Sound-proofing against noisy neighbours?

kissenger

kissenger

kissenger

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I'm having no end of problems with an idiot who lives in the flat above me. It's a one bedroom in an old Victorian house but it seems like recently he's decided to move a couple of his mates in for company and it's made it almost impossible for me to get any peace and quiet. They're up until all hours watching TV, talking really loudly (I think they're Iraqi or from somewhere near there and when they're just having a normal conversation it sounds as if they're having a heated argument), walking around, etc and then they sleep until the afternoon, but I can't even get any peace then because you can hear them snoring through the ceiling :mad:

I've considered dobbing them in to the council because I would bet any money they haven't declared how many people there is living there and are probably getting single person discount on their CT. The other thing I was thinking of looking into to deal with it is noise cancelling loft insulation, but I haven't got a clue where to start or even if it's really a solution.

There doesn't seem to be any loft space in my living room ceiling, which is where the biggest problem is, but there is loft space in the adjoining hallway and I suspect (although I'm really only speculating) that that bit of loft space is amplifying the noise coming from above. Would loft insulation help in my circumstances? Is it expensive to get done?
 
Are you renting? If so, probably not much.

If not, you're talking about dropping the ceiling by 6 inches to do it properly. Proper acoustic proofing needs something like rock wool and an air gap to be any good.

Source: My Uncle is an acoustic engineer, he kills sound for a living.
 
I doubt doing anything on the ceiling would make a great deal of difference.

Have you spoken to your landlord (if you're renting?)

From personal experience, the most successful solution (apart from either one of you moving out) is to tackle the issue from their place such as good insulation under floorboards, screwed down boards, acoustic underlay and thick carpet. Apart from that there is little you can do to be quite honest.

If it were an adjoining neighbor rather than one from above then at least you could go down the stud partition route (which for us made a massive difference).
 
Having an extension done now and part of the old kitchen is being redone, above is a bedroom. It's above a boiler and is now my little girls room. I have ripped down the old plasterboard, put up a load of rock wool and put new plasterboard back up. It has made a big difference already without the skimming being done to the point the boiler is now really quiet and you can't hear voices of people talking below at normal levels. May be worth the few hundred quid for materials and labour to sort it out.
 
Participant said:
I would just move.
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I really don't want to move as I plan on buying my flat soon (it's a housing association property).

I haven't asked them to keep the noise down because it's a bit different to a standard noise issue. It's not like they're blasting loud music all the time. The noise they're making is the noise you make just by living somewhere (i.e., conversations, walking around, etc). The issue is the overcrowding. I'm getting a lot more noise than usual not because they're being louder per se, but because there's more of them up there. Because of that I can't really go round and say, 'could you tell your friend to move out please.'

We share a landlord and I have notified them of situation. I was hoping a letter from the landlord would frighten them into stopping the overcrowding, but they're insisting that the extra people are just 'guests' who only stay occasionally on weekends. It's not true, they're there all the time, but I suppose it's their word against mine.
 
I'm having a fit of rage right now as the ***** above are dragging something around on the wooden floors all night for the last few days. They've made noise for months but worst in last few weeka. It's a family and i wrote them a polite letter last week, she came down and said they had another family staying with them for a month and they'd be quiet. Did they?? Not a ******* chance, in fact worst.

Went up to knock on door tonight, no answer despite me knocking hard the last few times and yet the same noises carried on.

No respect or consideration these people have for others.
 
Liquid_Entity said:
I'm having a fit of rage right now as the ***** above are dragging something around on the wooden floors all night for the last few days. They've made noise for months but worst in last few weeka. It's a family and i wrote them a polite letter last week, she came down and said they had another family staying with them for a month and they'd be quiet. Did they?? Not a ******* chance, in fact worst.

Went up to knock on door tonight, no answer despite me knocking hard the last few times and yet the same noises carried on.

No respect or consideration these people have for others.
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That's really a shame. I wonder what they are doing to make that noise, and how can you tell it's wooden :D

If they're renting I suppose you could contact their landlord as a last resort, but if they own I suppose there's nothing you can do.
 
Amazing how you have instantly assumed that they're Iraqi and not paying their council tax etc.

Go speak to them politely.
 
ADT said:
Amazing how you have instantly assumed that they're Iraqi and not paying their council tax etc.

Go speak to them politely.
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What? They objectively are Middle Eastern. I've spoken to them before. If I don't know the exact country where they're from it's because I couldn't find a polite way to ask to check their passports when I did speak to them.

And I didn't link their being Middle Eastern to their not paying their CT. The only reason why I suspect they're not paying their full CT is because like I said, it's a one bedroom flat and there's three people living there. If they declare that there's documented proof of over-occupation which if their landlord got hold of they would be in trouble. Reasonable assumption to make I think.
 
kissenger said:
That's really a shame. I wonder what they are doing to make that noise, and how can you tell it's wooden :D

If they're renting I suppose you could contact their landlord as a last resort, but if they own I suppose there's nothing you can do.
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Pushing their kids around on toys with wheels is what it sounds like. They drop objects on the floor constantly and after I knocked last night they were definitely making more noise on purpose. Could hear them laughing and running around the flat as loud as possible.
 
It sounds like the flat above has a floor built directly onto the joists with your ceilings/walls attached without any decoupling. Sadly this is incredibly common in the UK despite being against building regulations! I had the same thing in my bedroom with neighbours upstairs - they weren't inconsiderate or particularly noisy, but due to the way the flat was built you could just hear any movement that made contact with the floor!

You can make a big difference with soundproofing, but it's not easy. The best thing you can probably do is decouple the ceiling in your living room from the joists above by removing the existing plasterboard, then installing genie clips/furring channels and add then a double layer of plasterboard with green glue sandwiched between. You will still get flanking noise down the walls but the improvement should be quite significant, especially from impact noise.

This website is a fantastic resource:
http://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing-solutions/

I ended up doing my ceiling myself based upon designs from there - I was fortunate that I had a high ceiling so was able to drop it a long way, but the difference was quite dramatic and I've not had a problem since. It didn't fix it 100% as I still get the flanking noise, but it made it absolutely fine to live with. I'm now planning on doing the other bedroom probably this summer.
 
oli collett said:
It sounds like the flat above has a floor built directly onto the joists with your ceilings/walls attached without any decoupling. Sadly this is incredibly common in the UK despite being against building regulations! I had the same thing in my bedroom with neighbours upstairs - they weren't inconsiderate or particularly noisy, but due to the way the flat was built you could just hear any movement that made contact with the floor!

You can make a big difference with soundproofing, but it's not easy. The best thing you can probably do is decouple the ceiling in your living room from the joists above by removing the existing plasterboard, then installing genie clips/furring channels and add then a double layer of plasterboard with green glue sandwiched between. You will still get flanking noise down the walls but the improvement should be quite significant, especially from impact noise.

This website is a fantastic resource:
http://www.soundproofingcompany.com/soundproofing-solutions/

I ended up doing my ceiling myself based upon designs from there - I was fortunate that I had a high ceiling so was able to drop it a long way, but the difference was quite dramatic and I've not had a problem since. It didn't fix it 100% as I still get the flanking noise, but it made it absolutely fine to live with. I'm now planning on doing the other bedroom probably this summer.
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Thanks for that link and your advice. That looks like the way to go. My uncle works in the building trade and I reckon if I got his help I could do this myself. I wonder what it would cost if I got some builders in to do it though?
 
Fight fire with fire. Mount one or more subwoofers to the ceiling. When they're noisy blast them with some bass. Hopefully over time if your sound irritates them enough they will modify there behaviour so as not to be subjected to it.
 
norm said:
Fight fire with fire. Mount one or more subwoofers to the ceiling. When they're noisy blast them with some bass. Hopefully over time if your sound irritates them enough they will modify there behaviour so as not to be subjected to it.
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Ha! That is what I'm calling the 'nuclear option' for now. I hope it doesn't come to that.
 
ADT said:
Amazing how you have instantly assumed that they're Iraqi and not paying their council tax etc.

Go speak to them politely.
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I suspect he really couldn't give a flying monkey nut where they are from and what they are doing so long as they STFU! ;)

Sympathys - noisy neighbours is a horrible experience. :(
 
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