When I had my first apartment, I did it because I loved loud music, and because I was generally thoughtless about those around me. I wasn’t alone in this in my apartment house. One guy even had a rock band that practiced in his apartment. Overall, the apartment house was pretty sound-proof; I don’t think many people were inconvenienced.
My second apartment was just some attic rooms, and there really weren’t even proper doors to it. Also, the landlady lived downstairs. The loud music stopped.
I’ve had a house now for 30 years, and can do what I want. Unfortunately, my ears have become more and more sensitive, so that I rarely play music loud anymore. Sigh.
I used to crank up the music all the time in my younger, inconsiderate days. There were a few times where I had stereo wars with my next door neighbors…which resulted in loud pounding at the door and a confrontation with the very angry apartment manager. These days when I want to turn it up, I either slap on the headphones or take a nice long drive on the backroads somewhere. (my car stereo even goes past “11”! :p)
When you live in apartment–or anywhere, really–shouldn’t that be a place where you can enjoy peace and quiet? If you have to go someplace else to get away from your neighbor’s noise, what kind of home is that?
i’ve seriously considered lining my walls with sound-proofing materials - but I’m not sure what kind of stuff that would have to be. 2 parts of the wall would be in closets, so not visible - but I actually hear them the most in the living room - and I’m not sure how to do that without it looking bad.
In my experience, and I’m guilty of it too - I mean back in Uni halls I used to have the music so loud it was still loud when I was stood outside smoking, but it was just because I could get away with it. If no one’s going to come around and ask me to turn it down, fuck 'em, I won’t.
These days I live in a shared house so I’m more considerate, but that happened more because my 1st set of speakers broke and I got used to having quieter music for a while. When I got the new speakers, having them loud had got to be unusual so it wasn’t the done thing.
screaming children in the parking lot
running children in the hall
neighbours having noisy sex upstairs
neighbours moving furniture upstairs
neighbours having noisysex while moving furniture upstairs
neighbours next door having a jam session on their electric guitars
garbage trucks collecting garbage
cherry-picker screeching and beeping all over the place
neighbours down the hall having a Bhangra party
yippy dog across the hall
cars desperately in need of new mufflers in the parking lot
rush-hour traffic outside
packs of high-school kids screaming while on break or in the schoolyard
tap-dancing and gymnastics competition going on directly upstairs by very bad gymnasts who fall. A lot.
etc.
One day I’m going to live somewhere where it’s quiet.
Years ago, a friend got hold of hundreds of egg cartons. He removed the bottoms and hot-glued them to his walls. It looked weird, but helped with acoustics (per him). When he moved out, her realized he was kissing his deposit goodbye for other reasons anyway.
I don’t know my neighbors. I am not a ‘neighbory’ kind of person. But one thing I did do upon moving in was ask my neighbors about their music and noise policy. They were all young and into loud music and weekend parties, and that was fine with me.
I don’t have parties often, but I love loud music. A lot. I knew the neighborhood I was moving into was young and childless for the most part; so I figured it would be noisey.
Sometimes the neighbors behind me have raging parties all night. I can hear it through the walls, but it isn’t loud enough to wake my daughter, so it really doesn’t bother me, even though they love Beyonce and Usher, and I don’t.
I love loud music so much that I still go out to night clubs at the age of nearly 36, and stand right next to the huge speakers.
If a neighbor asked me to turn it down, I would, but that has never happened.
ETA: Mangetout, I think they do that because of that humming rattle the bass sometimes causes the windows to make? Or else, they are just cornballs that think everyone wants to hear their music.
Fortunately for me my neighbors must masturbate alot or are really quiet during sex.
I don’t mind everyday noises: footsteps, doors closing, a person yawning. But when the music is so loud it vibrates the air in my apartment that’s too much.
I had a college roommate who always listened to loud music. The reason, though inconsiderate, had some logic: if the music was super-loud, he could enjoy it no matter where he was in the house. It didn’t get all muffled when he was in the sower and he could hear the lyrics as clearly in the kitchen as in his bedroom. Plus, he didn’t have to carry anything around for the same effect.
This pre-dated MP3 players, so for teh same effect with headphones he would have needed a portable CD player. And his logic was also that with headphones, he couldn’t hear other stuff going on around him like the phone ringing, or the oven buzzer.
IMHO, he also couldn’t be alone with his own thoughts. He played music from the moment he woke up until he went to sleep, no matter what else he was doing.
That’s a firetrap. You probably can’t do any serious sound isolation without looking into building codes and whatnot.
I know that the standard material for sound absorption within a room is high-density fiberglass board, but that’s for absorbing reflections within a room. There might be other materials when you’re simply trying to contain the sound within a room.
I listen to loudish music in my apartment - I try to keep it from being so loud as to disturb my neighbors, especially at night, but I really have no idea how easy it is to hear my music. I don’t hear theirs - but whether that means the soundproofing is good, or they’re just really quiet, I don’t know.
If someone knocks on my door, or leaves a note, I’ll apologize (sincerely) and reduce my volume accordingly. But if I’m not told there’s a problem, and the music isn’t at an obviously unreasonable volume, I’m going to assume it’s okay. What else can I do?
And here’s another reason why my ex-husband is my ex-husband. He was remarkably inconsiderate of our neighbors. When I’d suggest he could turn it down, step more lightly, stop dropping his bowling ball, whatever, he’d respond, “*$%^ them! I pay as much as they do and have as much right to enjoy my home as they do.” Explaining that he was keeping them from enjoying theirs was fruitless.
I think people who blast you out of your own comfort come in two varieties. One doesn’t have any clue that it’s too loud and would turn it down if you asked. The other operates from a standpoint of “What I want is all that matters”.
Right now I live upstairs from a 15 year old girl who pickles herself in loud music that I hate, but I recall doing the same thing at her age so I try not to let it bother me. Trouble is, her mom works a night shift and lately will pick a song for the evening and play it bone rattlingly loudly in a loop until well past midnight while she sings along at the tippy top of her teenaged lungs. I have earplugs. I can still hear her.