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We live in a medium-sized co-op that has virtually no soundproofing between walls and floors. Sound travels readily between apartments and the board has instituted several policies that try to mitigate this problem. For instance, we’re required to have 80% of our floors covered in carpet and we have quiet hours (between 10 pm and 6 am, you can’t make a lot of noise). Plus, the board sends out reminders about how to be generally respectful of your neighbors vis-a-vis noise.

For several hours almost every night and every weekend, our downstairs neighbor plays music with the bassline turned way up. She almost always turns off the music by 10 pm (the appointed quiet hours), but from approx. 6 pm to 10 pm 3-4 nights out of the week and most of the weekend, it’s extremely unpleasant to be in our apartment. Our floor shakes to the beat of her music and all we can hear is bass. We’ve tried talking to her about this, but to absolutely no avail. I should also say that, for some unknown reason, she doesn’t like us at all. Literally from the day we moved in, she’s been unpleasant and unfriendly, despite our regular attempts to establish a neighborly relationship.

I think it would help things quite a bit if she just turned down her bass. I don’t think the volume is excessively high, but the bass is driving us nuts. Even though her music is not being played after quiet hours, do you think this constitutes an unreasonable amount of noise? Should we go to a higher authority (eg the board)? Just wondering if others out there have had a similar experience and what they’ve done to maintain their sanity, while recognizing that we live in cramped quarters in the city.