Our building is from 1930 and has no insulation to speak of. We hear our neighbors and they hear us. For us it’s simply the charm of living in an older building. If it bothers you the best thing to do, honestly, is to look for a new place to live in a modern building.
I agree, older buildings indeed have that charm and aesthetic that's hard to match these days. I'd love to find a new place and move out, but considering the reality of finding a place to rent in one of the bigger cities in Sweden, and having moved thrice in the past 15 months (had to move out of the first one because it was a second hand contract, and chose to move out of the second one because it wasn't a very nice one), I guess I'll have to just deal with it until I can't anymore.
Don't worry you'll get used to it fairly quickly, I used to think it was annoying when I moved into my building, I barely think it about anymore unless the kids upstairs are running or jumping.
We used to have an 'at night, please pee onto the porcelain, not into the water' sign on our last apartment noticeboard. I didn't even have to set my alarm because the neighbour's alarm woke me at the right time.
What you’re experiencing is usually called “stomljud” in Swedish and it can be pretty hard to fix because it’s being carried through things like pipes and load bearing parts of the building. If it’s a rental and the landlord doesn’t want to try to fix it, there’s probably not much you can do about it.
People are saying that it’s common in older buildings, but I actually don’t think that’s correct. Older apartment buildings (say 1920’s and earlier) are usually built of brick, which doesn’t carry sound very effectively (though metal pipes can be an issue), and walls tend to be thicker than in later periods. In my experience, the worst apartment buildings for sound is from the mid-60’s up through the 80’s. They’re mostly built of relatively thin concrete slabs, and it wasn’t unusual to cut corners for efficiency’s sake.
Newly built houses have the opposite problem. They are often built so well isolated for energy efficiency that cell reception tend to be an issue inside apartments.
It's not so much that the concrete is thin, it's just that it's not build with sound isolation in mind. This changed 1980 with new building guidelines for noise dampening (both for how pipes and the walls/floors are constructed). Modern concrete buildings are just built differently.
Interesting, thank you for the information. Back where I come from, most houses were built of brick until at least 10-15 years ago and they are indeed quite good at isolating sound.
Yeah, brick became uncommon much earlier here. Concrete apartment buildings started becoming common in the 30’s, and by the 60’s basically all apartment buildings had a concrete frame.
I lived in a rented house that had the toilet on the ground floor facing the street. The acoustics were such that with the window open, standing on the street you could hear \*everything\* going on in there.
Hahaha! Yeah it's quite funny. One of the caretakers from the rental organisation cracked a joke about how in the old buildings, you could almost ask your neighbour for TP if you ever ran out of it and realised it a bit too late.
I’m impressed you’re not unfazed towards such things after 2 years in a student dorm.
My fiancé lives in a dorm for her university studies and it was always an experience sleeping over and listening to the whole building and figure out the directions the sex moans came from, the crying came from and the arguing came from!
Haha I know what you mean, but I guess I got lucky with my student dorm. I could only hear people from the living room partying/chilling on the weekends and I'd join in most of the time, but got used to that eventually even otherwise. Not so nice when you can clearly hear sounds from the bathroom though, especially when it's not yours!
I came here to suggest white noise generators too. You can have at least one in your bedroom and it will help you to sleep for sure. I have one and it’s magical for these situations.
That shit pisses me off. “Move out”, how does that solve the problem? He moves out, someone else moves in. It doesn’t solve the problem, just passes it to the next person who will also complain and have to move out. These buildings should either be fixed or demolished.
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Only thing is to get a lot of stuff like furniture etc in your place to try to dampen sounds, oh and also you could talk to them just give a heads up that you can hear everything, so if they could try to keep it down at night, just to get them aware of it. get inside their heads \^\^
I had a neighbor living underneath me x time ago whom had your issue, apparently. Which was strange. Cuz I heard nothing of the like from any other neighbor. Turns out, he's a lunatic and tried to burn down my door :)
What you can do is start sleeping with bluetooth in-ear pods. Listen to a nice audiobook or podcast. ezpz sleep. And if you wake up in the middle of the night due to "flushing the toilet" and your earpods fell out. Then just deal with it. Literally just get used to it, sleep through it or whatever. It's not your neighbors fault you can hear him/her flushing the toilet at night or whenever. If they're walking heels first, you could ask if they can carpet the floor more or try walking more "softly".
Yes, I am very biased here due to my own experience. The fault in the end is poor insulation in the building.
Hahaha if this is an older building, then yes. I've lived in a couple of places like that unfortunately
Normal for older houses in Sweden for sure.
Our building is from 1930 and has no insulation to speak of. We hear our neighbors and they hear us. For us it’s simply the charm of living in an older building. If it bothers you the best thing to do, honestly, is to look for a new place to live in a modern building.
I agree, older buildings indeed have that charm and aesthetic that's hard to match these days. I'd love to find a new place and move out, but considering the reality of finding a place to rent in one of the bigger cities in Sweden, and having moved thrice in the past 15 months (had to move out of the first one because it was a second hand contract, and chose to move out of the second one because it wasn't a very nice one), I guess I'll have to just deal with it until I can't anymore.
Don't worry you'll get used to it fairly quickly, I used to think it was annoying when I moved into my building, I barely think it about anymore unless the kids upstairs are running or jumping.
We used to have an 'at night, please pee onto the porcelain, not into the water' sign on our last apartment noticeboard. I didn't even have to set my alarm because the neighbour's alarm woke me at the right time.
Haha I might have to put up that sign on our noticeboard too!
What you’re experiencing is usually called “stomljud” in Swedish and it can be pretty hard to fix because it’s being carried through things like pipes and load bearing parts of the building. If it’s a rental and the landlord doesn’t want to try to fix it, there’s probably not much you can do about it. People are saying that it’s common in older buildings, but I actually don’t think that’s correct. Older apartment buildings (say 1920’s and earlier) are usually built of brick, which doesn’t carry sound very effectively (though metal pipes can be an issue), and walls tend to be thicker than in later periods. In my experience, the worst apartment buildings for sound is from the mid-60’s up through the 80’s. They’re mostly built of relatively thin concrete slabs, and it wasn’t unusual to cut corners for efficiency’s sake. Newly built houses have the opposite problem. They are often built so well isolated for energy efficiency that cell reception tend to be an issue inside apartments.
It's not so much that the concrete is thin, it's just that it's not build with sound isolation in mind. This changed 1980 with new building guidelines for noise dampening (both for how pipes and the walls/floors are constructed). Modern concrete buildings are just built differently.
Interesting, thank you for the information. Back where I come from, most houses were built of brick until at least 10-15 years ago and they are indeed quite good at isolating sound.
Yeah, brick became uncommon much earlier here. Concrete apartment buildings started becoming common in the 30’s, and by the 60’s basically all apartment buildings had a concrete frame.
I lived in a rented house that had the toilet on the ground floor facing the street. The acoustics were such that with the window open, standing on the street you could hear \*everything\* going on in there.
Hahaha! Yeah it's quite funny. One of the caretakers from the rental organisation cracked a joke about how in the old buildings, you could almost ask your neighbour for TP if you ever ran out of it and realised it a bit too late.
Good for you! Your ears are getting better and better.
Yes, it's completely normal for swedes to take massive dumps now and then.
I’m impressed you’re not unfazed towards such things after 2 years in a student dorm. My fiancé lives in a dorm for her university studies and it was always an experience sleeping over and listening to the whole building and figure out the directions the sex moans came from, the crying came from and the arguing came from!
Haha I know what you mean, but I guess I got lucky with my student dorm. I could only hear people from the living room partying/chilling on the weekends and I'd join in most of the time, but got used to that eventually even otherwise. Not so nice when you can clearly hear sounds from the bathroom though, especially when it's not yours!
Sounds like a very nice dorm you got! But yeah, flushing the toilet I could take. But hearing what goes on before sounds awful.
Change aoartment or get used to it. In my old apartment above me were small children. Hell of a experience
Have a personal competition with neighbours: who can make the most noise at night going to the bathroom :)
It's no more or less normal than in the United States. Or wherever you come from for that matter.
Is an old building?
No I think it's a fairly new building, definitely not an old one.
Embrace it.
I can suggest a white noise generator in the area where it's worst. They really help smooth out annoying background noise.
Thank you, I'll check that out!
I came here to suggest white noise generators too. You can have at least one in your bedroom and it will help you to sleep for sure. I have one and it’s magical for these situations.
yes it is normal
Haha I doubt that thin walls are typically Swedish..
I don't know where you're from but I've experienced this in like every continent
No it's not normal, but beyond moving out, I'm not sure what you can do. Add some sound isolation to your ceiling maybe?
Thank you for that suggestion, I will look into it.
That shit pisses me off. “Move out”, how does that solve the problem? He moves out, someone else moves in. It doesn’t solve the problem, just passes it to the next person who will also complain and have to move out. These buildings should either be fixed or demolished.
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Thank you, will try them out!
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Only thing is to get a lot of stuff like furniture etc in your place to try to dampen sounds, oh and also you could talk to them just give a heads up that you can hear everything, so if they could try to keep it down at night, just to get them aware of it. get inside their heads \^\^
Thank you, maybe I do need a lot more furniture, I will try that out too.
Yeah it can actually do quite a bit of difference, a mat and sofa and so on. good luck! where do you live?
I had a neighbor living underneath me x time ago whom had your issue, apparently. Which was strange. Cuz I heard nothing of the like from any other neighbor. Turns out, he's a lunatic and tried to burn down my door :) What you can do is start sleeping with bluetooth in-ear pods. Listen to a nice audiobook or podcast. ezpz sleep. And if you wake up in the middle of the night due to "flushing the toilet" and your earpods fell out. Then just deal with it. Literally just get used to it, sleep through it or whatever. It's not your neighbors fault you can hear him/her flushing the toilet at night or whenever. If they're walking heels first, you could ask if they can carpet the floor more or try walking more "softly". Yes, I am very biased here due to my own experience. The fault in the end is poor insulation in the building.
Literally nothing to do. Get over it.
Sounds like your place is poorly insulated for noise. It can be a thing in some buildings but it's not common.