Alright everybody, get ready for a long one.
A few months ago my fiancee (F29) and I (M29) bought our first appartment. It took years of saving and 6 months of renovation, but we finally managed to move in at the end on January.
I have recently been laid off for economic reasons and to top it off, I have trouble relaxing/lazing around during the day. If the sun is out, I feel the need to do stuff. As a consequence, my only real "relax time" is at night, when I do not feel any internal pressure to be active. You might imagine that, as an unemployed nightowl, my bedtime is a little bit dephased with the rest of society and it is not rare for me to get to bed at 5am.
When renovating the kitchen/living area, we realised that the concrete slab rigidifying my hardwood floor had been destroyed by an old downstairs neighbour (we live on the 4rth floor) to attach their ceiling directly onto my floor beams. This means that there is basically no accoustic insulation between the 2 floors, and the lack of rigidity due to the slab being broken creates a lot of vibrations.
When we moved in, my downstairs neighbours quickly came to tell us that the noise from the floor vibrating was a big issue for them, and we started walking carefully around the house during the evening.
One night, I was about to go to bed at 4:30am when the neighbour comes, telling me that my moving around is basically ruining her life. She can’t sleep, is getting psychological issues, just because I move around at night.
Of course, I say sorry, and I get a call from their landlord the next day, asking me to go and try to appease the situation.
Obviously I genuinely feel sorry. So I go to see her, say that I do empathize, that I will make efforts to be as silent as possible, but that I can’t change my entire lifestyle to suit her sleeping schedule.
A few days later, her husband comes back from a trip and, having heard his wife cry repeatedly on the phone because of sleep deprivation, he comes to my door to confront me. It is 10pm at that time.
The dude tells me I am a savage doing to much noise and, when I tell him that I already am walking as silently as I can (litteraly on my toes), he calls me a liar. I decide to close the door to put an end to this sterile discussion, but he blocks the door with his foot and tries to force his way in ! Things start to heat up, my fiancee separates us, they shout at us for about 30 minutes in the hallway and the next day I went to the police to record the incident.
The only way we managed to cool things down was to promise them I’d go to bed at 11pm, which I will obviously not do, especially for someone who tried invading my home (and insulted me because of my unemployment and lifestyle).
I understand her plight and empathize, but I am in my home and I won’t self impose some kind of curfew. Am I the AH ?
Edit for more info : Despite the bad blood, I still make as many efforts as I can to remain silent. I litterally walk on my toes after 11pm. I should also say that we paid for the insulation in the kitchen area when we remodelled it, despite not being responsible for the degradation. Unfortunately, our insulation does not fix the vibration issue.
Also, they are renters, so they can’t actually pay to fix the issue themselves, and their landlord won’t do it either.
Edit 2 : removed the ADHD comment which might be wrong and brings nothing to the actual story.
Edit 3 : Isolation -> Insulation
NTA – infact, I would be calling the landlord and telling them what you found about the ceiling fan and concrete slab… that landlord would have to fix it…
NTA. The building should fix the problem and the husband is lucky he didn’t get arrested for trying to force his way in.
ESH. My knowledge of home construction must be very limited cause this makes no sense to me, but if y’all know of the actual reason (previous construction removed a needed feature) Y’all should be adults and just figure out how to fix that.
Are y’all not concern about other other structural damages that may be present due to the clearly faulty previous reno?
I doubt a concrete slab was poured merely for acoustic convience. Theres other, cheaper, sound proofing. Usually you use concrete cause you need strength and if thats been compromised y’all have more to worry about than sound.
So this is an old french building with pretty local building techniques. The layer that was actually destroyed is called a “Bacula” or “Machefer”. It helps rigidify the floor and offer additional sound and thermal isolation. It is not structural per se, so it really is a comfort issue. The actual structural issue is the fact that their ceiling is hanging from my floor beams, which they are not meant to support. I will mention it at the next homeowners assembly.
Regarding the actual solutions, the issue is that they are renters, so they cannot engage in any kind of renovations, their landlord isn’t obligated or willing to pay for these renovations, and the issue comes from their side so I really do not want to destroy my floor to pay for their isolation..
> The actual structural issue is the fact that their ceiling is hanging from my floor beams, which they are not meant to support. I will mention it at the next homeowners assembly.
Not meant to support? That IS a structural issue.
Mentioning at a next meeting is not the proper way to resolve this. You need a lawyer now.
I am not familiar with the laws in your country, but in most countries there are laws that would require you to disclose this issue when you sell your unit and that could cost you a lot of money. Take this more seriously.
Once the husband escalated that would be it for me. I would take up clog dancing lessons and tell them to eff right off.
Let’s be clear: Your neighbor’s husband is a genuine asshole, and I hope the police paid him a visit.
As for you… well, if you’ve put down rugs and pads (pads are crucial), and the noise is still horrible, NTA.
If you haven’t done anything to try and mitigate the percussive hell being inflicted on your downstairs neighbor, then YTA.
Rugs (with pads underneath) can make an enormous difference (and they’re cost-effective).
I strongly disagree with this. Walking around your home can never be unreasonable, regardless of what soundproofing measures you have in place.
*When renovating the kitchen/living area, we realised that the concrete slab rigidifying my hardwood floor had been destroyed by an old downstairs neighbour (we live on the 4rth floor) to attach their ceiling directly onto my floor beams. This means that their is basically no accoustic isolation between the 2 floors, and the lack of rigidity due to the slab being broken creates a lot of vibrations.*
You need to talk to a lawyer to see if the building is responsible for fixing this issue
Because it sounds to me like they might be
NTA
Just noticed the “their/there” mistake thanks to your comment, oops !
I currently am trying to find a solution for this with my homeowners association’s insurance.
This could represent significant structural damage caused by the downstairs neighbour if they compromised anything important.
From what you’ve explained, the excessive noise they’re experiencing is due to THEIR unit being improperly renovated. Thats not your problem and I would be bringing that up at every opportunity- to them, their landlord, your community meetings, everything. This is their problem, whether they did it themselves or it was a previous tenant, its their/their landlord’s responsibility to fix it.
In the meantime, I would at least try to maybe get some cheap area rugs and slippers to help with the noise just as a gesture of good will, because getting into a pissing match with your neighbors is never a good idea if it can be avoided.
NTA. Sing to the fucking heavens about the construction issue.
NTA
Next time their landlord calls you to go apologize to them, you should mention how he or she should fix their apartment if those two are such desirable renters.
If the two below you don’t like the reasonable noises (meaning you’re not playing a trumpet at 2 in the morning), then they should search for an apartment on a top floor somewhere.