Ear plugs! https://acscustom.com/uk/products/other-products/sleep-sound

That would be my no 1 go-to, if I didn't have to remain alert for my 3 year old sleeping next door (he can seep through the noisy neighbors though!)... (btw our neighbours are underneath and they cook at night, and talk very loudly)

Unfortunately, ear plugs would not help against low frequency bass noise, which this noise typically is.

Ear plugs should reduce intensity of sounds across the board. Yes, they’re less effective against low frequency noise, but reducing the intensity any amount goes a long way – the logarithmic scale is real!

I also personally find high frequency noise to be more disruptive: a car speeding by making wind noise is a lot worse than a large truck rumbling by slowly. Lower frequency is lower energy, after all

Unfortunately, the best way to cure this is "don't live underneath other people".

I second this. If you really have to live in a flat, top floor is always the superior option.

Literally the superior option.

Not unless you live in a country like Germany where AC is the devil and the top floor is always incredibly hot.

You know, I work in hospitals all day and people are always stomping around and moving heavy equipment. But you never hear anything coming through the ceiling.

Contact your state representative and ask them to do something about the building codes. It's a completely voluntary problem. American buildings are noisy because we decided that was okay.

>Contact your state representative and ask them to do something about the building codes. It's a completely voluntary problem. American buildings are noisy because we decided that was okay.

Congratulations on finding an equally terrible and bad for everybody apartment-living analog to the sort of suburbanite Karen opinion that underpins meddling HOAs and busybody municipal codes.

If you want a quieter apartment pony up to live in a nicer one. Don't force the rest of society to shoulder the expense.

You should probably read The Market for Lemons. It's incredibly difficult to predict from the buyer's perspective how noisy an apartment will be. This is [one reason] why we have regulations.

You assume I'm in US, while I'm not. Not even EU. I know building owner personally and the only factual way is to evict those people. The only problem is that building owner is leasing them an apartment, and you can't evict people basing on household noises, even if they are driving me insane.

> Any advice on how to eliminate noisy neighbours

... Not from a Jedi. :p

No need for fancy light sabers, put them to the sword.

I used to live in a wooden construction apartment, with neighbors above me. They themselves stomped a lot, both late at night and early in the morning, somehow.

Then they had a kid, which grew up and of course would run around the house at any hour. I was getting terrible sleep and it was driving me crazy.

All I could really do was move, and I made sure the next building was reinforced concrete, and that I would be on the top floor. The unit also ended up being on one end so only one wall shared with a neighbor.

It was instant relief and absolutely worth the move. It sucks though because obviously not everyone can live on the top floor of a building. If you're a heavy sleeper then I guess this is less of a problem, so I hope we have enough heavy sleepers in society so there's less competition for top floors. Probably wishful thinking though because the top floor is desired for other reasons unrelated to sleep.

Another thing to avoid are hardwood floors. I live in a concrete high rise but that wasn't enough to deal with a neighbor upstairs who would stomp around in shoes on the — admittedly very nice looking — white oak floor. It's basically a giant drum. Even vinyl is quieter.