Sound proofing for noisy upstairs neighbours

[9millioncansofbeans]

I live in a ground floor maisonette and trying to work out if I shoyld move. I love the area and the flat but the general noise from upstairs neighbours gets me down. They don’t have parties or play loud music late so it could be worse but they don’t have carpets so every noise I hear and it’s loud. Every drawer they open in the bedroom and slam close, every shower, when their mobile phone rings on vibrate. It all is so loud and wakes me up of disturbs me. Trying to decide if I should move or if I could do any sound proofing which would help?

Anyone got any advice?

I think it’s unlikely that any sound proofing is going to work as well as you’d like- many of my friends in both upstairs and downstairs have spent a fortune and been disappointed. I would move in your position before you get upstairs neighbours who are worse.

I had soundproofing many years ago when I lived in a downstairs flat. It cost me a fortune and I couldn't notice any improvement. I would sell up and move if I were you.

I'm afraid it's just one of those things that either bothers you or it doesn't. I am just about OK with it but DH barely notices! I wouldn't go down the soundproofing route, I did a lot of research and concluded that it's a lot of money and hassle for little to no improvement.

If they have hard flooring on a suspended timber floor there is very little you can do from underneath that will make a real difference. You might get some muffling of airborne noise ( music/voices/TV etc) but to reduce impact noise (footsteps, vibrations, things dropping on the floor) you would need your neighbours to lay a proper acoustic underlay and carpet in the flat above. They probably wouldn't be keen.

I know this from bitter experience of living in a raised ground floor flat in the 1990s when the fashion for lifting carpets and stripping wood floors was just taking off.

Yeah we moved, after 5 weeks! It is bloody awful with wooden floors. You have my sympathy.

Thanks everyone! Made my decision easier to move :-)

Good call OP. I know not everyone is in a position to move but retrospective soubdproofing is so hard & like others have said doesn't work that well. Good luck!

I’ve sold my flat! And I’m considering buying a terraced 1960s brickbuilt house.. will I have the same issue?
Currently I hear neighbours from all sides but the only ones who bother me are the ones upstairs. So I’m hoping as I won’t have that it will be much better?

I’m currently in an end terrace, 1970s, and the soundproofing is pretty good. We occasionally hear the neighbour’s toddler very faintly if she’s having a proper meltdown, but otherwise no tv noise, no stomping, no talking.

My Mum had a downstairs maisonette once, she could hear the woman upstairs stomping around, we used to joke that she had lead boots. One neighbour's alarm clock used to wake her up too.