I Hear And Smell Rude People
Persistent noise forced on a person can have negative effects on health, and it's just plain wildly unpleasant.
There's an article in The New York Times by Roy Furchgott about New York City apartment dwellers going to great expense to silence their apartments or the noise from their neighbors, hiring acoustical engineers to accomplish that.
As I write in "Good Manners for Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck," nobody has a right to change the ambience and of another person's living space.
A commenter on the NYT site gets it exactly right:
DK
In my co-op, we coined the term "Your acoustical space". That means, each resident must keep personal noise "within the confines of one's own apartment". Each resident is responsible for sound insulation of the unit lived in, either through learning to live quietly or through sound insulation. The concept: I am NOT responsible for paying to stop YOUR noise. I pay for my apartment and you do not have the right to take my acoustical space, which is just as real as visual space. To be clear, we made parallel to the visual views available from one's apartment windows. The resident above may not hang a cloth over a lower apartment window, removing the view. Similarly, a resident in a neighbor apartment may not usurp the quiet of another apartment without paying a rental fee for use of "acoustical space". Once the logic was clear, quiet began and no fees were ever paid. I suggest taking the concept of "Your acoustical space" to the board of your co-op or condo association. Our building went from noisy to calm and quiet. And I was thanked by several residents who had put up with annoying noise for over a decade.
The problem with this is building quality. There are all sorts of potential acoustic problems: air ducts, resonating steel beams, and (of course) just a lack of acoustic insulation. If you live in a building with serious acoustic problems, there really isn't a lot that you can do.
Just as an example: in our house, if someone plays music at moderate volume in the basement, you can hear it surprisingly clearly on the second floor. Damned-if-I-know how that works, but it sure does.
In the end, it's about compromise. If you live in an apartment, you will sometimes hear the neighbors. People need to be considerate, but if they expect absolute silence, they need to move to a cabin in the woods.
a_random_guy at December 14, 2015 1:39 AM
That was a problem in a lot of apartment complexes I've lived in. Ordinary activities such as walking around, playing the television at normal volume, or running the dishwasher were audible to units beneath and adjacent. Around here, most of the apartment buildings are built with the absolute cheapest and thinnest materials that the building inspectors will let them get away with. Subfloors are 1/2" plywood, on joists spaced at 24", and it's impossible to walk on them without them trampolining or making creaking noises. And there's no insulation between units. (When a fire starts in a building, it usually takes the whole building because there are no fire stops.)
Once, some years ago, my neighbors in the adjacent unit were having a loud party one Friday night. I knocked on their door and said, "If you're going to have a loud party, at least you could invite me in." And they did.
Cousin Dave at December 14, 2015 7:11 AM
if they expect absolute silence, they need to move to a cabin in the woods
Yeah, about that...if a bear roars in the woods, does he make a sound? and you haven't lived until you've heard bard owls hooting back and forth amongst themselves in the early morning hours.
Now that I've bought a home, I'm glad that I chose a house over a condo. More work and perhaps expense, yes, but I don't have to put up with my neighbors bovine scatology.
I R A Darth Aggie at December 14, 2015 7:15 AM
I live in a townhouse. We will sometimes hear our neighbors. They aren't doing anything loud, but stuff like water pipes near shared walls, etc. That's part of life here (on the other hand, their buildings give me great insulation on two of my four walls, right?).
Other sounds, like a vacuum running, also get through some times. They aren't loud or obtrusive, but I'd prefer that than them not having a clean home :)
Still, there are times I long for a detached home (until I look at the prices that is!).
So, there's reasonable noise... and unreasonable noise, in my opinion.
Shannon at December 14, 2015 7:39 AM
Oh please. There's a difference in your neighbor playing the saxophone at all hours, and in the sounds of normal living. You don't want to hear ANYTHING?? Don't live where you share walls, ceilings, and floors with other humans. Simple.
momof4 at December 14, 2015 8:12 AM
I live across from a highschool where most of the district's events are held... we've never figured out why the other highschools don't host their own stuff... other than the others are in areas of expensive homes, and my area? all cheap old apartments.
Imagine how loud it is when there are marching band competitions bringing in 20 bands all practicing in every available street closeby... even with everything closed up in a 1960's all brick building, you can hear every clashing drumline. :shrug: what'cha gonna do?
IN the building... you can hear a few things here and there... the lady downstairs was kinda irked when my son was playing some techno, and complained, so I brought her up, and? actually a bit quieter than normal listening, because I warned him when he moved in with me...
She was very surprised, but how to fix the problem?
Son decided to just start using his headphones, and problem solved. Apparently my music doesn't resonate the same way, because I don't listen to as much techno, and the frequencies are different.
Probably just resonates the floor...
Essentially, we all just try and compromise with what seems REASONABLE in an apartment setting...
And then? If you want MORE QUIET, say you work the night shift and sleep in the day? That's on you as an individual. YOU would be asking the unreasonable, so you have to fix it yourself. Blackout curtains, facemask, earplugs, or get creative...
But it's UNREASONABLE to expect that there will be no noise intrusion in an apartment, reality doesn't work that way.
You don't have a right to silence and if you need that, you will have to go where it is silent, or make silence.
I once lived in a brand new apartment... and discovered that the couple next doors headboard was on the other side of the wall from mine. There was really no other way to re-arrange the room based on wall lengths and window placement. For a while I slept in the livingroom. {AGAIN? It's the 3rd time tonight, how young is this guy?!?} Took the electrical outlet cover off out of curiosity, sure enough, no insulation at all. Apt. corporation said: "not our problem" so I called the county and made it their problem, since that particular wall was supposed to be a firebreak, and fully insulated.
Oddly after my lease expired, my rent doubled, so hasta la vista.
Oh, and? Next door couple [and all their "friends"] were methheads, and prolly running a brothel. In a very nice brand new apartment building.
Meh, I like my old decrepit building, filled with divorced guys mostly... it's quiet, for the most part.
SwissArmyD at December 14, 2015 10:07 AM
People need to be considerate, but if they expect absolute silence, they need to move to a cabin in the woods.
Cant, every time I do all the asshole decide thy need to get out of the areas around the city and build brand new ones that look just like the old ones right down the road from me.
And then of course they need shopping becuase its just too much of a hassle to buys stuff on their way home from work, and then they need the roads expanded because how are several thousand cars supposed to commute on a one lane road?
And then well they cant be expected to live there once they've got everything they said they wanted and its now just as crowded as the area they left, I mean hell, they moved out to the country to get away from all this stuff.
lujlp at December 14, 2015 3:05 PM
In the end, it's about compromise. If you live in an apartment, you will sometimes hear the neighbors. People need to be considerate, but if they expect absolute silence, they need to move to a cabin in the woods.
And I think people in apartment need to expect the occasional "inconsiderate" noise, too, as long as it's not frequent or prolonged. My neighbor had some people over for the game the other night, and I could hear them cheering. It was 10pm, which was borderline rude, I guess. But we've done roughly the same thing -- we've had small parties and such last til 10pm on the odd Thursday and, with 10 people (and kids) talking and laughing, voices carry. So, I just put in earplugs when I went to bed.
Neither of us stomped over and demanded silence. I think we both recognized that's part of the compromise of apartment living.
sofar at December 14, 2015 7:30 PM
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