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A lot of sound leaks though doors and windows and the small gaps, some weatherstripping can help a ton and the self adhesive foam kind is pretty cheap. Can't help much if the walls themselves are too thin, which is what it sounds like unfortunately. Still worth a try though, even if it's only a minimal improvement.
Also fuck your neighbours man, time to play Bass cube or the FIFA Street soundtrack back at them with the subwoofer turned all the way up. Those basslines will sort them out.
What is on the other side of the drywall gap? Just an empty void?
I have some expertise in this area (insulator by trade) but I'm not 100% sure what materials are available to the public i just order from the supplier
If you can get your hands on some mineral wool (Sometimes called rockwool or roxul) it has good acoustic insulation properties and doesn't become airborne particles unless you really fuck with it. If you're not going to be shoving it directly into the neighbors apartment but rather just into some framing you can stuff the top of the drywall with that and as long as you compress it around 50% and don't rip it up it should solve your issue. I don't see why you'd need the gap unless there's only one fresh air intake between your apartments but usually they'd install a vent
https://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00ZQGYaRKMVrus/Fireproof-Mineral-Wool-Insulation-50mm.jpg
If you're the type to do some stealing, this is what you're looking for on a construction site it can be more green in color or even dark brown/grey. You can cut it with a steak knife or any sufficiently sharp straight blade very easily into strips and it compresses easily by hand. It's pretty safe but if you use a serrated blade it'll create some fluffy bits don't eat them or whatever
Mineral wool or rock wool, sometimes called acoustic insulation board or fire resistant wool.
Most construction sites in the framing or drywalling stage will have it lying around everywhere
Like, for real, neighbors seem to just be generally terrible in most places I've lived. There's always a few I can hit it off with and start pushing toward mutual aid and community building and shit with but not many. Now I'm in a detached house finally and most of the neighbors care much more about whether the grass is trimmed to their liking than any actually beneficial mutual exchange.
"But muh property values" shit the fuck up you bought your house in the seventies for ten dollars and a donut and now it'd take a five-person polycule in their twenties just to afford these fucking mortgages.
So, ages ago I needed to buy a car and no one in my friend group had a truck which was a problem because it meant a truck needed to be rented regularly for truck things and I decided that I could just like, get a truck because everyone's always "no don't buy a truck everyone will ask you to help them with things" and me in my conniving evilness was all "HAHAHA YES OPPORTUNITIES FOR AID. FOOLS!" so I anyway I buy a truck and things are good and I help my friends and help acquaintances and turn them into friends in the process and everyone is happy.
Then I move and I'm all "oh yes there is a lack of truck in this neighborhood and I, through the might of truck, shall become the king of aid and establish a glorious network of mutually owed favors far too complex to ever keep track of and this everyone will be forced to always be awesome to each other muahahahaha" and it TOTALLY FUCKING FAILED in this BOUGIE ASS NEIGHBORHOOD because folks fall distinctly into two camps:
- Folks who take favors SERIOUSLY and track debts to the dime and literally record actions and deeds done to ensure everything is paid exactly in kind and never going above or beyond in the return or offering help, merely repaying.
- Folks who assume that I am respecting them in the authority sense not the as-a-person sense and therefore treat me like a fucking servant. I do their dump runs in the truck. I trimmed their trees, I planted their plants, I dug their ditches, I mended their fences, and then I don't mow my fucking lawn for a month during the goddamned end of the world and I get a letter from the fucking HOA threatening a lien on my house because one of them didn't like it. Literally all take, no give.
So now I don't give. I don't give a hand. I don't give a lift. I don't give a damn. I don't give a fuck. I have just found other communities I can aid and will do the absolute bare minimum to not get in legal trouble while maximizing my house's eyesoreness. I wish to be a blight on their suburb.
I've lived in both apartments and detached housing and I'm convinced that nothing short of a long stint in a re-education camp can correct suburban brain rot.
the house next door to me has 3 people over the age of 8 living in it. one of those people is retired and doesn't really leave the house much. one of those people seems to just be a caretaker/homemaker and almost never leaves the house.
for some reason they have 5 vehicles. 2 big ass pickup trucks, 2 loud as fuck muscle cars, and one enormous buick. the street is basically their personal parking lot. occasionally, an occupant goes out and starts one of his loud vehicles and just revs the engine for like 10 minutes and maybe even listens to some bass boosted bullshit, windows down. at like 6 am. they also like to burn their garbage for entertainment, so that's cool.. and they have a dumb dog that barks like crazy at everything and nothing, who they put outside and ignore while it loses its shit at anyone it can see.
i generally don't give a shit what people do in their spaces and like country ass people who make their space their own, but this guy is like the worst kind of rube and doesn't seem to realize that this is an urban environment where we all live closer to each other. almost every thing they do is an obvious code violation. like burning garbage and leaving it unattended. i just don't believe in calling the law in most circumstances. i also have a weird feeling someone already tried that and this douche has a chum on the force.
For anyone complaining about bad neighbors: I humbly invite you to bootstrap yourself into an upper middle class environment where YOU are the one deemed bad neighbor and your every transgression dwelt upon and poopooed by your well-mannered betters.
wrestling with her dog? i hope she's just "wrestling" lmao
also can relate. i'm socialist yet can't stand living in the society and at this point wanna just yeet myself into some unreal cottagecore fantasy, curious
Noise cancelling headphones,can't use them all the time obviously but you can use them when you're stressing out and need to relax
I wear those constantly around the house. Mostly take them off to sleep and occasionally when my ears get too hot.
So just a supplementary note that noise canceling works well for prolonged noises at the same frequency (e.g. a plane engine) but less well for sudden noises or noises of variable pitch (like people talking).
Depending on your circumstances, it might be better to buy a good pair of closed back overear headphones, or earphones with a really good seal, that noise canceling headphones of the same price.
I lived in bottom floor apartments most of my childhood. can't say i missed it. when I lived in an upstairs apartment though, my grandparents got cussed out one day at 5pm by our downstairs neighbors and told to sit their asses down. been on both sides of the divide
I’ve had some loud neighbors but it doesn’t really bother me too much bc we’re loud sometimes and it makes me feel less bad about it.
The most annoying I had was at the place before this, our neighbor across the street would let their dog out unleashed and it would come over and shit in our yard. It was a big pit that would take man sized shits.
Wasn’t a big fan of that but also they’d fight publicly in the front yard sometimes and that was entertaining so, swings and roundabouts
Buy a bass guitar, and try to figure out how to play slap bass. Turn it WAYYY up. A flurry of noise, 40 second pause, rinse + repeat. You don’t need anything expensive. Just a LOUD amp. Even better - put earplugs in - blast your stereo and then play something with a different BPM. Humans have a sensitive ear believe it or not, and as a rule, non-musician white people are allergic to polyrhythms (jokes, ppl, I am not serious in any blanket statement, pls don’t kill me). So you got some Rammstein bumping, and then play some smooth R+B thru the bass. YOU DON’T NEED TO KNOW HOW TO PLAY. Just have a pile of spite. I mean fuck, most amps have a distortion button. Don’t use a tuner. Don’t try to make music - make noise. (Merzbow, anyone?) This is a plan for psychological warfare. It will drive anyone (but you, because lol, making noise on any instrument is really fun, trust me) fucking batshit. Also, answer the door with your bass on and in playing position, when your neighbors complain, because they will. Then deny deny deny that it’s you, just like that shitbird neighbor.
You can also hook up a bass guitar to a regular stereo, a few adapters is all you need. (Besides Bass and instrument cable.)
Please believe me when I say you can get a pawn shop bass REALLY cheap. Get the one that has the most dust on it. (Just make sure it works, electronically speaking.) I’m talking 40-50 bucks. Especially if you get an amp as well, you’ll be able to get a deal. Again - look for dust. 90% of all pawn shops I’ve been in are more than willing to bundle instrument and amp. They are more than happy to get rid of them. Because, again, you can find these at any pawn’er. And as a rule, there’s that one amp that has been there for 10+ years.
-good luck and sorry if I’m too bougie. Assuming you have money to spare. Or… the opposite too. Sorry to assume you don’t have money.
For me - spite is priceless. I don’t hold self-destructive grudges, but fuck, I don’t forget.
Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
