple of polite notes asking them to stop it (it scares my son), but basically have given up.

sorry, but i think it IS your problem...and being self righteous about it isn't going to fix it. if they went through the trouble of writing to you to address the problem, then there really is an issue. as someone who has lived on the first floor and has had both excellent neighbors and obnoxious ones above, there IS a difference. seriously...buy some rugs.

I'm a downstairs neighbor, and I have to say, I'd be happy to have an upstairs neighbor like you who actually is concerned about how to fix a noise problem!! We currently live below a couple of young women who seriously stomp around like elephants. It's rather incredible, and it's mostly just stomping (we can only hear voices when they're having a super loud, drunken party, and that's through the windows, not the floor/ceiling).

Here's what I can suggest:

- Sorry about your vintage hardwood floors, but consider putting down area rugs in high traffic areas, especially bedrooms

- Ask your neighbors where the noise is the worst, and when it's the worst. For example, the noise is usually worse in the living room (where both women stomp), but we're much more upset about it when it's one woman in her bedroom above ours. More importantly, it's worse when said woman comes home at 1am and wakes us up because she's stomping and slamming drawers

- Come up with a system with your neighbors so they can let you know when the noise is unbearable, without resorting to rude notes or just bottling up anger and resentment (or sticking through and having noise ruin their day/evening). There's always ye ol' broom against ceiling method, or you could have them ring your buzzer in a specific pattern

- Take off your shoes!!

If you do your best and they still complain (rudely) about the noise, then there's nothing more you can do, and it's more a problem with the building than it is with you. But please do make an effort. Living with a lot of noise, especially when you're trying to rest, can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. Everyone deserves to have peace and quiet.

Dear Upstairs Neighbor: thanks for taking your downstairs neighbor into consideration. Just reading the two incredibly rude comments above raised my blood pressure. I'm glad everyone is not so unflinchingly selfish.

If you're getting noise complaints, the best thing to do is put rug pads under your rugs. That's really the only way to pad the sound. And I would like to thank you sincerely on behalf of all downstairs neighbors (aka most of the world.) And I wish chain smoking, surround-sounding frat-partytastic neighbors on the nasty commenters.

As someone who has had numerous "too loud" upstairs neighbors, I'll just offer my ideas on how to make/keep peace with your neighbor. First, I admit, it is really awkward to have to tell a neighbor they're being disruptive and ask them to modify their ways. A note is not the best way for them to tell you, but they probably wanted to avoid direct confrontation. But now you know your noise is disturbing them, so go talk to them. Let them know you're aware of the floor/ceiling lack of insulation (I was shocked to learn that one of my neighbors didn't realize that fact in my loft building). Ask them where it's noisiest, try adding an area rug in those locations. If you wear shoes inside, try not to anymore. Give them your phone number so they can call/text you when things get too loud for prolonged periods. And lastly, drop a note to let them know when you're having guests over so they can be forgiving of the added noise. Hopefully you can find a happy medium!

It is lovely having neighbors you like who like you back and merits a bit of outreach.

I'd suggest a face-to-face conversation at your place. They can see what your set up is and maybe let you know which area sound loudest. If you are willing to take off your shoes inside and buy a rug or two to keep the peace/show good effort, do it. If they see that you are making an effort, they may be more understanding. If not, it is not your problem.

As a first floor person, I understand that there is going to be some amount of noise. My number one annoyance is when my upstairs neighbors walk all around their hardwood floors in our old building wearing HEELS, or other hard-soled boots or shoes. This makes the footstep noise so much worse! I haven't said anything to them about it, but if I knew them better, I'd like to ask them to wait to put their shoes on until before they leave.

oh, and my comment was directed to lorijo & Nevanna, not the original post.

Many apartment buildings require that a certain percentage of the floor area are covered with rugs. Do that first. An additional layer of padding underneath is not only good for the rugs, but also good for the additional sound-muffling.

Next, I would contact the management after you have put down rugs. Ask them what their policy is, and maybe have them inspect. You can tell them that you are receiving messages from the folks downstairs. Can they intervene? Write a letter explaining that you have done all that is required, and that they now have no recourse except to move out?

Avoid escalation. Ignoring is best. When they bonk on your floor, report them to the management.

Phira - I couldn't have said it better. Seriously, if you live in an old townhouse like I do, you MUST buy rugs and take off your shows. Apparently the renters (in a house of owners) never got that memo. They also like to shred paper at 3:00 AM. With the shredder on the floor directly above my bed. I know, we live on top of each other, and we are going to hear sounds - but have some common sense!

I've never had a complaint from my downstairs neighbors, but I often wonder what they can hear. You really have no idea unless someone says something. Either I'm doing okay, or my neighboirs are just really polite.

I sympathize with your neighbors... our upstairs neighbors leave one of their phones on the floor to act as an alarm clock. I know this because the vibrations wake me up at 5:45 every morning! They also have a toddler, and kids that young just don't know how to tread lightly. As you've suggested, the problem is the building-- I would never hear a vibrating phone if the ceiling were properly insulated!

The neighborly thing to do would be to put down area rugs in your most highly trafficked areas.

I'm sorry, maybe it makes me look bad, but I've definitely been in the situation of being accused of being the "noisy" neighbor. We moved into a condo that an older woman had lived in alone for 18 years, and we later found out from the condo association manager (not the neighbor) that the man living below us had filed multiple complaints against us during the first month of us living there. The complaint? That my husband came home late at night (he's a chef, they don't work 9-5) and that we were "walking around all the time past midnight." Fortunately the condo association manager sided with us, saying "you have chosen to live in an urban environment, you can expect noise and diversity of bedtimes get over it."

I've been told I was noisy by my downstairs neightbor (mind you, this is after she was using her power drill at 1:30 am in the morning) and reesorted to only wearing slippers or flip flops in the apt now. Hopefully, this has helped. My upstairs neighbor was initially responsive when I complained about her 2 cats fighting above me at 6 am. It literally sounds like furniture is being dragged around. Lately, I've given up, and asked my management company to deal with it. I don't want to be the constant complainer, but at the same time, I value my sleep!

Ugh, I am experiencing this right now. I'm the too loud upstairs neighbor. Trouble is, I'm really not loud at all ... rather, my neighbor has the unrealistic expectation that she should never hear a SOUND coming from my apartment. Downstairs neighbors, while I think you're entitled to expect consideration from your upstairs neighbors, you're not entitled to complete silence (and the reverse is true as well, of course). I make every effort to be as quiet and considerate as possible. Despite this, every time I walk into my bedroom, drop something accidentally, or turn on my television (which is never any time after 9:30pm as this is when I go to bed almost every night!!!), this horrible woman pounds on her ceiling or swears at me. She wrote a letter to the landlord complaining about me, but has not once come upstairs to have a civil conversation with me. Honestly, she has been so rude to me at this point that I find myself *hoping* that I'm bothering her since she's made it basically unbearable for me to be home. After all of my whinging, my advice is that if you're being disturbed by a neighbor, while it might be awkward and unpleasant, at least try to discuss it with them in a civil manner. As they say, it's easier to catch flies with honey than with vinegar.

CONDUCT A TEST: You head downstairs to join your neighbors in their apartment, while your partner stays upstairs in your place. Text him/her where to walk (have him/her try it first in regular shoes and then in bare feet or slippers).

Your neighbors will appreciate the thought, and you can see once and for all if you do need area rugs.

I'm both an upstairs AND downstairs neighbour...

As quiet as I think I'm being, apparently my downstairs neighbour thinks I'm screaming, but at the same time, I often think my upstairs neighbour is playing basketball in his flat! So I understand both sides. Unfortunately, the sound does amplify, and both parties need to realise this.

As uncomfortable as it may be, I'd say meet face-to-face and find out the exact issues and then see what you can do to solve it. They may think you are intentionally being loud, while you're actually tip-toeing around and trying your hardest to be quiet.

Sadly, you may need to cover up your hardwood, but it could just be a case of not wearing shoes. I'm sure if they're reasonable people, you can work everything out. If they're not, you'll just need to get used to angry notes, sadly.

I have lived on the first floor for years, and I think I now have the first neighbor that has actually LIVED in the apartment above (she has parties, moves around a lot, etc). Either that, or she is part horse. It really would help if she took her shoes off when walking on the hardwood floors, though. I am told one person upstairs (that I never heard) wore mocassins at home, to help buffer her walking. I guess I would say that if you hear a noise, assume it is amplified greatly when it is also above a person's head. Sometimes the noise even makes my dog duck his head as he is looking up at the ceiling. (and I know the reality is that it is just something that fell on the floor)

I don't complain though. I think that is part of apartment life that has to be dealt with. I didn't have to listen to anything for years when I lived above, or in single floor places.
Good luck!

How nice of you to be willing to take steps to lessen your noise.

I live in a lovely vintage building with lovely hardwood floors. My old upstairs neighbor was a tiny little old lady who never made a peep. My new neighbors are a really nice couple with cats. The noise is very noticeable.

Rugs with pads is great.

No shoes.

If you have pets... please don't give them bouncing balls to play with (even when my neighbors are gone their cats can be really annoying with the hard rubber balls)

Rolling chairs... please don't. For a week I thought it was going to rain... then I realized the sound of thunder was their chairs rolling across the floor.

In the end, you all live (to some extent) communally. If everyone makes an effort to be considerate that is all that anyone can ask.

How nice of you to be willing to take steps to lessen your noise.

I live in a lovely vintage building with lovely hardwood floors. My old upstairs neighbor was a tiny little old lady who never made a peep. My new neighbors are a really nice couple with cats. The noise is very noticeable.

Rugs with pads is great.

No shoes.

If you have pets... please don't give them bouncing balls to play with (even when my neighbors are gone their cats can be really annoying with the hard rubber balls)

Rolling chairs... please don't. For a week I thought it was going to rain... then I realized the sound of thunder was their chairs rolling across the floor.

In the end, you all live (to some extent) communally. If everyone makes an effort to be considerate that is all that anyone can ask.

All noisy neighbors have the responsibility to ask this question so kudos for asking. I lived in a first floor apartment - once. Never again. It's pure hell. What to do? TALK to your downstairs neighbor. Ask them their work schedules. If you're lucky, they'll be gone certain hours and you won't have to worry at those times about noise. Also ASK them what noises seem to be problematic. Take your shoes off at the door (it's very Eastern philosophy) and then invite your neighbors to leave you follow up notes about which noises are still a problem. If they're good neighbors, they will be relieved and very grateful that you took their comments seriously.

Get a rug.

I lived in an apartment once with a lot of serious med students, and we had a few friends over, and has a couple noise complaints. We were almost evicted as the apt. had a very strict policy. I was so frustrated that all of these neighbors had taken the time to call and email our landlord, but couldn't walk down the hall to let us know we were bothering them! I would have happily quieted down had I known I had been disturbing anyone.

I know this is different from your exact situation, but I think a face to face conversation is best, and if they don't initiate it with you, then you should with them. We are all adults and we all have to live in the space, so we should do our best to be civil and accomodate others.

Good luck!

I was an upstairs neighbor who had mystery noisy neighbors. Same floor, immediately below and diagonally below. One liked playing a radio fairly loudly in the wee hours of insomnia morning. Another enjoyed playing guitar at the same time with no muffling/muting. Sound traveled up the air vents from bedroom to bedroom. Thumping the wall startled the lower floor into quieting down every time. Never occurred to them they were disturbing me, because I was always so quiet.
Rugs, more fabric to absorb sound in your apartment can help. Get management on your side. Think about what dropping your shoes, clothing, or whatever sounds like through walls and floors.
I have stayed in hotels where the hippos and elephants had conga lines all night long above me. Morning brought stampeding wildebeests. I now hope that the universe rewards the animals with their own insomnia as they age via inconsiderate animals above them.
I understand that age and work can yield hearing issues that lead to LOUD people who can't hear themselves and thus don't realize they are being inconsiderate. And some of those when told never change.

I don't know...I'm kind of with those earlier posters. If my neighbors politely wrote me a nice note or knocked on my door, I'd be more than happy to put down some rugs etc. But I'm not so inclined to go out of my way to accommodate someone who resorts to angry, passive-aggressive notes.

I think you have to try to be considerate to a reasonable extent. Wear socks or slippers instead of heels or boots or (just as bad) flip flops. Try to step softy when you get up in the middle of the night. Don't run the vacuum at 10 pm, etc. Having rugs and upholstered furniture absorbs a lot of sound, but the fact is that people tend to walk through rooms on the areas around the rugs, not on them.

At the same time, your downstairs neighbors chose to live in a downstairs unit of an old duplex, so they have to kind of roll with the punches, as long as it's within reason. If you feel like you are being reasonable, you have to wonder if the people who lived in your unit before were unusually quiet, or if the neighbors are just trying to work on you. People who share walls and ceilings both have to do a little give and take. There are things you should never do, at any hour, like blast music. But you can't end up feeling like you can't live normally during regular hours of the day.

My experience is similar to brown1983 in that I have folks below and above me. There are two people who live above me and you can tell which person is which because one is MUCH louder than the other when he walks. I think that some people, even if very small, just naturally stomp their feet when they walk and think it's perfectly normal. Take off your shoes (especially hard-soled shoes) at the door and for pete's sake DON"T repeatedly throw a ball down the hall for your dog to fetch. If you are throwing a party, close the doors to your bedroom (provided the floor plan is the same) so that your neighbors can still sleep in their bedrooms peacefully if all your guests are in the living/dining/kitchen.

It's also very relative. We had one neighbor move out because he and his wife thought the noise from above was unbearable, then the new owner moved in and said he barely ever hears anything.

I had the same problem with my upstairs neighbor. she didn't have any rugs and her steps were very noisy. we talked and even if she still has no rugs she changed her shoes and she is more considerate. we have a great relationship and we all live in peace.
I use rugs in my place not only they make the house warm and elegant but solve neighbors fights and preserve your wood-floor!

Good luck!

I am the downstairs neighbor and I suffer silently. The couple above me is quite noisy.The female wears heals around the apartment everyday. I can hear the TV shows they watch, and often find we are watching the same thing! Most mornings their cell phone alarms go off at 6 am, and they often hit snooze and hop in the shower (which I can also hear) before turning the alarm off and the alarm rings and rings for 10-15 more minutes. I hear them argue in the late evening about which partner makes the bigger mess and doesn't clean (this one is a little upsetting- a lot of profane words are used!).

However, I am sure the people below me have the same feelings. Especially when my boyfriend is watching football or I'm rearranging furniture. But that's what happens when you live in old apartments, and live below someone. I have plenty of carpets with pads, curtains, throws, etc- anything to help absorb sounds!

Yeah, not fun.

First off - in a multi-family building, there is going to be noise. That's all there is to it. I've been on all sides of this one, from the one being complained about, to the one doing the complaining, and (fortunately the case now) to having neighbors who all tolerate the little bit of noise that happens, especially in old buildings.

I agree with those who have said to contact your neighbors and try to find a work around. I like the idea of asking if you can sit with them in their place while you have someone walk around upstairs in yours. If they're open to that, it will give you a very clear idea of just what it does sound like, and make them feel that you care.

To soften your steps: Area rugs (yeah, the floors are nice, but...) and put pads under them! Take off your shoes, and ask guests to do the same. Find out where the noise is the worst and really focus on those spaces. Make sure that any noise-making stuff is also off the floor (that means speakers, televisions, computer bits, etc) and that you pad the feet of furniture legs that sit on bare wood (super important on dining room chairs).

Realize that what seems like tip-toes to you may still sound like elephants on parade to them. And if they've asked for quiet and consideration once, they will get progressively frustrated with each subsequent asking. Which is why it's so important to reach out to them to let them know you are trying to work it out. If, after that, they're still buttheads, well... people can be buttheads.

It's also important to think about schedules - do you have a similar schedule as they do? Or are you being the most active during times they are trying to have quiet time? In the apartment above ours, one tenant is up and about very early (resulting in us hearing the early morning shuffle, flushing, water flowing, etc) and one is up very late, but stays in the living area (what we hear sounds like they're playing shuffle board upstairs). But we're OK with all that - they don't mind the large gatherings that we frequently have. It's a give and take.

The bottom line is, you are in a space that includes shared walls (or rather floors and ceilings). Try to work with your neighbors to create a positive environment where both people's needs are met.

I'm having noise issues with my neighbor, and I am in in a house! It might happen no matter where you are. I appreciate that you're concerned, though, because you seem to acknowledge that noise travels! Remember, people: you might not actually be making a lot of noise, but walls, floors, etc. can carry a lot of noise and make it seem louder than it really is. Don't just assume they're being unreasonable.

I'm also a downstairs neighbor in a building with beautiful vintage floors -- I've been living here for 4.5 years and I have had two different upstairs neighbors. I have some things to echo and some things to add!

- No hard soled shoes. This is the most important one!

- Do not vaccuum at 5:30 in the morning, unless its an emergency like broken glass or something. (My old neighbor vacuumed every morning!)

- Bouncy balls for your pets or kids sound like boulders from the first floor.

- Make sure your bed doesn't squeak-- my current upstairs neighbor has a squeaky bed. For this reason, we know his entire bed time routine and when he rolls over at night... and more, if you know what I mean.

- DO NOT LEAVE YOUR PHONE ON VIBRATE ON THE FLOOR!

- Don't dump your mop water over your balcony. (My neighbor does this, and it lands on my car and leaves a little waterfall over backdoor.)

- I'm sure area rugs and maybe even curtains would help absorb noise.

I've never complained to my neighbors, because I think we all have to have a little give and take in a communal living situation, and so noises are reasonable and expected! But if my neighbor ever asked me if there was anything he could do, I would make these points. Also, I'm not sure he would be comfortable with us knowing every detail of his sex life. =/

Good luck! If you lived above us, I would be so HAPPY to have you as an upstairs neighbor! :)

I've been both upstairs and downstairs neighbour, but if the solution is so automatically "get a rug" then why isn't equally automatically "tell them to get ear plugs"?

If you've chosen to live in an apartment instead of a house, you find you have to share things and ignore things that you don't necessarily want to. Share the elevator, share the laundry facilities, share the parking (if it's not assigned) and deal with evidence that you have living neighbours, ie: noise.

Communal living requires patience, diplomacy and tolerance. Just as living on a lovely treed street in a detached single-family house will require the same, when your neighbours have roofers show up at 7:30am or they listen to music while they wash their cars on sunny days. Patience, diplomacy, tolerance.

Another thought: keep a notebook and photos of changes you've made to mitigate the noise. This way if the landlord comes after you, you have evidence that you've put in all this effort and the landlord will take your side.

Having said that, I have to say it's rare to find neighbors who complain for no reason. My former "above" neighbors came home at 1 or 2 am, charged up the stairs with friends, screaming and yelling. PARKED THEIR JEEP outside my window, lights on and music blaring, and partied up and down all night.

And guess what, when confronted, they swore they were quiet as mice 100% of the time. So if someone complains, do ask yourself if you could be in a wee bit of denial.

As a "downstairs" dealing with problems with an "upstairs"- there are certain things that are unavoidable, such as footfalls and if you drop something, etc. Barefoot is not necessarily required (sometimes it actually sounds louder as there is less padding between your foot and the floor to cushion the sound) but definitely make a point of removing high heels, hard-soled boots, etc. before walking around.

Also, even though you may not think you are "blasting" sound, deep bass (ESPECIALLY from home theater surround sound systems) is a nightmare to your downstairs neighbors. It reverberates like crazy and sounds like a grating series of loud thuds. If you are the bass-y type, look into putting soundproofing tiles under your entertainment center to minimize bleed through.

And man, as someone whose life is literally disrupted on a daily basis (being woken up at 3am, having to hear incredibly loud music for 6-8 hours at a stretch, dribbling basketballs and having dance parties at midnight on weekdays, just to name a few issues with my neighbor) I am really grossed out by some of the comments people have made on here. Sometimes we DON'T have a choice but to live below other people because that is where we can afford to live and/or those are the only apartments available in an otherwise choice building. Yes, we all have to live together and figure out a way to be as unintrusive as possible. But that means compromise on both sides.

Totally unrelated: babyfishmouth, your name just made my day!

I agree with the comments on rugs and also with the comments suggesting you keep the apartment manager/company in the loop with these discussions. If things get out of hand it may become important for the manager to be fully up to date on the noise complaints/issues (keep track of dates of complaints).

Talk to your neighbors in person for sure, and make no assumptions on either end. I use to live upstairs and the downstairs neighbors told me and my roommate to stop walking around the apartment in high heels - which we didn't do in the first place! On our end we never complained about her piano playing and singing - so she probably never knew how much we actually heard coming from her apartment as well. From experience, tensions escalate really fast when false assumptions are made by either neighbor. I think you have to become a human person in your neighbor's eyes, otherwise you are just that heartless non-person that stomps around upstairs like a pack of elephants and they are the evil downstairs neighbors who seem to live to harass you.

I once had a terribly annoying DOWNSTAIRS neighbor, go figure. It was a group of 20 something males who often had loud weekend parties, and would play loud music sometimes all night and early in the morning. They would smoke pot inside and the smell would creep up into our unit! The fact that we had hardwood floors only made it worse for the noise.
Unfortunately, there was nothing that could be done about them, despite repeated complaints to our manager, talking rationally, and the occasional angry stomping on the floor by me, which only resulted in one or more of them pounding right back :(
Hopefully your situation is not so hopeless. I agree with the earlier comments that you should go down and talk to them, and have another person walk through your place with various footwear, to show them what is going on when they hear certain things. Hopefully, seeing your face will help them see you as more than a stomping monster and they will act with more empathy in the future.

sigh (Just to clarify...*I* left *them* a note. Not the other way around. I would have tried to work something out if they had left something politely for me.)

I don't walk on the hard floor in heels--at least, not beyond a quick run through the kitchen if I forgot something on my way out the door for work! I don't play loud music or loud movies. Heck, I go to bed at 10pm every night. I do not allow my child to run or jump inside the home, precisely because it makes noise. These are people who have never made an effort to communicate in a polite manner to me--their solution has been to bang on the ceiling at me when I do things such as running my garbage disposal. In the middle of the afternoon. Or when my son trips and falls. Or I go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. (How do they even HEAR that???)

I take offense to anyone who is going to "communicate" with me in such an obnoxious manner. They've also complained to the office about me with things that are just completely untrue--claimed I had a roommate and various other things that I do not. I am not intentionally rude, but I do not think they understand that living on the bottom floor of an apartment comes with some ambient noise. I've lived in many upstairs apartments--this is the first time I've had a problem. I'm actually quite introverted and quiet...no crazy parties or anything. So I don't think me continuing on with my life is being the slightest bit unreasonable. I don't complain when the smell from his cigar that he is smoking outside wanders up in through my open deck door.

Now, if I had been approached more nicely, I'd be happy to make accommodations...but I do not respond well to angry people.So mostly I just try to avoid them now. It's not like they or their adult son ever said "Hey, did you know we hear this random weird loud thing?" Just BANGING. I ignore angry people. It makes me retreat, because, honestly, it freaks me out.

My downstairs neighbor loved me until I removed the carpet and installed hardwood floors. 3 days later he sheepishly informed me that he could hear my footsteps. Just to make sure he wasn't exaggerating for effects, I had him walk around my apartment while I listened from his apartment. Yup, it was annoying as heck. So this is what I did:

1. Runner rugs with carpet pads under them.
2. Slippers with thick memory foam soles
3. If not wearing slippers then walk like a ballet dancer by pulling yourself up instead of pressing your feet (and your weight) down. Remember the contest with your sister at the beach on which of you can sink your feet in the sand quicker while the waves washes around you? You win by pressing your feet into the sand. Same thing when you walk, which is why sometimes a 100 lbs woman can sound like stomping elephants while a 200 lbs man is barely audible - its how you carry yourself.

My downstairs neighbor does not expect total silence, he knows the cost of urban first-floor living. Once I done the 3 things above and I asked him from time to time, he says that he doesn't hear me anymore.

I guess my point was...to anyone who lives downstairs...just please try to be nice about it if there is a problem!

I've been on both sides of that one as well.

For the person in the upstairs apartment: TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES. If you can put down a rug, put it down. Don't play loud music, watch TV loudly, stomp, run the vacuum/laundry after 10pm... y'know, sensible things. Shoes are the biggest issue, usually.

For the person downstairs: chill. Seriously. You live in an urban environment, and walls/ceilings are thin. There will be noise. You can complain if the noise is excessive, but you'll have to live with reasonable noise. For example, you WILL hear the shower running, sometimes at odd hours. You're gonna have to deal with it. Same with the ringing of phones, alarm clocks (unless they're on the floor; then you can complain). TV watching is reasonable, even if it's late; loud TV is not (aka: if my husband can't hear the TV from outside the room, the downstairs neighbors should be able to deal).

Basically, be reasonable and considerate and keep in mind that everyone gets to actually LIVE in their apartment, including the people downstairs AND upstairs.

First I'd like to say that I'm glad I don't live any where near both lorijo or Nevanna.

I live in the middle flat of a three floored building with no insulation in between floors as well. So I know what it's like to have both upstairs AND downstairs neighbors.

The first thing I'd suggest you do is bring them a nice gift and apologize for all the noise that probably drove them insane when you were moving in and renovating for 2 months. This probably just started things off on the wrong foot. Seriously, think about what that must have sounded like to them!

I find that being nice to my neighbors works wonders. We all tolerate some noise from each other because we know that we are all doing our best not to drive the other ones crazy. Yes, that means area rugs and NO SHOES early in the morning or late at night on our vintage hard wood floors. In fact, I don't think any of us wear shoes more than just getting ready to leave or come in. You'd be surprised how loud just normal walking sounds on those hard wood floors from below.

And now my upstairs neighbors are about to renovate. I am certainly not looking forward to it and know it's going to be three months of pure torture for me but they let me know well in advance and even showed me the plans of what they are doing. If it gets too bad, I know I can say something to them but there is probably no way I'm going to complain about the noise. I know that they are trying their best and also that when it comes time for me to make noise, they won't complain either so it all works out in the end.

I think the key for everyone is to feel some empathy for your neighbors, they may only seem unreasonable because they are pushed past the breaking point and then every little thing becomes major.

And I agree Sweatergirl, you sound like you are going to be an excellent neighbor!!!

I have been both an upstairs and downstairs neighbor. I cannot believe someone would say "just live your life" without any regard to your neighbors. I think this attitude really says a lot about society. Are we at a place where we just don't give a damn about others?

In my building, upstairs neighbors have thrown dirty clothes, cups, water, plant leaves, used condoms (we have many college students), undergarments (goes with the condoms I assume), cigarettes, drink cans, etc. I have a large open balcony that the other floors look over. Do I ignore all of this "stuff" being thrown because I "should have known" it was going to happen? This is the most rediculous thinking I've read on this site.

We all need to be good neighbors.

What if your upstairs neighbor is your Landlord?

I've lived in a bottom-floor condo now for the last 7 years. I've had 3 upstairs neighbors in this time period. My current tenant isn't really bad at all. There are occasional very loud sounds that make me want to bang on the ceiling but for the most part, I just need to deal with occasional loud walking, which is tolerable. The last tenant I had, I almost never heard, to the point that I wondered if she traveled a lot for business or had moved out.

Now, the first tenant who lived there I had to endure for 4 long years and he was the absolute worst neighbor I've ever had. He lived in a one-bedroom condo with his toddler son and dog which resulted in the an abundance of crazy loud noise, of which the only logical explanation I could come up with was that they installed their own personal bowling alley. Every morning, he woke up at 6:30am and consequently, so did I because it sounded like he lunged out of bed every.single.time. It honestly rattled my walls. This was a time when I worked as a bartender so I had varying hours but I mostly worked afternoon and night hours so I liked to sleep in. So one important piece of advice I'd give is to ask them what their schedules are so you know what times you're more likely to disturb them. Being woken out of peaceful sleep on multiple occasions, let alone a daily basis, is enough to make even the most pleasant people extremely cranky.

Like many others have said, kudos to you for being understanding and wanting to help the situation. I tried being the polite neighbor and alerted my neighbor to the noisiness and he was a defensive jerk. In fact, when I told him that while he was out and left his dog on his patio unattended (against the rules), his dog peed and it went over the edge and splashed onto my patio. Nothing like cleaning someone else's dog's urine.

And to the people who say things like "I feel that anyone who lives underneath anyone else has to know that there will be noise. No one forced them to live on the first floor" are completely insensitive. Some people choose to live on first floors because they don't like or are incapable of walking up stairs on a daily basis. I choose to to live on the bottom floor because I didn't like the idea of lugging my groceries or heavy items up stairs all the time since I have a bad back. Does that mean I don't deserve to live peacefully in my home? As bottom dwellers we understand there will be some noise, but excessive loud noise on a daily basis can eventually make living in your own home unbearable. But I'm guessing you can't relate because you've never been there.

Oh how I wish this was a question of my upstairs neighbour! And I also got really really mad when I read the first few comments. I'm glad most people are considerate, but there are always assholes like that and I feel like I live under one of those.
I have left her some passive-agressive notes, for sure. I have even been super nice and send her a note together with some felt stickers for her bed leg, because it was absolutely impossible to sleep through the weekly sexnights.
Never wanted to be this kind of neighbour, but I had to start bonking on the ceiling and sending notes when she got rude when I went up to complain about the weekday parties that would go on until 5.

A little understanding on both sides goes a long way towards peaceful living. My old apartment was in a very old house and we got weekly complaints from the downstairs neighbour about stomping noises - but the apartment was carpeted, we never wore shoes inside, we even switched our living room and dining room around because the living room was over her bedroom. The mystery was that if she could hear so much noise from our apartment, why didn't she assume we could hear all the screaming/sex/television from hers?

You can't be a good upstairs neighbor without area rugs. Also, wear slippers or other soft-soled shoes. Beyond that, they need to get over it.

Ask your landlord to spray insulation between your floor and their ceiling. Many upstairs/downstairs neighbors in my condo complex have shared the expense of doing that and apparently it helps a lot!

Have lived in apartments all of my 50+ years, and this is especially a problem on the West Coast, where buildings tend to have no insulation. Civil communications and mindful consideration will go a long way towards keeping the peace, as will area rugs, carpeting and slippers. To those I would add using your "inside voice," since you are inside after all, and it helps to protect your own privacy. ( I know so much about my upstairs neighbor's personal life because he talks soooooo loud on the telephone.) Finally, whether you go barefoot or not, make sure to walk softly, and teach your kids to do so too. It will be much better for your neighbor, and in the long run, better for your feet too.

Just to be clear: both upstairs AND downstairs neighbors should use rugs.

Actually sometimes circumstances can force someone to live in a ground floor apartment, we lived in upstairs units for over 15 years and then my older son became wheelchair bound. They do not build very many apartment complexes where we live with elevators (if they do they are very expensive) so we are the losers who are force to live on the first floor - until they make wheelchair that can navigate the stairs - that we can afford.

So based on your comment and others I have read I guess we just have to take whatever our more fortunate, able bodied and possibly noisey neighbors dish out.

As to the original post, I think you would want to spend a little more money to make your place as sound proof as possible. Don't you want your home to be as stress free and as quiet possible? Don't you think your neighbors, even if they are the losers who are living in the first floor unit deserve a place that is as quiet as possible?

Rugs are an excellent suggestion, Can you take up your floor without damaging it and put insulation in..maybe the downstairs neighbors can re-do the space between your floors and their ceilings, perhaps you can offer to split the cost.

I think that putting rugs down, keeping music and TV at a normal level and not wearing shoes is enough, and that if you've done that and they still complain, it's their issue. Just be reasonable.

Living below someone will come with noise issues unless you live in a concrete building. If you are super noise sensitive, then you need to find another place to live. That might sound harsh, but people should be able to do normal things in their apartment without their neighbour freaking out. If the unit below is really noise-troubled then it's the landlord's responsibility to fix it structurally, or else it'll be hard to keep a tenant in that unit.

My mom lived in a place with thin walls and floors (a loft conversion condo) and she thought everyone was trying to bug her by "slamming" cupboard doors and stomping around in high heels. She could hear her upsairs neighbour peeing in the toilet and she thought she was doing it on purpose. WTF?? I told her to sell the place and move, which she finally did and now she's much happier and acknowledges how crazy the situation made her. Her downstairs neighbour asked her once to not wear high heels in her place. She never wore shoes inside and doesn't own high heels...

Having lived in apartments or condos my entire adult life, I empathize with both the bottom-dwellers and the top, and I always do my best to be considerate. But some people just have unrealistic expectations, e.g. our current downstairs neighbor (who rents while we own, btw), who is extremely cranky, hates noise of any sort and told me shortly after moving in that she hates kids--in response to my comment that my husband and I are trying to adopt. Well, tough--next time ask your future neighbors whether they have/plan to have kids, instead of just assuming that since there aren't any yet there never will be. I can only imagine what it'll be like when we do adopt--we had my (40 lb) 6-year-old niece over a month ago and the neighbor had a hissy-fit because our niece ran into the bedroom (about 20 ft down the hallway) to get a book. Oh, and we have carpeted floors, with the max amount of padding.

I'm the annoying upstairs neighbor. I have hardwood floors, and while I do have a couple of rugs down and walk around on my tiptoes while barefoot (I don't even realize I do it anymore) my cat is a monster. He's a 22 lb. cat (Maine Coon-sized) and loves to noisily knock things over, jump down from counters, run, curl my rugs up and he practically screams when he meows. The tenant below me is the landlord's brother but thankfully he just laughs and asks how my "big boy" is doing.

The "shoes off" rule is most important, PARTICULARLY for kids, whose footfall always reverberates like they were Godzillas. Then rugs.

If you're not happy with the notes, then you do need to talk to them. After a number of bad experiences knocking on loud neighbors' doors, I no longer both and simply "bang". Be neighborly so you don't turn them into bangers! (And you don't say anything when the noise is occurring; if it's between 11 pm and 7 am, they really have a legitimate expectation for less noise.)

Also realize that if you do nothing, everyone in the building/complex will soon know how noisy and inconsiderate you are. Any arguments or other juicy bits overheard will be talked about, especially if you aren't very nice. I've got nasty unresponsive neighbors, and I vent about them to others all the time to others in the building, including things that I wish I didn't hear and they wouldn't want others to know.

If you're uncomfortable with going yourself, I'd ask your landlord to accompany you to your neighbor's apartment while your partner or a friend walks around in yours. That way you, the neighbors, and the landlord can experience the noise all at the same time and if they're being unreasonable, he/she can tell them. I think some people have an unrealistic expectation about noise in apartment buildings. If they want silence they can move to a house in the woods.

Try to make friends with them. It's easier to laugh off random noises when you know the people. When I was a kid we lived in some military apartment buildings that were made of paper, but everyone knew each other. The downstairs neighbor knew specifically that my dad and I, but not my mom, had a stomach bug. They were also very confused when my babysitter and I decided to roller skate up and down the hall but knew my folks were out and figured it was something an 8 yo could talk a 12 yo into thinking was a good idea. We also thought it was funny when we found out a day of strange thumps was actually the 6 yo upstairs "practicing" jumping off a chair.

And get some rugs and rug pads and all the things other commenters suggested. We tell our neighbors (townhouse now) when we're having a party so they expect some extra noise. Of course we've also had them over to dinner.

@msmla

Sounds like you have a pretty obnoxious neighbour who will move out eventually after you adopt. But the fact that she rents and you own shouldn't factor into this at all. Both are homes and she has every right to treat it as such without you mentioning that your use of your home has some sort of priority over her use of hers.

You could talk to you landlord about using a product like Green Glue. http://www.greengluecompany.com/. Not sure exactly how you would use is though- possibly by applying the glue and drywall to the neighbors ceiling. May be worth checking out.

I was looking at green glue to keep our downstairs neighbors stereo sound to a minimum. It's very expensive and I would only consider it as a last resort.

Get a rug, go shoeless in the house and no jumping around. That's about all you can do. If/when you decide to upgrade your floors then I'd look into soundproofing options. It's an expensive and complicated process so you'll have to decide if it's worth it.

Love hearing about your monster cat. I never hear my upstairs neighbor's footsteps and he has to be close to 200 lbs. It's his 2 cats that I hear all the time: chasing eachother, hitting the toys across the hardwood floors, jumping onto and from sofas and chasing eachother some more. It's cute listening to the run-run-run-boing! of the pitter patter feline feet.

I've had some pretty hellish neighbors but I'm lucky at the moment that I managed to move a friend of mine in downstairs when the old lot moved out. She was my dog's foster home so she doesn't care when he's obnoxious and loud, and I don't care about what all of hers get up to (and even if I didn't know and love her, it's still an improvement on the parties the nightmare pair used to have until 5am during weekdays).

And I'm actually relieved that the upstairs neighbors keep really odd hours and wake me up because it means they're very tolerant of any noise that my dog (or my fosters) make!

Good point, txl2323 - some people in first-floor apartments live there because they have to (because of disability, old age, apartment prices, etc.). It's not acceptable to just ignore their needs.

I also agree that friendliness goes a long way. I've lived in bottom-floor apartments twice - one liked to play ball with her dog and walk around in heels and the other liked to have loud, sweary fights with her husband. But I was friendly with both, so it didn't bother me as much.

Oh, it does go both ways.
On the first day she moved in (the next morning - a weekend/ holiday no less) she played her music so loud first thing in the morning.
I thought I was being polite by letting her know right away that the building wasn't designed to stifle sound.

when she continued to blar her music, I became less amiable.

Then she started complaining that she could hear me walk. At this point, considering she refused to play her music at a reasonable volume, and that walking is something I sort of need to do... I took the attitude that if you buy a unit in a 60 year old building with hardwood floors, you should expect to hear people walk! (that's why I ALWAYS live on the top floor!)

But I am barefoot most of the time, and tip toe a lot.
Once, when a friend was visiting, my friend put on her danskos (big cloppy type shoes) and was walking back and forth down the hallway as she was getting ready. I asked her what on earth she was doing?! You're going to enrage the bitch downstairs!

And when my boyfriend at the time was over, who weighed about 240 (I'm around 125 ) bitchy neighbor yelled and banged when he would walk! I thought she should be grateful that I'M not 240lbs!!!

Turns out she was certifiably crazy - and she's gone now - (family took her in) and her place as been empty for a couple years now - I'll have to learn to behave again if anyone ever moves in down there!

(Knock on wood)

Having a face-to-face conversation can go a long way toward building bridges. My downstairs neighbor was a lot more understanding when we told her our 2 little kids are in bed by 7 p.m., so if they do happen to drop toys somewhere other than on the rug, it'll be over soon. And we really do try hard to teach our kids about being quiet and polite to our neighbors, but stuff happens.

Make friends with your neighbors. Invite them to dinner, drop off little presents on holidays. Bring new neighbors a bottle of wine when they move in. We are the downstairs neighbors but the neighbor next to us is super sensitive to noise & other little annoyances. She did not like us when we first moved in. We're the only people in the building with kids so we are super noisy compared to everyone else. Also we're not the neatest neighbors. I sometimes leave my stroller parked in the hall & don't sweep as regularly as I should (little things like that used to set her off). Anyways we reach out & made friends with her. My kids adore her. And she loves us. We still try to be respectful. I let her know when we're going to be babysitting or hosting parties. She doesn't like the noise but she's fine as long as we try to be respectful. I dropped off dinner for her after I babysat 6 kids in my tiny condo (my way to apologize for all the screaming & stomping around). It's hard to be a mean neighbor when people are obviously trying their best. Also we've gone upstairs & told our neighbors to pipe down before. We're friends. We've had them over for dinners, we drop off cookies at Christmas, etc. so if they are keeping us up at night I just slip on a robe, pad upstairs & gently tell them that we're having problems sleeping. Could they please turn the tv down a notch? And I make a point to be super friendly about it. It's not their fault they are loud. Our building just has crappy insulation & we go to bed earlier then they do. The sooner people stop warring with their neighbors the easier life gets.

1) TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES
2) TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES
3) TAKE OFF YOUR SHOES
4) Put rugs with under padding on hardwood floors.
5) Be conscious of the noise you make.
6) If there are quiet hours in your building, adhere to them.

I'm an extremely noise conscious apartment dweller. I hate to be the one who disturbs anyone else, so I'm hyper vigilant about the sound we make in our home and purposely live on the ground floor so that our dog and cat running about cannot disturb anyone.

As I don't like to disturb anyone, that means I'll also put up with quite a bit of noise from my neighbors without ever complaining. We live in an apartment on the ground floor, so I expect noise. However, it's pretty infuriating to know that my upstairs neighbors are not considerate of us at all. We've had multiple sets of upstairs neighbors, so the noise level is definitely connected with personal behaviors and not just the design of the apartments.

One thing I don't think anyone's mentioned. If you have vintage wood floors, do the floorboards creak? It is possible that what the downstairs neighbors are complaining about is not footfall noise, but the floorboards creaking.

I had this problem when renting in an 1880's building. I put down area rugs, and then padding under the rugs, and walked around barefoot, but one person downstairs kept on complaining. Finally, the landlord and I went into the downstairs apartment, and the other landlord walked around in my apartment, and it was clear it was the floor making the noise.

There are remedies for creaking, squeaking floorboards. They are something I would expect a landlord to pay for and arrange to have done, not the individual tenant.

My last upstairs neighbors were AWFUL. They had three giant dogs in their 400 square foot apartment, sliding around and jumping on and off the furniture. She stomped around like sasquatch and ALWAYS had parties late during the weeknights because she worked on the weekends. She kept a five-gallon bucket full of dog crap under my kitchen window. When I asked her about moving it or trying to be less noisy she just got pissy and louder, and moved the bucket under my bedroom window under the AC instead.

My new neighbor is much better, but he has been having some very loud phone arguments late at night with his child's mother. I can accept that our walls and floors are so thin that I can hear phones vibrating and people coughing/burping/sneezing, but sometimes it's way over the top and I don't know how to bring it up to them.

I try to be quiet during the day when he is sleeping, so I would just appreciate it if he wasn't so damn loud when I'm trying to sleep.

Ask to switch apartments for ten minutes to hear what the other hears. It would give both of you a better understanding of how much sound travels. If you alternate spouses/roommates you can keep the volume realistic.

I've also been both the upstairs & downstairs neighbor, in converted houses with no insulation to speak of, & with the additional complication of working nights, & also, when I was the upstairs, having 3 cats & 3 dogs. We shared laundry facilities (on the 1st floor) & I had plenty of opportunity to hear my animals sounding like a herd of heffalumps overhead. Keeping the dogs' nails short helped more than you would believe. So did putting padding under the dogs' crates, & giving the cats only soft toys--if they had hard plastic balls it sounded like a bowling alley. I had to use a bark collar (& I hate them) with my first dog, who would bark from 530a until I came home at 730a--an impossible behavior to eliminate any other way, because, from his perspective, it worked: if he barked long enough I always came home. Couldn't do anything about the cats jumping down from the fridge. I never wore shoes in the house, & tried to arrange my cleaning schedule so I wasn't vacuuming when they were trying to sleep. In return for me doing what I could, I asked them to keep the music & TV at a reasonable level until they knew I was up.
Most of them were reasonable, about both my noise & theirs. A couple were true jerks.
Now that I have my own house, I can vacuum at 3a if I want to. Love it.

I've been the upstairs and downstairs neighbor. Nothing helps more than rug pads and no shoes.

I had a downstairs neighbor who frequently called the cops on our cat (that's right) we weren't even home and our cat just had the run-around-cat-crazies.

After a few calls to the police they informed her we could charge her with harassment. She was old/crazy us being above her was the very least of her problems.

I would contact them one time, in person, to let them know that there is unfortunately nothing to be done about it, and that you're trying to keep the noise down but the building is simply not conducive to it. If they keep with the notes, either stop reading the notes all together, or read them, laugh, and pretend they never existed. Dealing with neighbor noise, especially upstairs footsteps, is part of apartment life. If they cannot handle the building noise, they should find a more insulated/carpeted building, rent a house, or maybe just come to terms with the fact that no amount of notes will change this particular reality.

I have a neighbor upstairs with a 9 year old son. I understand he is young. Sometimes the pounding, (almost as if he is standing in one spot and literally jumping up and down) lasts for about 45 min. I gather it is before his bedtime, and I generally try to be patient and just moan and groan to my sister about it, but sometimes it gets really bad.

I finally sent her a text asking is they were "ok" because I heard a lot of really loud pounding on the floor and that I was concerned and wanted to check on them. She said they were fine and thanks for checking.

I have seen her in the common area and mentioned that it seemed like her son was "having a good time up there" and explained to her what I meant, she said that it was only when his friends were over. However, his friends aren't over during the week.

I know the way I did it was passive, but she doesn't answer the door when I do go up there. So I didn't know any other way.

Did I strain our (kind of non-existent) relationship?

Area rugs with pads, and not wearing shoes indoors are 2 reasonable suggestions.

Another thought is that no matter what kind of home you live in, it's reasonable to expect that people in the US work a regular 9-5 job, so noise between 10pm and 7am is not OK. That's any noise that can be heard outside of your home. Music, TV, talking. Other people do not want to hear you any more than you want to hear them.

very short view.compromise is needed

Can anyone recommend slippers that are especially good for muffling footsteps? I'm moving into a co-op apartment soon and want to start off on the "right foot" with my downstairs neighbors.

oh my goodness, i'm luckier than i thought. i live in a 70 year old building with concrete sub floors. for the last six years three different downstairs neighbors have never complained about my walking around, exercising or dropping pots in the kitchen. i've asked them several times and no complaints. and they have a mysterious dog that never barks, i've seen it but never heard it bark.

I used to live in an apartment building I called "salsa dungeon." I was on the top floor, but too bad -- the neighbors on either side of me and beneath me loved, loved, LOVED their salsa music and would blare it at top volume all night and all weekend. (Although I visited the apartment building twice before signing the lease, I somehow managed to go there on the only two quiet evenings the place ever had.) During that miserable year and a half, I became able to tune out a lot of loud noise, but sometimes was still awakened by the fact that my bed and other furniture was vibrating on the floor because of the bass beats.

My downstairs neighbors thought *I* was stompy! Though we actually found out there was something wrong with their ceiling/my floor, which was what was causing my part of the noise. I will always be grateful for that faulty floor, because the landlord had to do such major reno that they let me break the lease and move out.

Rugs with pads beneath them. Noisier but necessary activities (vacuuming, etc.) only at reasonable hours except in case of emergency. Any slippers with thick cushy soles that muffle footsteps. Etc. Everyone keeps saying the same stuff, but that's pretty much all you can do. Good for you for wanting to try.

From Sweatergirl's description— her home is technically a condo, correct? First thing is to check your CC&R's. Requiring something like 80% of floor space be covered by rugs is pretty boilerplate in those things. It would be neighborly of you to do so, but it may be an HOA requirement.

If you didn't love your floors, I'd recommend installing floating floors—some sort of click and lock with barrier below—not expensive at all as far as floors go, and easy (enough) to DIY. That, coupled with area rugs, and you probably wouldn't give this a second thought ever again (or hear your downstairs neighbor).

Also, hat tip for being a conscientious neighbor. For those that can't believe their downstairs neighbors have the gall to complain... you know how you can hear that broom poking the underside of your floor? What do you think you sound like from above?

Yeah.....I don't know. A few area rugs and a general no-shoes rule are reasonable and considerate. But the reality is that people living in close proximity to one another make noise. I think that people might have to dial down their expectations a bit.

I live on the bottom floor because I had no other choice (due to a <1% rental vacancy rate in my city).

Re: expectations - I can, almost literally, hear a pin drop upstairs. I can hear every time my neighbours pee, cough, flush, sing, whistle, turn on the faucet, put dishes in the sink, or raise their voices even slightly. I expect to hear these things, and I absolutely do not expect them to curtail their normal activities in their own home.

Where I think they could meet me halfway: not singing Adele in a loud falsetto at 11:00 pm on a weeknight, not wearing high heels on hard floors inside, not pounding on the floor above my bedroom at 6 am.

A bit of common sense and consideration goes a long way.

I have always tried to be conscientious with neighbors downstairs. I find some places I've lived have had an over exaggerated noisiness about them, (converted loft space... I could hear my neighbor rolling toilet paper off the roll in her bathroom) I'd say try your best to wear slippers indoors, invest in good area rugs and talk with the neighbors. Find out if they're used to having neighbors above them. Beyond that... let them deal with it. You must be happy in your space!

Totally agree with this! I have been a downstairs neighbor to a family with THREE small children and no regard for our sanity. I eventually moved out because I couldn't take it, but area rugs and a no-shoe (or slippers only!) rule is a must. Also, kids in an upstairs apartment are just not a good idea.

You think Adele at 11 on a weeknight is bad? Try being woken up from a dead sleep at 1:30 on a weekday by Alanis, the Beatles, random crap pop music (duets even, so I know it's not just the woman, who seems like a nutjob, that is the problem, the seemingly sensible and mature guy is in on it)...and the dishwasher, either running past 12 or on before 5:30am. Oh and if we complain about the noise, then they scream at each other about it for half an hour: "You're bothering people!" "NO I'M NOT NO I'M NOT SHUT UP SHUT UP!"

The People Upstairs

The people upstairs all practise ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
They celebrate week-ends all the week.
When they take a shower, your ceilings leak.
They try to get their parties to mix
By supplying their guests with Pogo sticks,
And when their fun at last abates,
They go to the bathroom on roller skates.
I might love the people upstairs more
If only they lived on another floor.

-Ogden Nash

Advice for not being a crappy neighbor: don't wear shoes in the house, get some rugs, don't be noisy between 10/11 and 7. The girl next door is always getting complaints from her downstairs neighbors (who have two small children, a cat, and are always out on their balcony or the front lawn being ridiculously loud, or illegally BBQing on their wooden balcony) about "stomping around in high heels" because her place has laminate...the previous tenants, who were the worst (so glad they got evicted), had put so many stains and cigarette burns and such into the carpet that the rental company tore it out. The downstairs neighbor claims this girl, who I never hear a peep from, is walking around in heels during the day, waking her baby up...but the girl has a full-time job. It's the cat walking around waking the baby up. Meanwhile, I'm sure this girl loves living over a baby.

In the two buildings I've lived in, I've always lived in the middle, and have had tenants above and below me move, and trust me there is a difference in the noise level they make which can only be attributed to being shitty neighbors. There's no way the people above me - who walk so heavily they make my light fixtures rattle - aren't stomping around in shoes, because the previous tenants didn't have that effect. I weigh 265lbs, my husband weighs a similar amount, and the lady under me says she rarely hears anything from us at all. Also, in what world is it ok to have loud sing-alongs at 1:30 in the morning above my bedroom (why not do that shit in the living room?), or to start the dishwasher past midnight, or start it before 5:30 am? Why do they think it's a good idea to start arguing about whether they're bothering us or not after we bang? (we've done the talking face-to-face thing...just caused more arguing). If we bang on the ceiling at 1:30, it's because your out-of-tune rendition of "Nothing's Going to Change My World" is seriously affecting mine, thanks. Or randomly pouring a bucket of water down through their balcony onto ours - not over the side of theirs and it gets a bit of water on ours, they just drop it through the centre of theirs (wood with spaces in between), and onto our patio furniture. The day they do it to me when I'm out there eating supper or reading my Kindle, they will get punched in the face(s).

Meanwhile, I've tried to be nice. I generally ignore them. I smile and nod at the guy when I pass him on the stairs. One time I tried to complement the woman on her dress as I passed them in the stairwell, just to be friendly, and as they went up another flight I heard her say to him "what did she say THAT for?!" I'm friends with everyone else near me and am thankful they're so great, because it would just compound the misery otherwise. I'd say I can't wait for them to move out, but they could be replaced with worse neighbours, so I just suck it up and feel grateful that they don't seem to be quite as bad as they used to be...

It is NOT your problem that the insulation is gone. As the downstairs neighbor of the same situation, I would recommend a few things:

1) Take your shoes off at the door, and make them the last things you put on before you leave. Shoes (especially ones with any kind of heel) make more noise than you realize.

2) Don't clean or move furniture after 9pm. You would be surprised how noisy you can be, bouncing across the room while dusting or sweeping.

3) Pull your bed away from the wall, or use a blanket to muffle those squeaky mattress springs before sex.

4) Put carpet in high traffic areas, even if its just a few throw rugs.

5) If you have pets, train them to not run all over the house, like a herd of demolition derby elephants.

Other than those, I generally put up with the noise. I know that the insulation is gone, so I try not to hold it against my upstairs neighbor.

We have lived in our place for about 13 years. We moved in when our daughter was 6 months old. We had the floors refinished; we had a living room area rug, and a few other small area rugs. My daughter had asthma and allergies (dust, pollen) as a child and the doctor said the fewer rugs, the better. Our downstairs neighbor (universally agreed in our condo complex to be a mean-spirited, extremely odd little man - used to yell loudly at his wife in the mornings until she finally divorced him) used to bang CONSTANTLY on his ceiling when my daughter was a toddler and young child. Toddlers and young kids make noise!! We DID try to keep the noise down, since her bedroom is right above his. We told her to be quiet in the morning and that kind of thing. But this guy just banged and banged away without ever talking to us. A few times I was so angry that I banged back on the floor with the broom. Sometimes, to get even, he'd turn up his rock music to super-loud levels. Now my daughter is 13 and obviously she doesn't run around so much; when she's going to have a sleepover birthday party with 8 or 10 girls, we warn him in advance. I agree that it's nice to try and accommodate your neighbors to the extent that you can, but some a**holes will never be accommodated no matter what you do.

Also, some people made comments about choosing to live in an apartment or choosing to live on the first floor. Please note that sometimes medical issues make it impossible to live on upper floors, unless that particular complex has elevators. I have also lived in places where apartment living is affordable, whereas houses and condos are outrageous; so sometimes its not a matter of choice.

I've been in both situations. Once when my downstairs neighbors were chefs who would come in at 3 am and chain-smoke and drink and talk loudly with their buddies (and I worked at 7am). I left a nice note asking them to not smoke under my bedroom as everything in there would STINK of smoke, and they agreed. The noise was another thing,but I used a noise machine and earplugs and that was that.

I've been the noisy neighbor too, but always introduce myself and ask to be notified I'd things are too bad. Our two large dogs (and my husband and stepdaughter) are STOMPERS. We put down rugs and took shoes off, and checked in frequently with the neighbors to make sure everything is OK. Once we moved to our own house, we had a rehearsal studio in the basement. After the cops coming a couple of times, I put notes in every neighbor's mailbox asking them to call or email or come over to let us know exactly what it is that they're hearing, and how loud. It helped us direct our soundproofing efforts. Now the music can be heard slightly outside the house, but we don't play past ten PM (the legal cutoff time). It's always better to be proactive in these situations.

It takes understanding on both sides... upstairs should do what they can and downstairs should then deal with the rest without fussing.

It may be hard to believe but the slightest movements really can be awful for those below... My last condo would resonate with every upstairs thump and every fixture would rattle. I was certain my upstairs neighbor was a jerk and stomping elephant, moving furniture at midnight. I finally went to confront him and it turns out he was a teeny, darling little old man, just walking around. (Though I still wonder if he secretly did jumping jacks all night when I left.)

This happened to me and my husband, we bought a condo on the 3rd Floor of a newer (10 years) 4-story complex 2 years ago. It has hard wood floors (which was a selling point for us). And from what I can tell by these comments there is a separation between TOLERANT and INTOLERANT downstairs neighbors.

We found out two months in that our downstairs neighbors were complaining of noise - that we were "stomping around" at all hours, having loud parties, slamming doors, and the best complaint was that we were causing their condo to shake with the force of our stomping. We both work beyond full time (7am - 7pm) 5 days a week, we sleep when we're not at work, and on weekends we either go out or watch TV. We have a 10 lb dog who doesn't bark and who goes to my Mother-In-Law's home when we aren't home (so she can use their backyard). We don't have parties and occassionally have one or two people over to watch a movie in which case, we're sitting and talking quietly.

So, we bought house slippers, asked people to remove their shoes if they came over, bought $1000s worth of floor coverings, tried to be extra quiet after 10pm (you know, in case one of us had to use the restroom in the middle of the night, god forbid) - and still got the same exact complaints.

And in case I'm starting to sound like the flippant upstairs neighbor without the courtesy to care about people living below us: the neighbors who live above us who have 2 young children (5-9 age range) who run around, jump, and once even threw a full on tantrum all of which we can hear. Have I ever complained? NO. These are things that happen/happened during daylight hours and are not being done maliciously to ruin my life. They are people living their lives upstairs. Yes, I hear them. I am going to hear people living around me, I live in a condo.

If you want absolute peace and quiet without any disturbance from anyone - BUY A HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE WOODS. Otherwise you will have to learn to be tolerant of other people living their different lives around you :)

It is very nice of you to try and be considerate. i'm going to guess you already have some carpeting and don't wear shoes in your apartment because those are obvious. i actually registered for this site to comment and let you know that unless you can remove floors and insulate properly this will always be an issue. i was the loud upstairs neighbor no matter what i did. after making myself, the previous owner, and my building's management miserable for years my downstairs neighbor moved out. i haven't heard a thing from the new owner in 3 years. i hear a lot from above me as well...it's just the building and you just have to believe it's not on purpose. good luck, you need it.

I have upstairs, downstairs, and next-to-me neighbers (and I am, in turn, an upstairs, downstairs, and next-to neighbor). Because this building has had quite a bit of turnover, I can compare people I think are loud/quiet, and people who think I'm loud/quiet. SO, from this sample, I can say:

High heels on wood floors will always annoy your downstairs neighbor. OK for 5 mins before you run out the door, not ok traipsing back and forth for an hour. Toddlers are heavy walkers: too bad, get over it, this is how humans are designed. If you had a party last night, you can't complain in the morning when you're hungover: this is your neighbors proper revenge. If you are deaf, you need to use your hearing aid rather than turn your TV up THAT LOUD. But if the walls/floors aren't insulated well, it's best for everyone to pretend we can't hear each other. Boxing is a surprisingly loud workout; best save it for the gym. Yoga is not loud, even if your neighbor thinks it's loud.

So--reasonableness. You are going to hear each other. Sometimes it will tip over into too loud. Don't complain unless it's a pattern. Everyone gets one loud party and EVERYONE gets loud-footed child/crying child passes. That's just life. But don't install a punching bag.

sarbear83 - I appreciate your post.

I moved into the fourth floor of a condo, only to have the amount of carpet and padding immediately challenged by my downstairs neighbor even though NO changes were done. He's gotten better, but I pretty much never have more than 2 people over in a two bedroom condo where I live on my own(he should be so lucky).

Strangely, music noise doesn't seem to make him notice, it's just people moving around.

I'm all about being civil, but people living with people above them can't have the "if i hear ANY noise it's a problem" mentality. If they don't like it, change their situation. Nobody says you have to live in a first floor apartment or condo in any part of town. Plus many places have elevators for people with trouble getting up stairs.

sarbear, my experience is similar to yours. When I recently received a violation letter from my landlord (too much laughter coming from our unit was the main thing one of my neighbors apparently complained about), I was so incensed that I immediately emailed him a laundry list of things that I've been overlooking since I moved in a few years ago. Things like cigarette and pot smoke coming in to my unit, midnight power tool and hammering sessions, extreme stomping by the children upstairs (so bad that I sometimes expect plaster to fall), fledgling opera singers and stage actors rehearsing with their windows open, to name a few. I told him that I put up with that shit because I understand that at times we can be noisy when we have guests over, or when I'm roughhousing with my daughter.

I was pleasantly surprised when he took my side and offered to send THOSE offenders letters. I decided to save my complaint token for another day and be maganimous. Hopefully he will remember that next time someone complains that we're being too happy in our apartment.

Laughter = BAD!

I am another "noisy upstairs neighbor" who has lived above a lunatic since 1996. She purchased her condo before I did, so had no one living above her for 6 months. She has complained about me since the day I moved in. I felt so ashamed at first, and could not understand how anyone could complain about my habits. I am a small woman who lives a quiet life. She raged at me during the first week, pounding on my door while screaming that I had no right to walk on my floors. Her rantings scared my neighbors, who have never complained about me. After the building manager did a sound check in our apartments, I put down rugs in the front hallway and have been barefoot in my apartment for nearly 18 years in an attempt to keep the peace, but to no avail. The management did not determine that the noise was significant enough to require soundproofing and that has made her even more crazed. What I fail to understand is how this woman can complain about me when she chose to live next to the garbage chute in a 40 year old building of nearly 700 apartments in the center of one of the largest cities in the country, surrounded by busy streets full of motorcycles and emergency vehicles. If she wants perfect silence, she should move to a house in the country, but even then, I'm sure she would find things to complain about. I can hear my neighbors in the hallway. I hear the elevators open and close. I can even hear when my upstairs neighbors raise and lower their toilet seat! And yet it would never occur to me to complain about any of this noise - this is all part of living in such a building. Perhaps my attitude is off and I should start complaining about every sound I hear, but I don't find them to be unreasonable.

I have a solutiion. Everyone here who claims they are being unfairly persecuted, switch floors with your complaining neighbors. Since you say tenants should be able to live with the noise, I'm sure you all won't mind living on the first floor.

citygirlsf, I had a similar experience. A few years ago, I lived in an older, somewhat flimsily built apartment complex (a hard wind hitting the building would make my floor lamps sway). I had a downstairs neighbor who would start banging on the ceiling the second I opened my front door, and would often continue banging while I was literally doing nothing noisy (sitting on my couch or lying in bed reading). I had ignored all sorts of disturbance from him, including music so loud that the people upstairs from me (i.e. two floors away from him) could hear it, because it was an old, flimsy apartment building, and apartment life means dealing with other people.

Then one night, when I'd been in bed reading for the better part of an hour, this guy starts banging on his ceiling and cussing me out: "You fat f***ing bitch, you've ruined my life, you stupid f***ing cow." For a good 10 minutes he went on like that. Scared teh life out of me. I was sitting on the front steps of the office building the next morning when the complex manager arrived. We had a chat, I was backed up by another neighbor from the building who remarked on how loud this guy was, and soon thereafter, the dude no longer lived downstairs.

Which is a long way of saying, I understand that noise from an adjoining apartment can be bothersome, but a lot of that comes with apartment life. Try to be reasonable both in your own behavior and in your expectations of others. And if you really can't deal with any noise from adjoining units, find a single family home.

I'm a downstairs "neighbor" and my problem is not with my upstairs neighbors themselves (I can really only hear their voices and footsteps loudly in the stairwell which runs along the side of my living room) but with their enormous dog!! When he jumps off the couch or runs around the house it is very loud. I would complain, but they're very nice and I'm an animal person so I try to be understanding (most of the time).

We're the upstairs neighbours for our tenants, and we have a toddler who is obviously nowhere near quiet. To some extent I figure she's only a kid once and let her horse around, but I do attempt to keep it in check. No major noise before 9am on weekdays and 10am on weekends since they often work evening shifts - so no toys that drag or roll on the ground etc, and especially not down the hall to the bedrooms. Thankfully our floorplan matches theirs, so our bedrooms are above theirs and our living space is above theirs etc. That helps. In a previous apartment our bedroom was below someone's kitchen, and they liked to wear shoes on their hardwood. Yuck.

I am attempting to add more rugs, wear socks instead of bare feet or worse, shoes, and just be sensitive in general to the toys that hit the laminate floor. They're incredibly nice and understanding of our toddler for which we are eternally grateful - the mutual respect goes a LONG way! After a particularly loud night with our daughter I left them apology cookies.

I've been the upstairs and downstairs (in a college dorm, I know noisy!) neighbor. I'm going to take the unpopular opinion here and back up Nevanna.

Yes, there are absolutely things that you can and should do to be neighborly. Don't wear your shoes in the house, don't blast your television or radio, don't have loud parties at all hours of the night, do your vacuuming and home repair in the middle of the day, etc. I'm going to assume that most people are ALREADY doing those things because they understand that they live near other people and should be respectful of their neighbors.

But if you have someone who bangs on the ceiling and leaves you passive aggressive notes when you hang a picture frame in the middle of the day, you have a crazy neighbor and should just live your life.

So annoying! I was in the same situation once. I asked the woman who lived upstairs if she could please not wear heels around the house in the mornings because I was working graveyard and just getting to sleep then. She looked at me like I was insane to even ask such a thing. I don't know, was that out of line?

I guess Ive been lucky in my apartment dwelling life! Only twice in 20 years of various places have I had excessively noisy neighbors.One young man liked to blare rap music at 3 am,but after several mornings of disney soundtracks at 7 am he got the message!The other was just a drunken jerk,and I called the cops on him several times (after trying to be nice) and he moved.You do all you can to get along,but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire.I will say that when searching for apts,I always visited several different times day and night before commiting.Saved me a lot of headaches at times.I am glad to have my little house on an acre now,though I miss not having a maintenece man!

We had a similar problem. We were on the top floor and had two levels. Anytime we would just walk, sometimes just even to the bathroom at night (not stomp, not run, not jump) on the first level (old vintage hardwoods), we would get a complaint or pounding on the floor. It was really frustrating. We put rugs and pads down, we were always a shoes off household, but our daughters room was impossible to avoid making noise when we tiptoed in and out. We ultimately ended up moving because our landlord's solution was not to walk around at all after 9:30.

If people really do tiptoe, bless you. But I have a hard time believing it. I vowed at some point only to rent upstairs units, then my new downstairs neighbor was a nightmare. He laughed when he told me his FORMER upstairs neighbor complained he nearly had a heart attack every time downstairs guy slammed the door (which he seemed to love doing, all day for some reason). So downstairs guy thought the complaints were amusing. Point is, ask yourself if you really are as quiet as you think you are.

I think the number one comment here is talk to your neighbors. I'm really at a loss as to why this needs to be advice and isn't just common sense.

Since there is more than one person living below you, have one join you upstairs while the other is downstairs. Let them see that normal activities upstairs can make it sound like bowling down below. Then, make a plan to lessen the noise, or relegate it to convenient hours for all of you.

Apparently my family is the upstairs neighbor. Bottom unit has never been an option due to paranoia. Much easier access for intruders. We have a 20 month old who doesn't walk. He runs everywhere. He goes to bed by 8. The complaint from the downstairs neighbor? They're self-proclaimed light sleepers who get up at 4:30am. They don't like us running water at night because they can hear it... They said we "run around" at night around 1am. We are in bed by 11. They said we run our laundry in the middle of the night. I haven't done laundry after 9 pm. I don't know what they're hearing but it's not us. I get up to pee every night, and the floor boards creek in our room. Nothing I can do about it. I am not spending money I don't have on rugs. If I had money I wouldn't be in an apartment. The floors would creek regardless. We don't wear shoes inside ever. Ewww. We have carpeting. Some people will whine about anything. One time they pounded on the ceiling at 12:30am as I walked from the toilet to the bed. At this point I don't care an ounce. Don't live below someone if you can't handle normal noise. Wear ear plugs. I will walk around my home and flush the toilet when I choose. There are hundreds of apartments with open units on all levels. Not my fault if you choose the bottom one.

We're currently having issues with the next-door neighbour. Not over apartment noise, but dog noise. We live in a densely-packed neighborhood, where her living room/kitchen window overlooks our back yard. We recently acquired a dog (a chihuahua, but bear with me) to keep my elderly grandmother company during the day while everyone else is at work. He's presently seven months and (like all dogs) is prone to barking whenever someone with a dog walks through the lane (a bi-hourly occurrence in our neighborhood; as there are quite a large number of dogs in the immediate vicinity). He normally lets off two or three barks before he either stops on his own or we step in. (He generally is an indoor dog, but even indoor dogs need bathroom breaks).

Now, our neighbour has taken extreme offense to this dog (who, for a chihuahua is shockingly quiet). She's complained about the barking, a squeaky toy of his and the small bell he wears (a necessity because grandmother is mostly blind and uses the bell to gauge where he is so she doesn't trip over him). She's broached the subject with us twice (politely), both times we've responded that we are trying to curb the barking, have explained the necessity of the bell and have limited his time with the offending toy.

The issue escalated into her yelling at both grandmother and dog from her third-story window (my grandmother has difficulty communicating in English, something our neighbour is aware of)-- this has caused her to hide out in the house for the duration of the day because she felt bad/was embarrassed.

The most recent escapade has been her reporting us to the city for 'excessive animal noise'-- the inspector loitered around the back yard for 30 minutes (unbeknownst to us) and rang our bell to speak with us (she was surprised that our dog didn't even bark at the sound of the bell). She dismissed the complaint and closed the file; but we still have to deal with this neighbour and it's become quite uncomfortable. No idea what else we can do.

When I lived upstairs, I always tried to be reasonable and not be up until all hours of the night in shoes. But then I was moving. I had lived there for 3 years, and it was the last night I would be there and things needed to moved and cleaned and I have a job, so I didn't get started until the evening. With the understanding that it was 1 night and that I was moving heavy objects from the house, down the stairs, to my car all evening, I could not just not wear shoes. And I totally pissed off my underneath neighbors, but I couldn't move heavy objects to the door barefoot, put on shoes, then move them down stairs and out then remove shoes and wash rinse repeat. I value unbroken feet.

That being said, it was the only time one of them came upstairs and complained.

Now I live in a single story house and relish not worrying about bothering anyone.

As the original poster said, this is often a construction issue and not an issue with someone actually being noisy. As such, it can be very hard for the "guilty" upstairs neighbor to fix, especially if the downstairs party is more interested in blaming than in understanding the problem. In such buildings, sound can also travel in strange ways - so it may not even be you!

Years ago I was accused of being impossibly noisy when I walked, even though I had thick rugs, with pads. The complaint also objected to my taking showers at 11PAM, which seemed unreasonable.

Next door noise is a whole other story. Soundproof walls should be code.

I'm the downstairs neighbor. If my upstairs neighbor was as considerate as the OP is, i'd be happy. My upstairs neighbor will blast her television at levels that i can tell which episode of Doctor Who she's watching from my bedroom, i can hear her on facebook chat all night, and if i have one more night of her watching that "gangnam style" video and cackling, i'm going to do something i'm sure i'll regret. Going to politely ask her to turn it down at 10:30 at night is always met with her screaming at me in the hallway and disrupting the other neighbors. (it's pretty bad that the first thing she does when someone knocks on her door is turns down the volume of her television/computer, without even waiting for them to ask. but it's still loud enough you can hear it in the downstairs hallway.)
Our building isn't well insulated. I know this. And i figure if i can hear her lifestyle from my apartment, i try to be quieter so she has nothing to complain about.
She's the only person in the building that I've had to ask to keep things down. And as i talk to the other neighbors regularly, we all have an agreement that we'll polietly ask if they can keep things down before we file a complaint. But no one can talk to this girl above me. She's rude to all of us. I can't wait for the day i can afford to move into either an upper or my own home.(which will have to wait until after college.)

We are also upstairs dwellers, and really like our downstairs neighbours. (And of course, we have been the downstairs neighbours too in the past.) We asked them about the noise levels because we're conscious of the lack of insulation, especially since we have pets that have "bewitching" hours and like to wrestle and run up and down the hallway for no apparent reason. As we're on a budget, we couldn't afford a beautiful, thick, wool rug, but found great-looking, less expensive options for our main living areas, along with some hallway runners. We decided to spend the extra money in getting top quality underpad from our local carpet store and getting it cut to size. Apparently it makes a world of difference, plus it feels really cushy under the feet.

I have this problem. I'm on the bottom floor and the people above me are really loud. They play music, he sings, yells at his video games and they move around furniture. They've also had an industrial fan that made such a high pitch sound it was giving me migraines. I asked them to turn everything down, but I've just learned to deal with it (at least they stopped with the fan!). I think it comes with a 100 year old building. I can hear my neighbors to my right and left as well, so I guess I'm just as loud.

Could be worse. Your downstairs neighbor could hear you having sex. We had an upstairs neighbor that was considerate and would take she shoes off and have quiet sex so we didn't hear them as much. They sold their condo to a newlywed couple that had no carpets, clomped around in hard-soled shoes, pulled out heavy dining room chairs and had loud, kinky sex. OMG!

Well... I'm the downstairs neighbor with a noisy but well meaning upstairs neighbor. I decided to bribe him with homemade chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven. I just wanted him to know that the floors aren't as thick as he thinks and that I'm downstairs if he ever needs anything. Worked like a charm!

I live in NYC and I recently had to carpeted more of the 80% percent of the apartment. I have a 2 1/2 year old and 14 month old girls. I received a complaint letter stating that there was heavy walking and loud music. But, the neighbor didn't stated that he would take his broom and pound his ceiling and follow my daughter from the bedroom to the hall then into the living room, there were days that he would do this in the hours 2pm -9pm on Mon. thru Friday and at 11 am on weekends. So therefore, my husband installed the carpet like management suggested. It was quiet for a few days and then it started all over again in the hallway. Here we go again, i went to carpet store and got a runner with thank God he gave me the padding for the runner. I thought it was ok for the girls to run I guess the noise was not going to be bad, I was wrong. They still continued until the lady from downstairs decided to come upstairs and complaint. I told her what was the problem she replied that there was to much noise and I gave her a tour of the apatment. I said to her I don't understand you i have this place more than 95% and still complaining, what you want me to do beat my daughters for your benefit. She stop for almost a month and they started rolling something on their ceiling every time my daughters walk again. I am going crazy and don't know what to do. Any suggestions to how I should approach management? I don't want to deal with them anymore (downstairs ppl).. Thank you for taking your time in reading this.

@original poster : didn't you say you just spent two months renovating ? Have you cleared with the downstairs neighbors whether their complints were with everyday noise or with noise caused by the renovation work itself ?

I nearly lost my mind living underneath an older Portuguese couple in Notting Hill, lovely people, but late bed times and hearing impairments --> loud TV was a lot to bear. I was frequently woken up and became very agitated and i think would actively listen for noise. I think you have to evaluate what sort of person you are, if you cannot tolerate people's noises of everyday living you have to rethink where you live, no matter how fabulous the location. I know I should have left that location.....but I was too lazy to move.

Another thing I can suggest is have a good look at your type of furniture. I used to live under a friend who had her stereo on a glass topped table with metal legs. All I could hear downs stairs was the beat throbbing, it used to send be bat sh!t crazy at all hours of the day and night.

I lived in the path of the space shuttle landing and have heard A LOT of sonic booms. Lovely, older buildings sometimes sound like sonic booms even when the person upstairs is doing little more than walking around. It is just a fact of life.

Many posters offered some great advice. Although some noise is simply unavoidable it is nice to know you are willing to make the best of the situation.

Honestly, if you installed your floors according to any rules or regulations in your building (appropriate underpadding, etc.) I think you should enjoy them! Your neighbour sounds impolite. If they have a problem with the noise, perhaps they can offer to buy you a nice area rug or two.

An issue that I haven't seen addressed, yet is an autistic resident living in an apartment home. Autistic people are often more sensitive to sound than the general population. Normal sounds such as vacuume cleaners can cause problems. And they have trouble expressing themselves which can result in a lot of noise. Repetitive behaviours can also include noises such as whistling or humming.

Families with autistic kid(s) have a range of economic circumstances. Adults with autism are often unemployed or under-employed, so expensive well sound-insulated apartment homes aren't always an option. Cities usually have better services than small towns, and people have to go where the jobs are.

So, given all that what should a family that includes an autistic person do?

I think a no-shoes policy will go a long way to reducing any sort of noise. Shoes on hardwood floors are loud. Besides, your apartment will stay cleaner if you leave the shoes at the door.

I am a noisy neighbor of the nightmare variety - I am a pianist and I practice anywhere between 2 and 4 hours a day, and I live in a building where I have neighbors on 4 sides. I live in fear that one of those neighbors is going to complain, since it is a lot of practicing and some of it is repetitive and quite plainly awful to listen to. So, I preemptively left polite notes for the upstairs and downstairs neighbors, with chocolate cookies attached to each note, heartily apologizing for the noise and leaving my phone number in case they wanted to text me to be quiet. I also try to keep my practice hours to the times when the neighbors are likely to be at work, and never make noise before 11am or after 8pm. I've only ever had one person stop by to ask me to be quiet, and stopped immediately after the request was made.

Given some of the situations described above, I think I am going to bake piano-shaped cookies for all my neighbors this Christmas. For living with me for a year and a half, they probably qualify for sainthood by now.

Like others have said: no shoes, padded rugs, and general conscientiousness about certain activities (e.g. no vacuuming early or late, low volume on the TV and stereo, no speakers on the floor, etc.). Other than that, people in multi-family buildings should expect and learn to cope with some noise.

My family lives in a big apartment building in Brooklyn, with apartments both above and below ours. Before we moved into our current unit, we lived in another apartment in the same building, and for 2.5 years were harassed daily by the woman in the apartment beneath ours. For the first couple of weeks, it was daily visits to our door to tell us she could hear us walking around -- we appreciated her concerns, but told her that there wasn't much else we could do, since we didn't wear shoes in the apartment, had padded rugs in every room (in excess of the 80% coverage required by our lease), rarely had visitors, and kept reasonable hours (up at 7am, out the door by 8:15, home at 6:30, bed by 11). After several incidents of her pounding and screaming at our door when we stopped responding to her knocking, followed by some intervention by our landlord, she moved on to notes and letters several times per week and DAILY pounding on her ceiling, often accompanied by screaming and profanity. This was usually prompted by our moving about from room to room in our apartment, but also occasionally by one of us accidentally dropping something on the floor, and, several times, to us getting up to pour a glass of water and use the bathroom in the middle of the night.

At our landlord's urging, we even called the police several times, but they (understandably) didn't arrive until well after the call and couldn't do much when they got here because she'd stop pounding and yelling when they pulled up. It was a total nightmare, and when were finally able to move, we experienced an immediate and tremendous improvement to our quality of life.

How about the flip-side of this question? Our upstairs neighbors couldn't be more lovely. They're good friends of ours in fact too. Which is precisely what makes being the downstairs neighbor in this instance so difficult... they have 4 small children who run around the house what seems like almost constantly. Pounding. Ever seen the movie Jumanji? That's the best way I can describe what it seems is constantly going on upstairs. Put on a movie, some music, some headphones... it's still constant and nagging. My husband and I even noticed a slight tilt to many of the pictures we have up on the walls from the constant pounding! How do we deal with this without being offensive? I don't want to be rude or upset our dear neighbors, but the kids are driving us absolutely crazy!!!!

The disconnect in walking styles jumped out at me. The writer says they are tip-toeing, and the downstairs neighbor says they are stomping. Hmmm...who to believe?

I am the downstairs neighbor of an unrepentant stomper. People who have complaints about upstairs neighbor noise should not be written off as oversensitive, or old. (gotta love that one!)

Here's what I did - first I talked to him about it nicely two times. Then next time I saw him, I suggested the kind of Adidas not really flip flops, but kind of, favored by soccer players and swimmers when they are indoors. I have these and what they do is they muffle the bone on wood noise of your heel. They are more silent that barefeet and even I think thick sockfeet.

I think he might have taken that suggestion because it worked for a time, but the stomping came back. Next I gave him a rug which he thanked me for and is using. That helped only part of the problem because I heard the stomping in other parts.

There is a 75% carpet rule that I have not yet insisted on. I don't think it should be insisted on unless there is an obvious problem. There is an obvious problem in my case.

In the end, I just had to stop saying anything to him. He knows, and he chooses to do nothing else. He lives on the top floor and as a result hears no one above him, so his cluelessness is sealed.

Having lived in apartments most of my life, I'm well aware that noise is inevitable. Wish we could move past that one as there is a difference in infrequent noise and not being able to get to sleep at ten and eleven o'clock at night because of stomping.

piano - Thanks for posting that about your piano playing. As someone who lives in a building with a former piano player I can say that I loved it. But, here's why. I was far enough away, so that the playing at night (and they played late) was actually soporific. The piano player's neighbor on the other hand, HATED it, and was tremendously bothered by it. So distance does matter. As for time of day, I can see that if you are working from home, piano playing during the day might be a bother. My point I'm trying to make is that it's not always a safe assumption that daytime noise is always better than night time. Usually, yes, but not always.

Someone else suggested earplugs.Doing so is not necessarily unreasonable, maybe not the most polite thing. On the other hand, if someone is bothered enough to talk to a neighbor there's a chance that that person is ALREADY wearing earplugs. I know I am.

My noisy upstairs neighbor had complaints against him BEFORE I moved in. The previous tenants actually put in added insulation to try to block his elephant stomping. He acts like its a joke that they tried to muffle his stomping. He told me that is why they moved--they couldn't take it anymore.

My first three weeks I didn't know what to do. I mean how do you politely ask the neighbor if they can't tone it down without causing WWIII? First I finally did go ask. That didn't do a thing. Then I called the HOA. I got a day of less noise. That was good. But then it went right back to 16 hours a day of stomping. Back and forth from 6:30 a.m. to post 11 p.m.

Then I went back upstairs and it erupted into WWIII. It is so distressing living in a brand new home, one that bought with a neighbor that revels in being unpleasant. He said some things that day that even boggled the police. It was worse than the N word.

Now when he gets loud I have to call the police. In his defense I will say since that day it has gotten A LOT quieter. It took a totally unnecessary fight to get to this place. I have no idea why it went to this extreme--it just did. I get that this man wants to be left alone--so do I.

I've ordered some wireless headphones for the tv. Since they haven't arrived I can't tell you if this is going to work. I have hopes because if I wear the leaf blower headphones I can't hear him. But then I can't hear the phone. I just have a remote near me that lights up when its ringing. So I check it often (its a quick glance over). I check my cell phone cause I have its ringer off--for texts.

If it could have started off like it is now--I'd be so happy. I knew to expect SOME noise but the elephant stomping? This guy was trying to put his foot through the floor. Had you put in some kind of sound recording device you'd have been shocked at what this man put me through. And I couldn't put my good china in the kitchen cabinets cause he would've knocked them out just to see if he could.

Here's an example of what I'm dealing with. I turn on the light in the master bathroom to do my business. My first month here 2 or 3 times a day the toilet above me would flush the same time I was in the bathroom. Now I realize there are two people above me to my one. But really are we all on the same biological clock? I know its icky.

Not everyone can live on the 2 or 3 levels. My physical condition won't allow it. I was more forced by my poor body breaking down than anything else.

I'm not asking for total quiet. I know there is going to be "some" noise. But elephant stomping just to prove you can? Trying to put your foot through the floor? Trying to make noise through the added insulation? Come now even you'd have to rethink your position.

I am in the same situation as you... I live under the most selfish human beings EVER...they are always dragging their furniture and stomping etc... I tried to speak to them REALLY NICELY about it a while back and the boyfriend was SO RUDE to me I left in tears. They are so disrespectful. I really need ideas to help them realize how rude they are. They just had a baby too... so in a year or so, I am toast!

I am living the same nightmare as you... what is the HOA???

DO NOT spend your hard earned money on freaking rugs just to please your dumbass neighbors. This is what happens when you live in apartments and they need to get with the program. Don't listen to these idiots. You have the right to walk around however you damn please to and nobody can tell you anything. I used to work as an apartment manager and we couldn't evict anyone unless they had noise disturbances after 11 pm. and that was several of them which still don't include loud walking.

I had an apartment 'upstairs' but only lasted 5 years. I would remove my shoes when I got home to minimise the noise, placed rugs on the wood floorboards and generally be quiet (even tip toeing at times). I put little felt pads on legs of the chairs and table so the noise wouldn't travel when I pulled out a chair to sit on.

Unfortunately they didn't return the same consideration, earphones helped just to get some sleep, but soon I tired of using them all night.

The main noise was from the womans personal jewellery, a clinking noise could be heard throughout her apartment while she went from room to room (numerous bangles on her arms), bedroom night noises and of course all bathroom noises too.

Believe me, upstairs people can hear what the people below are doing too.

Eventually of course I had to sell up just to save my sanity.

When people have to live in close proximity a certain degree of consideration is usually the norm but some people are just stubborn about their rights without believing other people too have the right to sleep nights or talk on the phone without being bombarded with excessive noises throughout the day and night.

I'm glad I moved and noticed the new person didn't last nearly as long as I did, maybe they too tired of the noisy neighbours.

Wow. I just read a lot of comments and the only two people I can blame are the housing people for MAKING two flats out of a house with no sound proofing, and residents who don't think about their lifestyles before moving in. I am a recording artist, I have to work late at night, I often watch movies late as I work all day from early afternoon and if I didn't I'd have no time to myself. I have a surround sound system because I edit movies. I live in a terraced house with walls that may as well be made of cardboard. I've had to do years of slow DIY after my parents died and my crazy mother had a dozen pets and messed the place up. I sing and play loud music. Yes, call me the noisy neighbour. I really should live in a 5 bed detached house in the country like a millionaire, but my HND got me nothing so I'm living on dole money. In a terraced house.

When my parents were alive my dad had a giant 4 foot tall organ amplifier. It rumbled through the house. He was half deaf so he'd watch TV till 3am without headphones. And he'd talk too loud, even shout, before bed cos he couldn't hear. My mother would play violin out of tune for hours... you get the picture.

What did our neighbours do? Next door was a fan of my dad's music, they would listen, windows open, to him playing for hours. As for my mother, they probably went out or prayed for mercy cos we never heard a peep about it. My mother had the neighbours knocking after drilling a hole in a sideboard at midnight.

Now me and my sister only get grief from the council. Official noise complaints, with no clue where it's coming from. My neighbour is on depression drugs and he's grumpy, and the other side has a teenage son that tests playlists for his friends car - by which ones have the most sub bass. I've heard the bassline of every grime tune released last year.. through the wall whilst i was half asleep.

It's the housing. Some people like it quiet, but with modern technology and surround systems for TVs and the types of music that are around now, people are not as quiet, at least people under 40. There honestly should be more seperation between quiet and 'student' housing.. and i don't mean communal flats. I mean people like me that need their own house, who don't care if the neighbours come home at 4am. I came back from a friend's wedding that I've known since school, and yeah, we were talking too loud at 4 am. But the neighbours didn't come round and ask what had caused the noise. They complained to the authorities. I personally wrote to both neighbours either side of us, to ask them if I disturb them to let me know instead of complaining to the housing authority. NEVER HEARD A THING .. SINCE.

People who are too scared to talk to their neighbours are scary because you can get evicted. There was a party down the street that same week and it woke half the estate up.. teens in the flats. No one raised a brow. I give up.

Sorry if this one's long but I had to rant!

Not hijacking this discussion, but i live on the 4th floor of a condo. A weight room is above me. A 1/2 basketball court is above me. the weight room has carpet as floor insulation! When i suggested normal weight room padding i was ignored. if you think one basket ball bouncing is bad, how about 2!! What options do i have?