This is my first top floor apartment, and everything has been awesome except for the fact that the person below me has become obnoxious. This weekend, I was watching TV and out of nowhere, I hear this thump thump thump. I ask myself: is someone banging on the ceiling from below me? I go to the supsected area and I actually feel a thump thump thump.
What did I do? I contacted management and notified them that someone below me is hitting the ceiling with a broom handle or some object.
Go downstairs and introduce yourself. Ask what the problem was, possibly get a rug to put on your floor to deaden the noise, and try to get some boundaries established for time of day and volume levels. You both have to live with each other and you can each make the other’s lives miserable. Don’t let this fester, get out in front of it.
Look, people who live in non-top-floor apartments have to deal with sounds coming down from the ceiling. Walking, dropping stuff, TV/speaker noise, it can be surprisingly loud. In my old apartment, the upstairs neighbor could drop a pencil on the floor and it would sound louder than if I dropped a pencil on my own floor. You heard every step, the nonstop base line from some video game, going for hours at a time, and I bet they would have no idea how much of their sound made it into my life.
There isn’t much to do if you’re not willing to work with your neighbor on how much noise they have to deal with. Ignore the thumping, and get on with your life. If you’re willing to work with them, you have to set ground rules, like “I’m not going to tiptoe and use headphones for everything. I’m allowed to walk in my own home, and use a TV or radio.”
You should start by examining what you’re doing when the thumping starts. Maybe it’s your subwoofer or something. Also, things that seem innocuous can have a big impact on the people below you - for example, when you roll wheeled furniture across the floor, to the resident underneath it sounds like someone is bowling.
If you have a subwoofer hooked up to the TV, turn that damn thing off. Not down. Off. Those are obnoxious to anyone below or next to you and I wouldn’t be surprised if some management companies banned then in connected housing. If you don’t, then I dunno.
Would I have called management about it? Um, no. Was it at noon? 3am? How do I know they weren’t installing something in the ceiling or hanging stuff on the walls? Did it go on for hours? Sometimes I hear a really loud thump/bang that shakes my apartment a little, from the unit below mine. Either someone is falling down or he’s throwing furniture. Haven’t called anyone about it, and have no plans to, either. I know from a previous tenant below me that my cats can be heard running around overhead, which means I can also be heard walking around up here, so I try to keep the dancing and running around to daylight hours.
Exactly. I’m not going to walk on eggshells in my own apartment. I pay rent just like that person does. I’m not obnoxious and honestly, I want to enjoy being in my apartment. They are just going to have to deal.
I’m not even around during the day because I work so much.
I did that a few months ago when some new people moved in UPSTAIRS and I could hear what sounded like explosions. The first time it happened, I blew it off because I figured it was a kid playing video games at top volume, but when it happened again, I did exactly this - I knocked on their door and said, “I live in another apartment, and I can hear your TV.” They apologized, and turned it down.
And it wasn’t video games. It was a Disney movie!
This family (parents, and daughter who’s about 9 years old) are Thai, and they eat garlic with every meal. They must be the healthiest family in town!
The thing is, if you force them to “deal” they may make living in your apartment less enjoyable. Perhaps you will have to deal with complaints to the landlord about your “excessive” noise.
You may find that a strategically placed rug will deliver a happy neighbor without any downside to your lifestyle. You may also find that there is no happy medium, and that the “solution” is unreasonable, which you can relay to your landlord to head off any complaints.
This is not a good attitude to start with. Yes, you have a rights to enjoy your apartment but so do the people living underneath you. It might not seem like you’re being loud but thing floors/walls your semi-reasonable sounding TV may be quite loud to your neighbors.
Life will be miserable for both of you if you don’t talk to them and find out what the problem is. There are some steps you can take (like putting down a rug or moving your speakers) that can make life enjoyable for everyone. But ignoring the problem isn’t going to help anyone. It’s possible that they are being unreasonable but before leaping to that conclusion, try talking to them.
You do realize they know where you live. If you’re really worried about them attacking you, you’ll do a lot better knocking on their door than waiting for them to get pissed off enough to knock on your door.
Plus if you go downstairs now and politely smile, introduce yourself, apologize for whatever was bothering them, and asking what was going on and how this can be worked out to your mutual satisfaction, you’ll nip a lot of growing resentment in the bud early.
Yes, thumping on the ceiling isn’t the best way to communicate, but that doesn’t mean you get to do whatever. It is your apartment, but it’s also not the fault of the person below you if the construction of the place is shitty and noises carry through no carpet and the floor as if amplified.
We used to have a sister-in-law and her then-teenage daughter living a floor above us. Both would smack around on bare (wood/tile) flooring in high heels, and the daughter would also drag/shuffle her feet a lot. They could produce a nightmarish level of sound for two lightweight women.
Just go downstairs and knock on the door. They’re your neighbors, they already know where you live so there’s no point trying to play coy. Your goal here is to defuse the situation, not perpetuate it. They live right below you - you’re going to have to deal with it one way or the other.
