Soundproofing an apartment ceiling??

[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.