Noisy neighbour solutions?

pangolin

Q about decibel meters and custom-made earplugs preceded by noisy neighbour saga (if you want to read another one) See below for my Qs

I'm trapped in the open prison of a negative equity shoddy apartment with a rented apartment above complete with wooden floors and a tiled kitchen directly above the bedroom. Needless to say I can even hear the light switch and whether the user of the toilet is male or female according to the fall - ugh.

Well, you expect a certain amount of noise and our thoughtful developers and builders often saved themselves the trouble of installing soundproofing (and who knows what else - Priory Hall is probably just the tip of the iceberg which is why they don't want to set a precedent). On moving in I soon realised my mistake - they guy upstairs worked nights and on his night off was just going about his ordinary business in the apartment, somehow amplified 10-fold by all the hard surfaces. He was really reasonable when I approached him and very considerate. After that, wearing earplugs, hardly ever heard anything at night. His wife even apologised for the noise of their 5-year-old daughter running around the apartment but I liked that happy sound.

Then a teenage mum with a baby who played her music at nightclub volumes during the day. But that's another story. The next two lots of people were fine. Was sorry to see them go, as with the first lot.

The couple who are there now make so much noise at night that, despite my habitual earplugs, I frequently get woken up with a start, heart pounding. One of them doesn't finish shift until 11.30pm, so of course there will be kitchen noises etc. I realise that, unfortunate though it is. However, people who've stayed with me are as mystified as me about what they get up to upstairs. A poltergeist would be preferable. It often starts AFTER 11pm and involves excessive moving of furniture, mysterious bangs and crashes, things rolling and bouncing across the floor and sounds that resemble DIY projects. The couple next door to these two are also having problems. We have tried talking, reasonably, to the guy who apologised for putting in nails to hang pictures at 2.20AM the other night, although it didn't seem to appear all that unreasonable to him, but felt that all the other noise was perfectly reasonable and that we were being unfair. Having had several upstairs neighbours I appreciate that we all have to live with the noise problems and it's worse for those who live downstairs. But the noise of this lot is excessive and I am losing a serious amount of sleep (it's hard to relax after continuously being woken with a start by bangs and crashes from above). It's affecting my work and am concerned it will also affect my health, which isn't great to start with. I have invited them to call in some time so that they can have an idea of the noise but he didn't seem too interested.

Next stage, management company. Landlord is a greedy developer of the worst kind and couldn't care less about either the welfare of his tenants or the people who are subjected to them. Anyway, I am aware of the higher levels of action one can take after Mgmt Co level and am already keeping the diary etc., so that is not my query. In the meantime I'd like to know:

1) Is it worth getting a decibel meter that records sound levels on a continuous basis (i.e. overnight) and can be downloaded. Does anyone know of anything cheap but effective? Is there such a thing?

2) Has anyone tried custom-made earplugs? Reckon I spend over E100 a year on the things, so they'd pay for themselves after that. Do they make a difference? Have tried every kind of disposable one and find the silicon ones best for me. The foam are too uncomfortable night after night. All the same, my ears are small and even when molded the earplugs don't fit as well as they might.

3) If I could even get a loan is it worth getting into even more debt to soundproof the bedroom? Is it effective for this kind of percussive noise? How much does it cost? Or how much would it cost to pull up their kitchen tiles and lay something soundproof underneath and buy them a carpet for their living room??? Desperate measures. Looks like I'm stuck here for the foreseeable future so it might be worth considering if it made a difference. Apart from the noise I like the apartment and get on well with all the other people in the block, one of whom has become a good friend.

the_syco

pangolin wrote: »

3) If I could even get a loan is it worth getting into even more debt to soundproof the bedroom?

Move your bed a few inches away from the wall, and get something to rest the bed on top of. Then either put a few layers of carpet under the supports/wheels of your bed, or you may also be able to get rubber supports. This should stop a lot of the "vibration" noise that travels through the walls into your bed.

As for the wooden floor, get some wooden floor to put on top of it, and put a layer of soundproofing material between the two laywers of wooden flooring. This will keep the "look" the landlord has (and wooden floors are easier to keep clean), and give you some soundproofing.

Idbatterim

Op, you could get sound board. or put in a floating ceiling. How big is the bedroom? if it is majorly affecting your quality of life & moving isnt an option, Id just get the work done.

take a look at something like the below.

https://www.build4less.ie/product_info.php?products_id=4535

you could get that job done for several hundred euro...

If there are apartments above you it is very likely that leases prohibit installation of wooden floors. You need to take action against the owner through your management company if this is the case

this would be my first port of call...

athtrasna

If there are apartments above you it is very likely that leases prohibit installation of wooden floors. You need to take action against the owner through your management company if this is the case

pangolin

Thanks for your suggestions. Hopefully they will also be useful to others reading this thread as these are all-too-common problems. Will ask M/C about the wooden floor situation. Problem is all the top floor apartments came with them as standard originally - same laminate in developer and non-developer-owned units. The tiled kitchen over the bedroom is the main problem - all those hard surfaces. Might see if the big fat guy who scrapes his chair across the floor would be amenable to having a mat put under it. Apparently it is impossible for him to get up without dragging his chair heavily across the floor.

There is a thick concrete floor between the apartments, which muffles voices and higher frequency sounds - so am lucky there - but it conducts and even amplifies (?!) percussive noise, which travels through the air and down the walls. Further investigation of soundproofing sounds worth putting in the time. Someone who knows a bit once advised me that ceiling AND walls would probably need to be done and not 100% effective against percussive noise (more suitable for music etc). A few hundred is less bad than I thought and better than getting tennants and renting somewhere else with all the hidden costs and hassle that would involve. I'd be very interested to hear the opinions of anyone who has had a room soundproofed.

They'll move out eventually. Most people get fed up with that landlord sooner or later. Still, better the devil you know...

Calhoun

Honestly seems like allot of anger directed at tenants just because they are living there, I understand the frustration I'm like a bear when tired but would the above legal info on floors not help ?

otto_26

OP you need to find a new place to live. It may be a nice and convenient area for you to live in but it's just not worth it... Find a more suitable noise friendly apartment... It seems that the apartments are cheaply built.

I had same prob moved out had to move into an apartment which was more expensive but no noise at night... Changed my life for the better even thou i am paying more for rent now to me it's really cheap to have the comfort of knowing I will get a good night sleep every night..

Merch

otto_26 wrote: »

OP you need to find a new place to live. It may be a nice and convenient area for you to live in but it's just not worth it... Find a more suitable noise friendly apartment... It seems that the apartments are cheaply built.

I had same prob moved out had to move into an apartment which was more expensive but no noise at night... Changed my life for the better even thou i am paying more for rent now to me it's really cheap to have the comfort of knowing I will get a good night sleep every night..

Pretty sure they said they were in negative equity? what you suggest might be the right thing to do, but the reality of the negative equity may not allow that. ie they cant sell, cant buy, cant move, might not be feasible to rent as the rent might not cover the mortgage, plus there are costs associated with that.
OP
1.keep a record, you mentioned you are doing that, document everything, hell if you are awake at 2.30 am, may as well occupy your time, as for the db measurement, I think the council may have equipment? so maybe check that out.
2.get other people on side, its going to have to be owners for the most part, people generally dont want to have to get involved unless its directed at them or directly affects them, but if they see someone getting the ball rolling, it might be easier for them to jump aboard, if you can get renters onside all the better, but most tenants wont care enough (its been my experience thats the case) or be around long enough to want to get involved.
3. get the management company involved, keep a record, so they cant say they didnt know
4. Try keep the problem causer onside also (if possible), I think that will last only to a point.
5. Try find out who the owner is (Land registry?), they should be paying PRTB, NPPR, TAX, you might be able to use this against them if you can confront them.
6. Try find out who the agent is if its being let at any time unless you know who has let it, usually agents here just get a tenant and go, landlords aren't generally paying for managed services.
7. If all else fails and you still dont know who owns it, make a complaint to PRTB at the least.

Its not unreasonable to expect people to stay quiet late at night and allow others the peaceful enjoyment of their own home. Put up with a rented house beside me for years, almost every tenant was noisy and involved in anti social behaviour. Dont see why you should have to pay for anything from measuring the noise, earplugs to soundproofing.
It may be more difficult if the landlord is not reg'd with PRTB, in that case you cant lose in the PRTB hearing as they cant be present.
I'd imagine anything that takes a measurement of sound that would be used as a record of events would need to be calibrated (council maybe?) to be admissible as evidence of the noise.

Idbatterim

Op if i were you, Id probably try the soundboard I recommended, get a few slabs and throw them up over the existing plasterboard, see how much of a difference it makes, if little improvement, it hasnt cost much, if decent improvement or great improvement well worth it. If improvement is decent, you can always throw up another layer. Then get ceiling skimmed, I got an entire bedroom skimmed one year ago for E150 as a guide!

pangolin

Thanks again for the advice, esp the soundboard and skimming which I'll look into. Definitely worth a try.

Just to clarify on reasonable/unreasonable noise. Have been there 7 years, this is the 5th couple that have been up there in that time and I have never had anything like this much noise at night. I do expect a certain amount of noise of course and have day/eve in the past. It's annoying but I wouldn't get worked up about it - everyone had a right to enjoy their apartment, within reason. Only rarely have I said anything, and usually a polite word along the lines of 'you probably don't realise but the soundproofing is non-existent' is effective. Much of the time people simply don't realise. The problem with this lot is the hours they keep and the volume of the noise - very loud crashes and bangs in the middle of the night. Earplugs get rid of reasonable noise (cupboards, drawers, light chair-scraping etc.) but noises so loud that they wake you at 3am with a start, heart pounding, despite the earplugs I would not consider to be reasonable. Couple of times they dropped their bag/box of bottles for recycling on the floor at that sort of time. To be suddenly woken up like that, thinking someone is trying to break into the house and has smashed the glass in the front door... Am I really being over-sensitive here?

I'm familiar with the action that can be taken, purpose of my original post was mainly to ask about soundproofing / custom earplugs.

And yes, neg eq, very modest apartment, so not much I can do about moving.

GreeBo

Idbatterim wrote: »

Op if i were you, Id probably try the soundboard I recommended, get a few slabs and throw them up over the existing plasterboard, see how much of a difference it makes, if little improvement, it hasnt cost much, if decent improvement or great improvement well worth it. If improvement is decent, you can always throw up another layer. Then get ceiling skimmed, I got an entire bedroom skimmed one year ago for E150 as a guide!

If a solid concrete floor isnt helping then neither is 30mm of soundbloc.

The only way to stop these sorts of noise is with isolation, suspended ceiling (and use soundblock on that) and a gap on all the walls. Your room will get smaller, it will need to be completely redecorated and may make bugger all difference...

Merch

GreeBo wrote: »

If a solid concrete floor isnt helping then neither is 30mm of soundbloc.

The only way to stop these sorts of noise is with isolation, suspended ceiling (and use soundblock on that) and a gap on all the walls. Your room will get smaller, it will need to be completely redecorated and may make bugger all difference...

While I wouldn't rule out the insulation, I dont think its fair the OP should have to go this route, but as they seem to be inclined to that way.
If thats an option, I'd be inclined to think some kind of noise insulation/reducing foam on the ceiling with a very small air gap and another layer facing it supported by a false ceiling rather than just an air gap covered by a sound insulating false roof.
It might be better to get good/professional advice on an installation, (not sure who specialises in this) a well designed job may take less space and be more effective.