Noisy Neighbors
This time, actually, it’s kind of the reverse of noisy neighbors; instead, I have acquired a neighbor who is incredibly sensitive to noise.
As I’ve mentioned before, I live in a building which has excellent soundproofing. A couple moved in several years ago with an infant, and I don’t hear a thing from them. If the person upstairs vacuums, I don’t hear the machine; I just hear the knocking sound it makes if it bumps on the floor–vibrational sound like that. The fact that the loud motor of a vacuum cleaner is stopped says something for the floor-to-ceiling sound cancellation. The only time a neighbor got out of hand was when a kid two floors down got it into him to let loose with an electric guitar with his amps turned up full blast–and even then, it was very, very muffled in my apartment. It took an hour of it to get me annoyed enough to look into it–and I am easily annoyed by sounds like that. That’s how good the soundproofing is.
Now, several weeks ago, a couple with a kid moved into the apartment below me. Before, there had been a woman who lived there, and though I had asked her repeatedly if I made any noise, she said “no” every time. Maybe she felt intimidated or something, but I did my best to say that I was a noisy person (I sometimes watch TV till very late at night), and welcomed any report of noise, saying I’d be glad to turn it down. She insisted that she couldn’t hear anything.
When the new people came in, they came around with a small gift (a hand towel), as new neighbors in Japan often do. I gave them the usual invitation to let me know if I was being too noisy for them. The very next night, the husband came up and complained about the TV noise. OK, I thought–I was using speakers on the floor, and it had been pretty loud. So I stopped using them, and started using my headphones a lot more; otherwise, I used much smaller, desk-mounted speakers, and not nearly as loud.
The other day, the guy came up again to complain. This time, he said that I was making loud noise constantly from 1 am to 6 am–and I could honestly tell him that (a) I was not making that much noise, and (b) I had gone to bed at 3 am. He seemed puzzled, and maybe like he didn’t fully believe me.
Now, tonight, he came up after midnight and complained about noise from my apartment. This time, it was me–but the noise he complained about was my laughing. I was watching a video (volume down), and it was funny, so I laughed–but for no longer than 1 or 2 minutes, and certainly not continuously. Now, keep in mind that the noise of a vacuum cleaner cannot penetrate the same barrier from the apartment above. This guy has to come up and tell me to knock off laughing? I laugh a little loud, but not that loud.
What’s more, he said (unapologetically) that he had found the source of the noise that kept him up all night recently–it was from the apartment above me, he said. Now, remember, going through two floors, it took a kid playing electric guitar full blast to get me to notice. And the person in the apartment between us absolutely heard it, too. But now the guy below me says the people above me were making a racket that kept him awake–and I didn’t hear a thing.
If this goes on, I am going to have to have a talk with this guy. I mean, I am all for keeping the noise down. But if I am going to have to walk on eggshells because he has better hearing than your average dog, then we have a problem.
I had an issue w/ my neighbor w/ noise too. We did some tests between our two apartments where I turned things on in my apt, went to hers, listened, and then went back to mine to reposition speakers and things. And we did the same w/ hers (where she listened in my apt). We found that speakers positioned a certain way coupled sounds into the other apts easily. So we played w/ things to get the sound down. I’m amazed at how some things couple from one apt to the other easily, whereas others do not. Placing a towel under speakers that sit on the floor helped a lot, for example.
A rug under a chair where you sit may help if you are laughing. The laugh may be low frequency and may go through the floor easily. Perhaps 2 layers of rug would be helpful. Very low frequencies penetrate more easily. Your father may have some ideas on this.
Ear putty ear plugs are very helpful for sleepers who are sensitive to noise. I use them when traveling.
I wonder if you opened the door to being blamed for *any* noises they hear by trying to be a good neighbor and telling them to let you know if you were being too noisy. If I were you, I wouldn’t say anything about noise to future new neighbors as you might just get them thinking.
If your neighbor is that incredibly sensitive to noise, his kid must drive him crazy. You may want to politely recommend he get some sort of white noise machine or use an air cleaner all night to mask small sounds that disturb his sleep. He is, after all, living in a place where building materials are thin and there are a lot of people in small area. He can’t expect it to be quiet all the time at night.
Our experience has been that you can be as noisy as you want within certain hours (generally 8:00 am to 10:00 pm) but other than those hours you have to be cautious. Given your hours, you may want to consider using headphones after 10:00 until this couple moves on because they don’t seem to be shy about complaining.
I have found that most noise from neighbors, above, below, or beside comes from outside rather than thru the walls or floors. In spring and fall when the weather is nice most people open their windows and sound that comes out the window bounces off nearby buildings, gets amplified and sent back at the building. This happened me to when I lived on the 4th floor and on the 2nd floor was a record shop that blasted music out their shop window. It wasn’t that loud when you went outside because of all the other ambient noise, but from inside my apartment the windows filtered out all the noise except the bass. Strangely enough the guy living inbetween said he didn’t hear it or it didn’t bother him.