Living in a flat

[IwishIdidntlikesugar]

Is there any way to work out if a flat will be adequately soundproofed before moving in? Does a flat where you cant hear neighbours cough/talk even exist? Are top floor flats generally better than ground or middle floors??

I live in a 60s brick and concrete built flat (1st floor so neighbours above, below and to one side) and it’s mostly OK. You can hear shouting or loud music but not coughing / talking.

I previously lived in a stone built terrace and it was actually not as good as here - one side had a very thin wall and you could hear talking. We built floor to ceiling bookshelves along that wall which helped.

The best way I can think of to find out is to ask others in the block or a matching block if there is one, if it’s an issue.

I live in a very nice development where there are “air gaps” around each property so that you don’t share any walls. This means that you can never hear your neighbours when they’re in their flat, only if they’re in the corridor directly outside. The floor is also soundproofed. All the flats have wooden floors, ours included, and we live in the middle flat yet very rarely hear upstairs. It can be done-it’s not cheap though so it depends why you’re moving to a flat in the first place.

I used to live on top floor of a flat in a converted house. I was young and didn't think about neighbours etc! The lady downstairs could hear every footstep we made! Although it was wooden floor so might have been different if we had carpet.

I've had noise issues in just about every flat I've lived in in the UK. The country I was in previously I never heard neighbour noise though, not sure what the difference was.

We used to live in a middle floor
constantly heard the neighbours (both next door when they fought or their music and the toddler upstairs when it ran) and I’m sure they also heard us (my DD was a toddler, so I’m sure the ones downstairs heard her)
i also know the neighbours upstairs had constant issues with their next door neighbour (both uppper flats) since the noise travelled, even low music bounced off the walls

Converted flats (buildings split into separate units having previously been one single unit) will almost always be very noisy, especially if they have wooden floors, by that I mean the actual supports are wood beams, not just some laminate.

New build ones with big thick concrete floors are way better, but the walls can be thin. I lived in a New Build flat for a few years, I had the middle one of three floors, and it was fine. Never heard a thing from upstairs. The walls were paper thin though, leaning against them would make them bend in the middle, they were just board with seemingly no support behind them.

Thanks everyone. I’ve lived in converted flats (horrendous with the wrong neighbours in my experience) and purpose built and I wonder if I’m just really unlucky. Im trying to figure out the success to getting a place where you cant hear everything like you live with the neighbours!