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Looking for advice about neighbor's sound reduction system

SomeGuy

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2013
Messages
4,433
Location
Marietta, GA
I'm hoping someone here can at least point me in the right direction about this.

Recently my downstairs neighbor has installed SOMETHING that vibrates all of the floors in my condo units so badly I get dizzy and can hardly stand up on the floor. Given that she is normally quite noisy and TV noises and such have reduced in volume, I expect it is some kind of electronic sound reduction system.

Except it doesn't really work, as all of the sound seems to be converted in to low frequency rumbling that gets transferred in to my unit. It's weird - someone walks around down there and it feels like someone is walking around up here.

It vibrates and pulsates everything, my chair, my bed... and I'm even worried it could damaged my hard drives in my vintage systems if I turn them on. I'm also worried it might be slowly ripping the floor apart.

I'll try asking this person eventually, but - long story short - she has been very angry about something lately and I don't want to get in the way. She pumps whatever this thing is up to over 9000 if I even make the smallest noise. BTW, she is a renter, but I am a unit owner.

My current theory is she may have mounted whatever these are on the ceiling - and if these are noise cancellation things then they would work by sending out a pulse to cancel or dampen the sound within their unit. Except every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so they push up on my floor, vibrating it. Brilliant.

I didn't even know these sorts of things were available for residential use.

My current conundrum is I have no idea how to document this. The rumbling is, I think, too low to record with a microphone. I don't see any visible shaking. I was thinking if I could find something metal that would rattle when is it running, that might help but I couldn't find anything off hand.

Of course noise ordinances only apply to high decibel sounds. But it is a serious health issue as I can hardly stand or walk on the floor when it is running. (When it is off, everything is fine.)

What can I DO about this?!

Hell, its vibrating my chair right now. I feel like I'm sitting on someone's vibrating dildo.
 
Recently my downstairs neighbor has installed SOMETHING that vibrates all of the floors in my condo units so badly I get dizzy and can hardly stand up on the floor. Given that she is normally quite noisy and TV noises and such have reduced in volume, I expect it is some kind of electronic sound reduction system.

Such things don't exist. What is more likely, if you are hearing more noise and more rumbling, are the following possibilities:
  1. She had noise reduction paneling on the ceiling that has now been removed (or, she used to have drop-down ceilings that were converted to something else)
  2. She upgraded her audio system to include a more powerful subwoofer (and a more powerful amplifier to drive it)
  3. She upgraded her home theater system to Dolby Atmos, which has upward-firing speakers
My money is on #3.

I'll try asking this person eventually, but - long story short - she has been very angry about something lately and I don't want to get in the way. She pumps whatever this thing is up to over 9000 if I even make the smallest noise. BTW, she is a renter, but I am a unit owner.

You're a unit owner, she's a renter. It's Landlord Time(tm).

and if these are noise cancellation things then they would work by sending out a pulse to cancel or dampen the sound within their unit.

No, these are not a thing that exists for home theater. They do exist, but they're used for masking outside city noise; microphones are placed outside and then the inverse signal is pumped into the room.
 
Go to the condo board immediately, this could cause structural damage from sustained vibrations at that level!

You might also still want to try a decibel meter, as even if it's not audible, it could be loud enough to be an issue.
 
I like the idea about the water, I'll give that a try.

Doesn't exist? Interesting. Well, I'm just going on what I am observing. It could be more of a noise MAKER that block sounds.
What I do know:
She has direct control over it - she turns on at specific times in direct response to certain kinds of actions.
I don't think it is part of her music system(s) as, judging by the vibration locations, there are multiple centers of vibration in every room that can be controlled independently. (Sometimes one room vibrates and the others don't, there seem to be at least five located in the bedroom. There are others in the kitchen, living room, bathroom, and small second bedroom)
They DO respond to other noise and vibration. For example if I sit on the corner of my bed and just move very slightly, the vibration will turn in to a very specifically sized "bump" in response to my movement. If I keep it up, I'll feel identical "bumps" from slightly different directions. It is strong enough the bed essentially starts moving by itself.

It could be some kind of sex toy. (I'm very serious.)

They did remodel that unit several years ago including work to the ceiling. I never saw what they did, but I was home at the time and was afraid they would drill in to my foot. They very well may have borked soundproofing or even building supports.

Off hand, I don't know how to find their landlord. I have contacted the condo association, and in theory they should know.
 
I was about to suggest Peloton, but you seem to have eliminated that possibility. May we assume that the vibration is only present when the unit is occupied?

You can always visit the county assessor's office to determine ownership--that's very important when it comes to taxes.
 
For example if I sit on the corner of my bed and just move very slightly, the vibration will turn in to a very specifically sized "bump" in response to my movement. If I keep it up, I'll feel identical "bumps" from slightly different directions. It is strong enough the bed essentially starts moving by itself.
No disrespect intended here, but this scenario seems unrealistic. Is it possible that you have a health issue (inner ear?) that is causing you to become dizzy and feel vibrations?

If you have not already done so, I would try staying somewhere else for a bit to see if the vibrations persist. You could also invite a friend over to see if their experience matches yours.
 
In general, it seems when she is out that yes, the rumbling stops, but sometimes she leaves whatever this is on when she is out. I think she also turns it off when I am not in. I just came home a bit ago and it was quiet and stable, then after a few minutes the vibrating started up.

No, it is certainly not exercise equipment. I believe the unit has a hot tub/Jacuzzi installed in the small second bedroom. I've never seen it, but I head a previous occupant talk about when they installed it. Seems like a bad idea for a second story unit (I'm on the third story).

I believe I am more sensitive to vibrations than others, but not absurdly so. And I do know that one of my feet is more sensitive than the other. I have gotten a little dizzy using an elevator before. But nothing at all like this. I'm getting old, but I expect to be able to stand on my own damn floor.

Edit:
Tried that water thing and nothing visible. Also just to sanity test, I tried switching off all of the electricity to my unit at the breaker. Vibration did not change.

BTW, so far no real luck with a microphone. but I think a standard microphone only detects vibrations in air. I've read a "contact microphone" can better measure sounds in solid objects.
 
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It seems I have over thought this a little bit. I've been poking around here a bit more gathering more information, and it makes more sense if I back up and look at this as a set of multiple systems:

1: A very badly balanced ceiling fan would almost perfectly explain the "mechanical bumping" I feel in response to moving around up here. That would also easily interact with other vibrations, in a similar way I have already observed. This mechanical bumping is only on some of the time.

2: The intense floor vibration. I have been poking around in my unit, and discovered if I put my ear to a wall in the hallway, I can hear some kind of motor running near the center of the unit. It has been almost constantly running and fairly consistent, so it is not an AC, washing machine, or traffic related. The vibration seems most intense in the hallway but spreads through all the floors and even outside on to the front and back deck. Somehow this very specific vibration is making me dizzy when I walk on it to the point I can fall down. I haven't had this problem with building vibrations anywhere else. My current theory is this is a pump for a hot tub/Jacuzzi (a previous occupant mentioned it once, but I don't know anything else about it) and that she has probably been leaving it on during this colder weather.

3: This means the perceived reduction in the TV and chatter noises in the living room are just incidental. They could be using conventional white noise generators, added sound dampening furnishings, or just learned to be a bit quieter (not bloody likely). The motor vibrating may be covering some of it too.

4: The above does not explain everything. The vibrating gets much more intense sometimes, but this at least suggest they are conventional source like washing machines, ACs, or that this hot tub has some kind of "over 9000" setting.

I did ask someone else to see if they could feel the vibration, but they said they could not. :(

I still need a good way of measuring and documenting it.
 
While I find it pretty far fetched someone would put one in a condo bedroom, a typical hot tub does run a circulating pump from time to time to maintain a standby water temperature. The hum is 60hz and sounds like an air handler fan when running. When the main jets are on, it gets MUCH louder and has a distinct rumbling. Besides the flooding potential, I would be really concerned about moisture from steam and the resulting mold.
 
I still need a good way of measuring and documenting it.

Is there a building superintendent and/or maintenance person that your condo association hires? Or someone generally in charge of the building? It might be worth telling them what you're perceiving, and ask for their help in identifying what it could be.
 
I've tried contacting the condo association but they haven't gotten back with me. The only e-mail address and phone number I have for them go to some kind of "support center" where no one ever answers.

While I find it pretty far fetched someone would put one in a condo bedroom, a typical hot tub does run a circulating pump from time to time to maintain a standby water temperature. The hum is 60hz and sounds like an air handler fan when running. When the main jets are on, it gets MUCH louder and has a distinct rumbling. Besides the flooding potential, I would be really concerned about moisture from steam and the resulting mold.
I'm still just guessing where it is. While I have been researching the problem, I came across some old real estate listing photos of the unit that show the fancy remodeling, but oddly none show a hot tub. Not a lot of places where one could put something like that. That second bedroom in my unit - where I have most of my vintage computer stuff - has horrible air circulation and gets very hot during the summer. Originally I thought they may have resized the bathroom but the listing photos show the same wall layout.

But yea, I'm also very concerned about the structural integrity of the building. When I first moved in here ages ago I never noticed vibrations from anything, and my original downstairs neighbor was a quiet as a mouse. The last few years there have been more and more noticeable vibrations from AC units, sound seems to carry more, and my floor is increasingly feeling flimsy.

Indeed, what I am hearing in the hallway sounds a little like an AC, but it is running constantly or almost constantly. Commonly around 10:00pm-11:00pm vibrations shoots up for about 5 to 10 minutes, accompanied by... other loud noises. Originally I thought someone was running a super-heavy washer spin cycle.
 
The contact info is likely to the management company. I would contact one of the officers directly if possible. Shouldn't be too hard the find one and ask whats up and maybe get some direct contacts to maintenance.
 
I think you best bet is to just knock on the door when you know that the particular party is there.
 
Sorry the dish of water didn't indicate anything. I posted that after recollecting something I did as a schoolkid long ago. I happened to have a HeNe laser from scrapped OCR equipment. In my bedroom I set up the laser (it was in a steel box with a heavy cast iron base) to point across the room at one of my hifi speakers perched on top of a piano. The cloth grille was taken off and a small scrap of silvered mirror was very(!) lightly Blu-tacked onto the lower side of the speaker cone, so it stayed on but could wobble. The laser shined on this and bounced onto the ceiling.
I used to listen to my favourite rock radio station at the time (2MMM Sydney - here's their TV ad from that era) and when I cranked up the amp's bass (especially when my parents weren't home!) the display was absolutely fantastic. The loose mirror produced a chaotic semi-Lissajous pattern.

So maybe a kechain laser fixed from high on the wall obliquely onto a mirror firmly fixed on the floor and might be more sensitive than the water dish. Crazy, I know, but hey there's my precedent. I still have the old laser, too.
 
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I was really hoping there was a more scientific way to measure this thing.

The sort of thing I could say something like "it is an intensity of X with a direction of Y and Z and a combination of FOO and BAR frequencies".

Is there some kind of environmental professional I could pay to get such a measurement? Seems like an overkill. Problem is, without hard documentation, nobody ever listens to me.

I don't happen to have a smart phone, although perhaps I could claw a laser pointer away from one of my brother's cats. I did actually have someone try and record the vibration with a cell phone, but it didn't seem to get anything.

I'm now sitting in my chair with two pillows under my butt and an extra rug under my chair, and it still feels like...... probably shouldn't say on this kind of forum. Well, problem is, I need to get some work done now. And after a number of weeks it is actually starting to HURT. This entire experience with this neighbor has been bizarre in ways I can't describe at all.

I'd love to know what is creating these vibrations and why they are causing sensations/pain/dizziness but without rattling anything or vibrating water. There IS an audible sound of some kind of motor running constantly if I put my ear to the wall. (That I know wasn't there many months ago) When I go elsewhere, I notice plenty of vibrations, deep vibrations from ACs, people walking around, kitchen equipment, cars on the road, but nothing that feels like this. It almost seems like whatever is making this vibration is intended to do that. Is she trying to kill me? I'm honestly afraid of her.
 
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