Soundproofing an apartment ceiling??

[ny biker]

Does anyone have experience with or know anything about soundproofing the ceiling in an apartment to muffle noises from the unit upstairs?

The condo where I live was built a long time ago and all the units had wall-to-wall carpeting at the time. So there is no condo rule requiring a minimum amount of carpeting, and the board of directors is unwilling to change the bylaws to put such a rule into effect even though more and more residents are ripping out the carpets to expose the wood floors. The carpeting was removed from the unit above mine several years ago. The current owner moved out of state a few years ago and now rents it out.

The last person who lived upstairs had no area rugs, and she and her little dog made my life a living hell for nearly two years. She knew it was a problem for me and just didn't care. Now she has finally moved out and a new tenant has moved in, also without any rugs. The owner of the unit lives out of state and I have no contact information for them so I can't appeal to them for help. The condo management won't do anything other than "recommend" that people get rugs. So despite the fact that the condo rules say that I have the right to the peaceful use of my home, in reality I have no peace. I have to listen to the stomping and the cabinet slamming and the furniture being moved (EVERY DAY!! WHY DO THEY HAVE TO MOVE IT EVERY DAY!!) and the TV and the stereo and yes, even their conversations day in and day out because their decorating choices have priority over my right to peace and quiet. </rant>

So, I've looked online for information about soundproofing a ceiling. I'm finding some stuff out there -- something about extra drywall layers with a product called Green Glue, or decoupling clips with additional drywall -- but it seems that it can be expensive to do and it might not do much to mitigate the noise anyway. And I have no idea what kind of contractor would do this sort of work.

If anyone has any knowledge or experience in this area, I would really appreciate any input you can give.

Thanks!!

[emily_in_nc]

I wish I could help, but I just want you to know that I totally feel your pain! We live in a first floor condo (now under contract, hurrah!!!) in our building, which is built of concrete. Floors are tile. Not only can we hear loud footsteps and yes, furniture moving on the 2nd floor, we can hear it in the other first-floor unit and even the third-floor unit! We don't hear much if anything when only our unit and the fourth floor are occupied, but that's rare.

The furniture moving is what gets me the most. It seems to be constant, and I wonder why no one else seems to use the pads under the chair and table legs. It drives me batty. Definitely a lesson learned -- I don't think I'd ever want to live in a condo again, but if I do, it will be top floor or BUST.

The only thing I know of is dropped acoustic ceilings like in offices, but they are very ugly, and unless you have 9' or higher ceilings in your unit are going to bring down the ceiling height too much. I sure do wish you luck. I assume moving is not an option?

[spokewench]

I don't know about how to soundproof something, but ownership of property is in public records. You should be able to get the name of the owner and their address (they pay the real property taxes) by going to or calling your real property tax assessor office.

[Catrin]

I really feel your pain, this very thing is what made me decide to move in my current complex. It is as quiet as if I were in a house, very well built buildings. It is also the most expensive place I've lived so I am considering moving this year (sadly) but it is what it is. For me it was the all of the stomping around, creaking floors, party sounds, major arguments, etc. that kept going on both over-head and next door.

I hope you are able to find a viable solution!

[emily_in_nc]

I am not even sure if contacting the owner would help, though. Some people just live life loudly, and you can't force people to use area rugs. When we lived in a top-floor apartment prior to moving down here, our best friend in the complex lived on the first floor under a heavy, noisy woman and her son. Our friend had complained both to the tenants and to management several times, but since the noise was just caused by them walking around (heavily), nothing could really be done and the people refused to change their ways since they didn't think they were being noisy -- it's not like they were throwing late-night parties or anything. They even had wall-to-wall carpeting, but the building was just today's typical cheap construction. We couldn't believe how noisy it was above when we visited our friend and felt SO lucky to live on the top floor. Lucky for her, she recently got married and moved into her husband's very nice single-family house!

We thought we'd be okay living on the first floor in this building since it's concrete and the units are not inexpensive so we assumed it would be well-built. However, it's even noisier! I will say that we never hear TVs or conversations -- the concrete seems to block that -- but heavy footsteps (and running, if any children are above us, children always run), loud music (the man on the third floor has a habit of playing his guitar in the middle of the night and early in the morning), and furniture moving are enough to make me tear out my hair. I sleep with earplugs every single night.

Sigh...

[goldfinch]

I would talk to an engineer. My hunch is that any solution is going to be pricey and not perfect.

You might consider lobbying on the issue with other association members to try to get your board to have some requirement for a certain amount of floor area to be covered with rugs.

[shootingstar]

Good luck nyc in finding solutions. I live a reasonably quiet building. I don't mind noise upstairs (current residents above and around me are quiet) above me, as long it's not at night when I'm trying to sleep and not someone being violent with another person.

I grew up in a large family and as the oldest did remember some nights of baby sibling(s, depending at what point in life) crying and during the day, children running around while I was studying or resting.

A while ago, I lived in a building where the last 3 months before I moved (because I sold my place), someone upstairs seemed to be running some sort of exercise machine... I ended up sleeping in my living room during that time.

[PamNY]

Ny biker this is such a common problem -- I'd love to know if you find out anything that works. I don't have a problem with sound from above, but many of my friends do.

[withm]

The standard way to solve this problem is to "laminate" your existing drywall ceiling - that is to add another layer of drywall over top the existing drywall, and with a new layer of sound- insulation in between. This will lower your ceiling height by several inches. If you have standard 8' ceilings you probably won't want to do this, and it's probably prohibited by your local building code. Plus, unless you did it yourself, it would cost a couple thousand dollars or more, per room. This is a common method that some people like to do to cover up the old textured "popcorn" ceilings. (The popcorn starts to disintegrate after 30 years or so, and can't be cleaned, nor painted, at that point because it just falls apart, making for a very messy, messy job.) Laminating the ceiling is much cheaper, cleaner, and faster, than it is to demo the ceiling, and put up new drywall.)

Another way to solve this might be to go upstairs and talk to your neighbors and let them know that they probably don't realize how sound carries in the building and perhaps they could put some carpeting down. Bring a batch of homemade cookies, or bread, or something nice. Invite one of them to come down to your unit while the other proceeds to move the furniture around in their usual fashion so they can hear how loud it is, even if just one at a time.

If you sense resistance, you might even offer to buy them a thick rug that would go with their decor. That would be by far the cheapest solution.

If it's mostly the furniture moving that's an issue, buy them a set of glides for whatever it is that they are moving. If it's loud talking, TV, music, then you need to get them to agree to be more conscientious about the noise, a rug, and/or pay for part of your ceiling renovation.

I know how much loud neighbors can destroy your sanity. Good luck!