acoustical problems

[adrian_turtle]

I live in an apartment building with really terrible sound insulation. Street noise bothers me, though I'm really pretty high above the street. Sometimes I wish I couldn't hear so much of what the next-door neighbor was watching on tv, or the neighbor across the hall pleading tearfully with her boyfriend. I don't know how much of my feeling about the matter is generally being averse to conflict, and how much is a sense that addressing these particular noise problems would be too much of an imposition...the next-door neighbor shouldn't need to find another way to deal with hearing problems, not for my sake. And however much I think the neighbor across the hall should be in a more peaceful romantic relationship, it would be icky for her to be thinking about MY happiness while negotiating it. Overhearing neighbors can be uncomfortable, but the advantages of cheap apartment living are worth it to me.

My new neighbor downstairs is distressed by how much noise I make. It's not music or conversation that bothers her. It's that I "walk so heavily." I don't wear shoes in the apartment, nor do I run or dance here. It's just that every time I put a foot down on my floor (thinking about going across the room, or mindlessly pacing while talking on the phone) it comes through to her ceiling as if I were stomping.

She seems very averse to conflict, herself. I could tell it was hard for her to bring herself to talk to me about the problem--she could only do it when she found the situation completely intolerable.* She spent a lot of time defending against the idea that it was inappropriate for her to talk to me about being disturbed by noise.** She also checked with other people, to make sure her distress was not unreasonable.*** Visitors to her apartment have been shocked by the impact of my footfalls, and wondered how anyone could live that way. She asked my neighbor across the hall, who hears me thumping around and agreed that it's incredibly loud.

The neighbor is so distressed that she says she will break her lease if I won't walk more quietly. I apologized for disturbing her, and said that I truly did not want to do so in the future, but I wasn't sure how to avoid it. I told her I already don't wear shoes in the apartment, which would be the most obvious remedy. I asked what she would suggest. She said it was simply a matter of putting my feet down more gently, and that a person with any consideration would do so. I know carpeting muffles downwards transfer of sound, but I don't want to get it because vacuuming is such a strain for my hand and shoulder.

Her next step is to notify the landlord--actually, the management company that owns the building. She expects they will order me to stop disturbing her, because her lease gives her the right to the quiet enjoyment of her apartment. The way I walk back and forth over her bedroom at 8am, or over her kitchen at 7:30pm, is making that untenable. I have no idea if the management will value her lease more than mine.

My first step will have to wait until I can overcome my anxiety enough to get out of my chair. (This is not any more fun than being too depressed to move. Maybe less, in some ways.) While I was writing this, I was thirsty, and didn't get up for a drink because it would be too noisy. I wanted to call S, but I didn't think I could talk to him without pacing, so I didn't.



*She first brought the subject up a week ago. Redbird answered the door, and handled most of the conversation. At the time, I got the impression that the neighbor was distressed because we were talking in the kitchen and clattering dishes so early that particular morning (she said 5, but we had been up at 7.)

**Last week, I tried to reassure the neighbor that it was OK to talk to me if she had a problem with something I was doing, that I wanted to know if there was something I could fix. Meanwhile, Redbird was defensive about the accusation that we had been making noise at 5am (when we'd both been sound asleep), and the neighbor was reacting to that defensiveness. At the same confused time, the neighbor was trying to make a comprehensive defense of the idea that it wasn't unreasonable or mean to talk to me about horribly disruptive noise I was making...so defensive she couldn't hear, "Yes, of course, thank you for telling me. We really do have to go now, we need to get to South Station," as anything but dismissive.

***Knowing that LOTS of people think my walk is intolerably bad is really disturbing. I mean, I understand why she checked with them. I might have done the same thing. But I still feel like people are ganging up on me.

Comments

[sonia]

Wow. I hope your management company is experienced and reasonable!

I'm dropping by to comment that she'd likely not appreciate the sound of vacuuming overhead either, even if you could do it. When I lived in a downstairs apartment, my neighbor's vacuum sounded like an airplane taking off - over and over. Which I figured was just part of living in a downstairs apartment.

Best wishes for coping with the anxiety. Makes me, in retrospect, happy I lived downstairs, because I'd have been rooted to my chair, too.

[jesse_the_k]

Ahhhhh. This sounds very stressful and anxiety making. I'm sorry. * hugs * if they're welcome.

Given your noise concerns, sounds like a very ratty-tatty building. Have you had this issue come up before?

She said it was simply a matter of putting my feet down more gently, and that a person with any consideration would do so. is tommy tommy tommy rot.

do you have any super-padded shoes? sneakers with squishy bottoms? I can't imagine any shoe that's quieter than barefot, tho'. My gut says her idea of "quiet enjoyment" is disconnected from the customary legal meaning.

You could offer to go in on some excellent earplugs /snark.

[oursin]

I'm very inclined to be suspicious when people invoke all the other people who agree with them when making a request like this - it's a bit 'lurkers support me in email'.

I'm honestly not sure what more you could do - it does sound like a building problem rather than one a person could take action to obviate beyond a certain level.

[adrian_turtle]

A remarkable number of people have advised me to be skeptical about the pattern of supporting information. (Fortunately, one of them did so and then invited me into a hot tub. I am feeling somewhat better.) I don't know if it's my past experiences with feeling ganged up on in related situations that makes me so unable to cope with this, or if it's more general. It seems like there have been so many times when somebody has carefully gathered witnesses to prove I'm doing something wrong, in a way that I can't understand or control. Historically, challenging the witnesses has always made things worse, whether the witness responded to the challenge with, "Huh? I never said that," or "if only you'd try harder to snargle that gratmuer, everybody wouldn't hate you." So I really don't want to confront any of them. Even when "Did the neighbor across the hall really say that?" would otherwise seem like an extremely good question.

[firecat]

I wonder about the results of recording, from her apartment, your walking around in your apartment and then her walking around in your apartment. I suspect that any walking at all would sound loud. I used to live in a building where it sounded like my upstairs neighbors were throwing a bowling ball for their dog to chase.

[adrian_turtle]

I think part of the problem is that she's not familiar with living in such a badly-constructed building, and may not be familiar with living in apartment buildings at all. I wouldn't be surprised if a person discovered she couldn't cope with the noise, a month after moving in. And living under an uncarpeted apartment doesn't make it easier.

I can sympathize with her desire to break her lease. I don't know if she is just flailing helplessly and demanding that somebody make it all better, and she's fixing on me because I'm more identifiable than the traffic outside or whoever made the building so incompetently 35-40 years ago. I'm just figuring that possibility out, and I resent it.

I don't know if she wants to break her lease, and thinks she can avoid the financial penalties by blaming me for the noise. Insofar as I've figured out that possibility, I'm not just resentful about it. I'm furious.

[firecat]

I'm just figuring that possibility out, and I resent it.

In general society seems to be set up to promote "let's you and her fight" instead of "there's an accommodation problem here, and them that build/own the accommodation should be responsible for fixing it." (I run into this most often with regard to the size of airline seats and the size of people trying to sit in them.)

It is most definitely to be resented.

another test

[webbob]

I agree with Oursin in inclining to some suspicion about how many of the lurking tenants agree with this woman in conversations you're not a party to. Particularly given that the complaining person claims that you were making noise two hours before you got up.

Of course agree I with everyone who commented in sympathizing with you about this stressful and anxious situation you find yourself in.

There's a key point here: how loudly can people reasonably walk in an apartment? I think that my stompy stepson is too loud, but I don't remember you as having a particularly heavy tread. An interesting test would be finding out how loud the person below you sounds to the person below her. Another would be to find out if she thinks you're noisy even when you're either not there.

I'd suggest, though, that faced with the option of collecting a fee from another tenant who breaks her lease while alleging that you are heavy-footed and taking action to remove you, the management company will take the money and run. It might be different if you had a long history, across multiple tenants, of accusations of excessive noise from walking. (You don't, do you?)

[wild_irises]

We've just been through this in our house. We live in an old duplex and there is no doubt that the people downstairs can hear pokershaman and me walking around. We're both heavy people and neither of us is particularly lightfooted. Most people who have lived downstairs in the last 26 years have taken it as part of living downstairs in a duplex.

For six months ending in November, we had a downstairs roommate who completely hated living below us. He slept below my office (where I sleep one or two nights a week). He said my desk chair sounded like moving furniture. He found it completely intolerable. I got a rug to help him out and (when pressed) he said it "helped a little." One night he pounded on the ceiling. (I thought that was okay. His roommate, who is our close friend and long-term tenant, was furious.

It's so personal, how much noise is too much. But I do bet that you don't make more noise than anyone else living in that apartment would, and that her problem is largely the problem of living below anyone. I really hope you don't let it limit your mobility and choices.

[adrian_turtle]

Thanks for the reassurance. The past few months have been exceptionally bad for feeling insecure about my body, and this attack (not sure it's the right word, but it feels like it) hit me really hard. It makes me feel better that friends are telling me I don't walk unreasonably loudly. I mean, I know people who put their feet down harder...but being able to point to a worse case doesn't mean it's not bad. Having so many people tell me specifically that I'm not doing anything wrong is helping more than I expected.

There was something else uncomfortable in the conversation, and your comment reminded me of it. She said, "When we heard you making those horrible clomp-clomp-clomp noises, we thought you must be FAT. But now that I look at you, you don't weigh 300 pounds or anything...You look kind of normal. You just walk too heavily." (I couldn't really respond to that in real time. It took me a whole day to figure out how shocked I was.) I was wearing old pajamas, 2 or 3 sizes too big. If I were that size, still or again, would that make my walking ok? Maybe, but I doubt it.

[wild_irises]

Two things. First, it is an attack, and actually a surprisingly nasty one. While I've seen this happen many times to quiet people (ask me about my uncle's family going through this some time), mostly it's not as nastily personal as she is being with you. "You just walk too heavily," is an amazing statement.

Second, I think you're understanding the fat thing backwards. If you had been fat it would be more your fault, because being fat is culturally considered to be a person's fault. What she was trying to say was "Wow! You're not fat! That makes it weird that you don't walk thoughtfully because thinner people are more thoughtful than fatter people." NOT TRUE. But almost certainly her worldview.

Good luck dealing with it. I'm thinking of you.

[darkrose]

I'm sorry that you're having to deal with this and I certainly don't blame you for being anxious. I seriously doubt that you're making an unreasonable amount of noise by walking around; the issue is inherent to apartment living, and the only way to solve it is to live on the top floor.

*hugs* Hopefully your landlords will be reasonable.

[adrian_turtle]

*hugs* Hopefully your landlords will be reasonable.

Thanks. The nice fellow with the law school experience tells me that:

1) She's completely wrong, "quiet use and enjoyment" doesn't imply anything like silence. It's a term of art.

2) Reasonable landlords customarily listen to complaints from unreasonable tenants, smile and nod and express regret for the disturbance. They send certified letters to whoever was accused of causing the disturbance, telling them to stop--it doesn't have anything to do with whether they consider the accusation reasonable, it's just a way they can prove they didn't ignore the complaint.

3) The landlord has some incentive to make this end with my neighbor moving out and paying the extra fees for breaking the lease. The real conflict, the one that has to be resolved, is between the neighbor and the landlord. The collateral damage to me really sucks, though.

[legionseagle]

I and my flatmates at law school had precisely this problem with the downstairs neighbours who tried to get us thrown out of law school (we were summoned to the principal's office to explain ourselves) on the grounds of the noise we made while walking about; also alleged slummy behaviour viz putting the milkbottles out unwashed (untrue) and putting books on the window-ledges in such a way as to make them visible from the street (true).

I can add, by the way, that if you happen to be afflicted by someone who takes this sort of dotty view vacuum-cleaners are worse than footsteps because that also featured in the complaint.

From what we could tell, the underlying motivation had nothing to do with noise; it was due to the neighbours' tensions that they had come down in the world by being forced to live in rented accommodation with several dwellings under the same roof rather than in the detached house they had previously owned before their money troubles had occurred.

Our landlady was entirely supportive, though and we formed the distinct impression that she would have been overjoyed had the people concerned moved out because the baseline level of irritability which causes people lash out about upstairs neighbours walking across floors in ordinary daylight hours makes them an intolerable pain as a tenant because practically any other replacement for the person complained about is likely to be considerably more of an irritant (consider, for example, what your downstairs neighbour would have to put up with if you and the woman with the dramatic relationship with her boyfriend swapped flats) and hence, for the landlord, the problem has only one solution and it isn't getting rid of the upstairs neighbour.

And your friend with the lawschool experience is dead right; a "covenant for quiet enjoyment" means that the landlord isn't going to forfeit the block to his mortagor or retain a spare set of keys so he can use it as a crack den when his tenants are out, not that the other tenants in the building aren't allowed to walk from one room to another.