Any advice on dealing with a hyper-sensitive landlady?

I moved into a new place about seven months ago. It's a decent enough little duplex. It's an up/down split instead of the more traditional side-by-side split.
I'm on the bottom and my landlady is on the top (so to speak.)

We generally get along pretty well, except for one big issue; noise level. She seems to have some sort of hyper-sensitive hearing, and often complains about the noise level. I have my computer paired with a set of Logitech G51s, and the subwoofer is never turned up about 2/10, and the volume never goes above 3/10 (except those rare, joyous nights when she's gone and I can listen to music/games at a level approaching something normal humans would consider reasonable.) I've isolated my subwoofer with multiple layers of foam, built stands with sandbags to minimize vibrations, repositioned my speakers, and done an assortment of stuff that makes my system sound like crap in order to try to get the low frequency/vibration/etc. reduced.

Our respective schedule differences do not help the issue; she is one of those 'to bed at 9:30 and up at 6' kind of people, and my schedule is more of a 'to bed at 2:30 and up at 10' kind of situations.

Anyway, normally I try my best to switch over to headphones after 9:30. Tonight, I was doing some voice acting work for my new Fallout 3 mod. Speaking at a (slightly) louder than normal speaking volume into my microphone, doing voice work, then listening to my recorded voice back through my headphones. Normal diary logs, not screaming death notes or anything like that. And she calls, leaves an angry message on my cell phone. For me to turn it down. FOR ME TO TURN DOWN ME TALKING IN MY OWN HOME, as she thought it was my speakers I guess.

She's often made snide little remarks about 'not renewing my lease' and such because of the noise issues, but this one just pissed me off royally. Any suggestions on a way to handle this without excessive violence/lawyers?

Landlord/tenant board.

Buy her a thicker carpet.

Sorry, I got nothing.

What are the terms of your lease? If there isn't anything specifically about noise levels, I'd imagine you're just subject to regular municipal bylaw rules - in which case, the best way to handle it is to do nothing. She can't evict you on such weak grounds (You'd nail her ass for wrongful eviction), she can call the cops on you for a noise violation but they'll just laugh, so all she can do is not renew your lease. Which honestly is probably a good thing. You've done all you can to physically address the matter - the problem will only get worse. Leave as soon as you can. It's a pain to move, but not that bad since you're renting. In the meantime, ignore her. She can't do anything.

How about you suggest playing something at the volume that seems to disturb her and ask if you can go up to her place so that you can hear the noise. That way you can better figure out exactly what it is that is causing the problem and hopefully help you fix the noise issue.

Maybe you just happen to have your computer right below her bedroom and no matter what you do any noise you make will bleed through because she is right above you. Or maybe you share a vent and so the noise is bleeding into her apartment because of that. Either way you may want to move where you have your computer.

As for the noise from a sub, well that is super difficult because bass will travel through walls really well and is hard to stop without sound proofing.

I suggest moving.

WizKid wrote:

I suggest moving.

Agreed. Sometimes you just get a crazy landlord or neighbors.

Fire, and lots of it.

No?

In that case: what Rob said, especially re: bass. I was on the other end of the problem with a guy who lived across the hall from me - even when he had music, movies and games quiet enough that I couldn't really hear them, I'd still be able to feel/sense the bass at a level that was annoying. I'm not sure if her being above rather than across from you makes it worse or better, but I doubt there was much thought put into noise-proofing the floor when it was built.

Moving may be the only completely effective solution, unfortunately. Which does lead to the point:

Dysplastic wrote:

She can't do anything.

If you get too obnoxious, she could give you a terrible reference when it comes time to move. It's less likely if you do it before the lease is up for renewal, though, since that way you can present it as doing her a favour - in which case she'll probably do what she can to get that noisy guy from downstairs into a somewhere else ASAP. If you wait until the lease has expired and she has no incentive to help, she might give you a bad reference out of spite.

I may be paranoid since I live in a town with a massive housing shortage, though.

Thanks for the advice everyone. It helped just to vent this topic a bit; the thought of a nightly ritual of taking a rubber mallet (or similar non-marking, thus non-evidence generating implement) and wacking the ceiling one good clean blow every 30 minutes starting at 9:30PM and continuing until 2:30AM was getting more and more appealing, so some voices of reason were welcome.

Aye, moving as soon as finances permit is definitely on the horizon. I just signed the six-month lease renewal last month, and hopefully I'll be ready to head on out of this place before the next renewal comes up. I imagine she'll keep my deposit if I vacate early, but the thought of being able to actually plug my Vandersteens+NAD listening room system back up (stowed due to noise concerns) makes me considerate of tolerating that loss. With any luck my next residence will be one I l begin the long, painful payment process to own, so I can put the good ol' flushing-money-down-the-crapper renting thing behind me.

Sounds like you've gone to a whole lot of trouble to help her out. Has she done something to meet you in the middle? I've had some bad experiences with neighbours, which taught me sometimes people are simply frustrated. When you cave on the sound front, she'll find something else to complain about. Maybe you just need to draw a line in the sand, tell her what you've done to help her out and that she has to be reasonable too.

Understand that I'm very jaded thanks to all the crappy neigbours fate has brought me

If she can hear you talking in her flat then the sound insulation between you must be terrible. She's the landlady, though, so she's only got herself to blame. Have you tried suggesting she install soundproof carpet underlay?

I'm on the receiving end of this kind of thing at the moment - I can hear every footstep or slightly raised voice from upstairs, so I get woken up all the time. I just don't understand why people build apartments without proper sound insulation.

When your lease is up, leave. Landlords are going under left and right. She is not special. And there is a lot of rental property out there right now.

Zelos wrote:

I just don't understand why people build apartments without proper sound insulation.

Because it's not cheap to insulate every shared wall/floor, and it's definitely not required to give someone shelter.

I lived in an apartment for three months during my last semester of college, on the first floor of the building, and I could hear everything. Drove me nuts, but I didn't say anything because, well, that's part of apartment living. From what I could hear, none of the noise was anything out of the ordinary for day-to-day life. She might just not understand, or have had tenants that had similar schedules to hers in the past. How a landlord cannot understand the basic problems of apartment living is beyond me, though. I'd just get out as soon as I reasonably could, if I were you.

NSMike wrote:
Zelos wrote:

I just don't understand why people build apartments without proper sound insulation.

Because it's not cheap to insulate every shared wall/floor, and it's definitely not required to give someone shelter.

I lived in an apartment for three months during my last semester of college, on the first floor of the building, and I could hear everything. Drove me nuts, but I didn't say anything because, well, that's part of apartment living. From what I could hear, none of the noise was anything out of the ordinary for day-to-day life. She might just not understand, or have had tenants that had similar schedules to hers in the past. How a landlord cannot understand the basic problems of apartment living is beyond me, though. I'd just get out as soon as I reasonably could, if I were you.

It's not necessarily part of apartment living, though, I've been in plenty of modern blocks where it's not a problem at all. I guess developers skimp on it because it's not something clients can see when they look round.

I can kind of understand it a bit in my current place (it's ~150 years old), but it just really annoys me that the landlord here has spent thousands on things like limestone sinks for the bathroom, but I still can hear the woman upstairs peeing.

Sorry, lack of sleep is making me cranky...

Sorry, double post. Blame Tiscali

How about some Roy Munson action from the movie Kingpin?

Maybe she'd be willing to swap places... you take the top place and she takes the bottom. Is there potential to move your computer to the other side of the house? Maybe her bedroom is directly above where you are playing.

dejanzie wrote:

Sounds like you've gone to a whole lot of trouble to help her out. Has she done something to meet you in the middle? I've had some bad experiences with neighbours, which taught me sometimes people are simply frustrated. When you cave on the sound front, she'll find something else to complain about.

You know what I hear helps with frustration? Finger->Butt.

Set up something in your apartment that you can control remotely. Leave the house. Set noisy thing off. When she calls, tell her your not even home, and that you left nothing on when you left. Advise her to go check it out if she pleases. Give her 6 months to worry about hearing things that aren't really there, then move out. If you want to make it extra creepy, make it sound bites that sound like God or Satan telling her to do things.

If you're seriously doing sound work, I would strongly recommend soundproofing the room. Believe it or not there is a whole you you can do with packing materials on the walls and ceiling.

Zelos wrote:

If she can hear you talking in her flat then the sound insulation between you must be terrible. She's the landlady, though, so she's only got herself to blame. Have you tried suggesting she install soundproof carpet underlay?

I'm on the receiving end of this kind of thing at the moment - I can hear every footstep or slightly raised voice from upstairs, so I get woken up all the time. I just don't understand why people build apartments without proper sound insulation.

It's all about money. This week's This American Life has a story about these super fancy apartment buildings built during the housing boom that have all the amenities, like granite counter tops, steel appliances, etc. Everything else about them is done on the cheap. The wiring is bad, the plumbing is bad, and when the market crashed, the owner took what money he could get from the few tenants and fled the country.

Basically, if they can sell the unit without soundproofing, why would they soundproof it?

LobsterMobster wrote:
Zelos wrote:

If she can hear you talking in her flat then the sound insulation between you must be terrible. She's the landlady, though, so she's only got herself to blame. Have you tried suggesting she install soundproof carpet underlay?

I'm on the receiving end of this kind of thing at the moment - I can hear every footstep or slightly raised voice from upstairs, so I get woken up all the time. I just don't understand why people build apartments without proper sound insulation.

It's all about money. This week's This American Life has a story about these super fancy apartment buildings built during the housing boom that have all the amenities, like granite counter tops, steel appliances, etc. Everything else about them is done on the cheap. The wiring is bad, the plumbing is bad, and when the market crashed, the owner took what money he could get from the few tenants and fled the country.

Basically, if they can sell the unit without soundproofing, why would they soundproof it?

That's sadly very true. My contractor friend derisively calls those houses "Home Depot Builds" (because most of the materials were procured through the least common denominator supplier Home Depot). Ironically, he noted that shoddy construction of that sort really cuts across socioeconomic boundaries. Folks who built gihugic McMansions in Frederick or Hagerstown seem just as likely to have crap framing as folks in PG County. Actually, come to think of it, the folks in PG might have it better since that seems to be where all the hispanic contractors LIVE.

As uncomfortable solution as it may be, I'd recommend you looking for another apartment. It's really a renter's market out there right now, as I understand. Move elsewhere.

Next time she gives you "not renewing your lease" line, call her bluff. Actually raise it and tell that you're ready to break the lease if it comes to that. Tell her that you went at considerable lengths to alleviate any annoyances to her, and you don't think she's being reasonable if she thinks you should stop listening to music, playing games, watching TV, hosting guests, or just having phone conversations in your damn apartment. Tell her that she cannot possibly expect to get money from your every month, and not let you use the aparment for entirely reasonable range of recreational pursuits. Wish her good luck finding the next tenant who'll comply to her unreasonable expectations of her comfort and revenue stream.

I absolutely don't see why you should go for expenses like soundproofing her property. It's not like you're using the premises beyond something reasonable. It's HER problem, and HER task to soundproof it if she's super-sensitive to noise but wants to rent out the place to strangers anyway.

After my girlfriend and I broke up and I moved out of the house, my chief concern was finding an apartment complex that was good for noise. The last time I lived in an apartment I pretty much was a zombie thanks to creaking floors. Anyway, the complex I'm in is pricier than it should be but it's super rare for me to hear anything from anyone. The only noise I ever hear (other than occasional walking) is if I'm in the bathroom and the chick above me is blasting music. It comes through the vents. I've never heard any noise from next door, which is amazing in an apartment complex.

All I did was some research and avoided duplexes because cut up houses don't offer anywhere near the sound protection you can get with a proper apartment. Anyway, I used Apartment Ratings so you should be able to find something there.

As uncomfortable solution as it may be, I'd recommend you looking for another apartment. It's really a renter's market out there right now, as I understand. Move elsewhere.

Yeah, in the end she wins every scenario that involves you staying. Save yourself a lot of headache and money and take advantage of the market to find a more suitable location.

Start eating foods that leave your body in colorful odors?

You could show her what it would be like if you were loud for real.

Swift punches to the throat.

Get an annoy-a -tron from think geek. Find time to hide it in her portion of the place. She will be so busy trying to find the beeping that she will forget all about you and your "loud talking."

I'm with the folks saying move the hell out. If she's really that unreasonable, she doesn't deserve your patronage.

If you are in any sort of financial position to consider this, I strongly suggest looking at home ownership. The market is about as low as its going to go in most areas and interest rates are fantastic. There are also a number of government programs that are specifically designed for first time home owners of which you will probably be able to benefit.

I've got pretty much nothing to add but I'm curious about something that people here may know.

In July, I'm going to have to move from the townhouse Stylez is sharing with me and all I'm going to be able to afford is a small apartment. I have a home theater in a box and a set of Logitech 5.1 computer speakers, both of which have adjustable self-powered subs. However, I rarely turn either up super loud, I have them more for sound quality than volume. I will likely not be able to afford a building where the units are well soundproofed so I'm wondering, does anyone have suggestions on how to best dampen the output of a sub? Basically, I still want to be able to hear it but would obviously like to isolate as much of it as possible from going through the floor or wall it will be up against.

You would be surprised at what isn't done to houses. Holmes on Homes is a great show to watch to see what things contractors should be doing but aren't (both new constructions and remodeling).
http://www.holmesonhomes.com

I would investigate what's causing the issue. If it is poor insulation between floors there isn't much you can do other than put up some foam on the ceiling (even cheap foam would help). But I'd check the heating vents first. When I'm in the basement and watching a movie the vent in the room carries the sound up to our bedrooms on the 2nd floor. I can't play games or watch movies if the vent is open. I close the vent and I bought a sheet of 8.5x11 magnetic paper (for printing) from a craft store. I put the magnet on the metal vent as well. The magnet seals the vent really well to keep sound/vibration from entering. Works great. I can listen to movies at a pretty loud level and play drums in Rock Band without anyone hearing a thing in the bedrooms. The only downside is that if I forget to open the vent and remove the magnet it gets a little cold in the basement during winter.