apartment noise advice please!

anonymous

Hello i would love some advice from people who have been on either side of this problem. I live in the giant building at Warren and Smith. Anyone familiar knows that they walls are VERY thin. I hear everything from everyone (neighbors, hallway etc) but to me, this is part of apartment life and i dont complain. Now our neighbors below us have started contacting our landlord (not us) complaining about the noise we make. The problem is, my roomate and i are never home, incredibly quiet and conscientious! We have rugs down, wear slippers at home. No guests, no loud music. I just dont know how to handle this situation diplomatically and convince someone who insists we are noisy that we are not. We are simply living in the apartment and i hate having anxiety about something as simple as dropping a spoon and p*ssing them off! Any advice? Thanks in advance!

jane_birkin

Hi Jm,

I can't say that I have any helpful advice, but I am in the same situation. The couple living below us complain that --among MANY other things--they are routinely woken up by the noise of me going to bed at 11:30 at night. They also don't seem to understand that we hear them too--sound travels up as well as down. My bf and I have been extremely cooperative since the saga began. My feeling is that if the neighborhood weren't so quiet they wouldn't be able to hear the modest noise we make. Some people just aren't cut out for apartment living, but they don't know it until they try it. The problem is that you're inconvenienced by it, too, and want to be a kind considerate neighbor.

Maybe you can try having them come up to your place and hear the noise that you yourself get from the halls/other neighbors? Maybe then they'd understand that it's a building issue and not a you issue. Or maybe they can tell you if there are very specific parts of the apartment that are particularly noisy--eg, the floorboard right in front of the kitchen is very creaky. See if you can find out if it's a particular time of day that is a problem-- you say you're never home so maybe you come home at a time that they're going to bed, or maybe you get up earlier on the weekend and they hear you stumbling around in the dark when they want to sleep in?

It's totally wrong that they went straight to the landlord without attempting to contact you first, I have to say.