Noise from upstairs neighbors, herd of elephants

Hi there,

how do I tell my upstairs neighbours that they walk like elephants, without all hell breaking loose?
I just went up there for the first time in over a year of living in this building and putting up with what sounds like a herdof elephants! It's a middle-aged couple living by themselves with no kids.
I politely said that I lived directly below them and that i could really feel vibrations and loud steps. They just replied, oh it's not us, there are only the 2 of us here and no kids. It must be the baker's truck in the street 3 floors below. Then they just added that it just can't be coming from their place, because they walk barefoot.
And so with a smile I tried to say once more in my not so perfect German that it is definitely heavy footsteps that I hear and it would be nice if they could try and be a bit quieter and just leave knowing full well that they are not conscious about their heavy steps. I guess I'm just having a rant because it's scorchingly hot and I have a deadline to meet and a sleeping baby next door!

As a start...

• Really noisy neighbours, Is moving the only solution?
• Noisy neighbours, Advice on how to deal with them
• Handling noisy German neighbours, What to do when they get too loud
• Neighbours who complain about noise levels

Honestly and no offence meant? I think you'll have to learn to live with it. There are certain noises that are unacceptable (like the loud music etc mentioned in the linked posts above), but somebody walking around their flat isn't really one of them. You could try mentioning it again, but other than that...

It's not really anything like loud parties which would fall under one of the links you gave me. I guess nothing can be done about people who walk heavily (they are physically average weight btw). That's how they'v walked for the last 50 years and probably are not aware of it. It's just a bit frustrating but I had to try and see if there is a diplomatic way of making them aware of it.

Kathie, I think you are right there, sadly.

You might trade places and have them in your apartment listen to you walking in their apartment. But no cheating!
Have you asked those below you (if applicable) how much they hear from your apartment? It might just be the building.

Best way is to talk to them. In one of the topics quote above, I did just that and eventually after 3 'meetings' they got the message.

to be quite frank, if my downstairs neighbours started complaining about the noise i made walking around barefoot, then i'd tell them to piddle off and get a life*

_{* especially if they pulled that stunt when I was pre-menstrual...}

As I'm writing this, I feel the vibrations from the heavy footsteps coming from upstairs. I forgot to say that they also bang their doors so loudly that it vibrates through the whole living room and the adjacent room. And this all day long and in the evening as well. I did feel bad going upstairs to mention this and that is why it took me over a year to decide I had to mention it. I think there are people who walk and those who stomp and upstairs from me are stompers. I know it's a habit of a lifetime which one does not hear anymore but to other people it's no so nice. But as I said earlier, I'll just have to learn to live with it. I've lived 2/3rds of my life in appartments and honestly, I've never ever had such heavy-footed neighbours!

weight is not necessarily the reason. the heaviest foot steps i have heard where made a petit skinny girl.

Actually you're right, I've also come across that! But never in the flat above mine!

I think most people here don't give a shit if they are disturbing someone. We just moved out of an apartment where our landlady (about 70) lived downstairs from us. She was so incredibly noisy, but since she was our landlady, we only dared once to complain about the noise. The house we lived in was very old, and the walls and floors must have been paper thin. This woman didn't know how to CLOSE a door, she only knew how to SLAM them. She would come in very late at night, or leave on one of her numerous trips at 4:00 a.m., and every time she would make no attempt to be quiet, trampling up and down the steps, talking loudly and of course the usual door-slams. You could even hear the toilet lid slam down after use. My husband, who is German, asked once if she could refrain from slamming the doors at least late at night, when our son was asleep. The quiet lasted for about a week, then it was business as usual. As for the person here who said that people who complain about noise should "get a life", I don't think they realize how stressful constant noise in close quarters can be. Since your neighbors seem to be convinced that they aren't the ones making the noise, I agree with the person who said you should trade places with them and let them into your apartment while you walk around in their apartment. Maybe that would convince them. Otherwise, you could take this up with your landlord, or find another apartment.

Leave an anonymous note in their mailbox that says: We have noticed lately that sounds are emerging from your apartment that reminds us of our African safari. We can only imagine what the people who live below you must think. For our sakes and theirs, could you not stomp around like a herd of elephants. Thank you.

I can totally sympathize with you. Nobody lives above me, but the neighbours one over above, have stone flooring and the cow wears high heel shoes and tramples like an elephant. Its super loud in my place too, we (my neighbours and myself) have talked to them politely, and they haven't changed anything, so, now we are writing the owners of the apartment to complain... its not just the feet we hear, they are just fucking loud about everything.

...

these guys are the tenant's association for Munich, they charge 55€ a year membership (AFAIK) and they're well worth it.
they'll have all the advice on noise laws and will write official letters for you. good luck

A significant part of this board is dedicated to the theme that diplomacy doesn't work with the Hermanns...

Noisy neigbours isn't only a German problem. Had many of them in the UK as well and diplomacy didn't work there either.

Seriously though, how do you get someone to change a habit that they are not even aware of? They probably don't hear their doors slamming anymore and neither do they hear their stomping. There they go again!

But seriously, what do you want them to do? Assuming they're just walking in a way that's natural for them, and not deliberately stamping around, there's not a lot they can do, short of tiptoeing all the time, and, as Topsy said, that's unreasonable. If somebody was to come to me and complain about being able to hear my family walking round the flat, I'd think they were bonkers, and indeed, we've had threads about this on TT before, where German neighbours have complained that a child runs round the apartment and it's too loud, and the general consensus was that the neighbours were being unreasonable...

If you want to start chucking generalisations about I think people here are reasonably considerate


a habit like, for example, moaning?
As others say, it isnt really their problem. And with a (probably sometimes screaming) baby in the flat you perhaps aren't in a position to go lecturing people about 'normal' nosies

Totally agree b_r. I'm imagining the thread the other way round - a user posts, saying a german neighbour has been complaining about them walking around their flat barefoot. We'd have side after side about how unreasonable the neighbours were being and that the OP should just ignore them

the only other suggestion would be to get a video camera or tape recorder and record the noise of them "walking" upstairs. Then, you can show them what it sounds like.

Hey Rat - for once, I'm in agreement with you. Living in an apartment is a give and take - I heard the neighbors above me playing music late at night on the weekend, They hear me vacuuming and running my washer at the fastest (loudest) spin cycle very very early the next morning. After 2 weekends of that, mysteriously, the late at night music was turned down, and my early morning vacuuming/laundry doing stopped.

If you have a child that maybe runs around or cries etc, it's possible that they simply a) don't notice how loud their steps are, or figure its just a normal part of daily life - much like hearing the baby cry - and thereby c) figure it's just give and take.

~Rose

great sorry to have been so unwittingly disagreeable on other threads

Kathie,
I think the tone of my last post did not come over the way I meant for it to come over. It was meant to be rhetorical and with a feeling of silliness from my part for this request. As I realised after seeing them, they are not aware at all of their stomping and are not doing it on purpose. But it's a combination of slamming doors, stomping about and this is not to exagerate things, but they also sometimes run across their flat, stomping! That is why I have compared it to a herd of elephants. Anyhow, there are no solutions to this little problem of mine. I just have to learn to live with it.

Hey, take it easy! And as for the comment about my baby, I'll have you know that he sleeps from 7.30pm until 7 am and hardly ever cries and is not a screamer! Yes I'm blessed I know, but babies like mine do exist. As a matter of fact, the neighbours who share common walls to our flat have commented on how well-behaved my baby is as they have never heard him once.

you could leave two pairs of exceedingly well padded slippers outside their door, as a subtle hint

Hehe, I do like that suggestion! Maybe for Christmas if I still haven't got used to it by then.

1. My sister stomps around like an elephant at home and slams all doors. 27 years of nagging from my mum has not changed her.
2. British can be too diplomatic which doesn't tend to work well with Germans. Just say: "You stomp around like a herd of elephants and the noise is unacceptable. Please walk quietly and do not slam the doors".

Just put some button on the floor (turn on sound), will work even better seeing as she's 70..

Butter the floor

I find buying a Barratt .50 calibre sniper rifle and firing up through the ceiling in the direction of the loud footsteps soon teaches noisy neighbours to tread carefully.

If you live in or towards the center of town (and I would certainly put Neuhausen in that category), then you have to accept that there is a certain noise level from the people living around you. It's part of living in a big city.
If, however, you are a person whose definition of "constant noise in close quarters" includes neighbours walking around in their bare feet, then you'd be better off living a bit further out of town where you'd have more peace and quiet.
You can't have it both ways, after all.

ETA - found this on the Mieterverein website here :


so if it really is mega-loud and you think the sound-proofing in the building is below par, then you could give the Mieterverein a try.

We have some people above us who step quite loudly. They also have a table football - we spent ages trying to figure out what the noise was! I asked them if they had a table football and they asked how I know and I told them I can hear it! Since then they have been much quieter. Prior to that we had a 10 year old boy who I am sure did floor gymnastics across the room

I wasn't speaking of anyone walking around in bare feet. I am talking about someone stomping around at all hours of the day and night in shoes/boots. Both in the apartment, and up and down the stairwell at all hours. I don't think it's SO unreasonable to expect someone to try to be a little bit quieter.

Sure, stomping around in boots at all hours could get annoying if it happens a lot.
But the OP was complaining about her neighbours walking around in bare feet.

That reminds me of the neighbor who came by one evening around 10:30pm. She asked if I was throwing the cats around but I had been playing darts against a party wall - well, actually aiming at a dartboard with thick cork beside it. She said it was driving her crazy: thuck-thuck --- thuck (silence), thuck-thuck --- thuck (silence). I made sure from then on that she was not at home when I practiced.

Actually, they are stomping around barefoot. I walk around my flat barefoot and haven't noticed any sort of strong vibrations on my floor. But I guess it's because I use all the muscles in my feet instead of just plonking down my heel with all my mighty weight. I was stomping around to demonstrate to a friend what it was like and it actually is quite exhausting to stomp! Never mind, the neighbours might understand me one day if they move somewhere where they have a flat above theirs. Until then, I'm using all my zen to block it out.

Have you asked your downstairs neighbors about any noise in their apartment yet? It would be interesting to know how far sound travels in this building.

I was going to suggest you try to convince them to walk around without their shoes.

I sympathize and had the same problem twice in New York. The person never wanted to compromise and I finally just moved.

Is there some carpet requirement in the lease? You could try to have the landlord enforce that. Or you can try to retaliate by aiming speakers upward and cranking music with the bass turned up- U2's Actung Baby was my weapon of choice.

You may just want to move and hold out for an apartment on the top floor. I thought most German buildings did not have this problem. The two I had there had floors like vaults.

Good luck.

That's a good idea, I might just do that this week end.


Well I think it's probably because, they did a terrible job in the roof conversion to the appartments. I live in a building that dates from 1800 and most of the walls and floors are pretty thick. It's just the appartments under the roof which have been badly done I guess. And we live underneath one of them. Anyhow, I ran into them today and we had a friendly chat about this problem. They are quite nice really. It's funny because I mentionned that I would hear as though they were sitting on the sofa and then suddenly jump down and run/stomp across the room and that this happened quite regularly throughout the day and evening and the woman had this look on her face which practically revealed to me that I hit it on the nail! It's been quiet upstairs ever since.

Our upstairs neighbor has seemingly recently sublet her apartment. Our building is very quiet, and when the windows are closed, we rarely hear people anywhere unless they're really screaming bloody murder-- which thankfully doesn't happen very often. But now we hear people all day and night up there, moving around, walking, moving stuff, doing what people do. Except that apparently these people wear jack boots, weigh 400 kilos each, and take cocaine regularly because they never seem to stop walking. And every single day, many times a day, they seem to drag large trunks or huge pieces of furniture about the apartment, and open them. It's really constant. They also sometimes have a little kid over, and the it's worse, because the kid also walks like he/she is wearing solid brick shoes. (The original neighbor also had kids, and sometimes we heard them, but it was NOTHING like this.)

I have not yet said anything because I don't really know how to approach it! We are leaving in a few monhts, and if it was just during the day I would probably just grin and bear it. But it's really from 7am till 1 or 2am every day (I work from home about 50% of the time). Any advice on how to handle it, diplomatically? What to say, etc? We've never met them-- they seem to be avoiding other people in the building.
Topics merged by admin

Paper bag of shit, lighter, front doorstep, door bell

Knock on the door and ask them to please keep the noise down.

A1. They say sorry and sort it out
A2. They tell you to feck off.

B1. Problem solved
B2. Contact the hausmeister and tell him to sort it out.

C2. Hausmeister doesn't solve the problem, call your friendly neighbourhood plod.

It's not really so difficult.

Buy the biggest amp and sub-woofer you can afford. Affix said sub-woofer with speaker-cone facing the ceiling. Turn amp up to "11"...

Yah. I am aware that I will have to actually talk to them, but the question is do I come on stronger with no apologies, totally serious, or do I play nice nice ha ha let's all sort it out, or do I apologize before I ask them. I don't know what apartment-dwelling Germans consider an acceptable way of asking, really, or whether there is some protocol involved. Considering every other interaction I've had here usually has a preferred mode, I thought I'd ask before knocking and doing it simply the way I would in NYC (direct, polite but aggrieved). And ok I guess I am overthinking this way too much.

direct and polite is good
don't make it jokey - the germans don't respect people who do that
do it tonight and don't build it up in your mind too much
chances are they'll say 'ok, we'll try and be quieter then'
good luck

I'll say to you what I said to the OP of the thread that this has been merged with: what do you plan to say to them? Please don't walk so loud? Sure, if you feel they're lugging furniture about (although aren't you of the opinion that they've just moved in?), then you ask them to restrict that to reasonable hours, but I walk around my flat until about 1am on a regular basis, and would be inclined to laugh at a neighbour who came around and asked me to stop it...

If you read up on the regulations before you speak to them (directly and politely ), you'll be less likely to get steamrolled by them telling you you're out of line.

How's your German? I could steer you to a couple of links, but I'm not sure what I can find in English.

Oh, and ditto billybob on don't make it jokey. Not only do they not respect it, they have NO idea what you're talking about.

This also crossed my mind; that I'll be the ridiculous one for asking. I won't ask them to walk quietly, I'll ask them to stop dragging things around all hours. I don't expect silence, but some of the dragging and endless thuds have got to go. When they first moved in I actually wondered whether they were killing people with clubs and packing them in trunks.

It's been going on for about 3 months now. Straight. Every day. Morning, noon, and night. Long enough to have decided where the couches and giant boulders should go, I should think.

I'm still hearing in the morning around 0515 my masterbating neighbor who lives downstairs. His bathroom and bedroom are under my bedroom. I will speak with him about this tomorrow as I find this intolerable to hear this at least twice a week. I've had enough of this crap and surely I shouldn't have to be subjected to this!