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Looking for advice about neighbor's sound reduction system

Don't let paranoia set in. I concur with the following advice, and I think you should pursue it:

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.

Otherwise, you're just spinning your wheels.
 
So, a slight update, after a number of e-mails and finally talking to this neighbor, these vibrations have magically significantly reduced although not disappeared. At least the specific one making me dizzy and falling down has stopped. But I'm sitting here and feeling some very fake "traffic" type rumblings.

Well, I've noticed that for a few minutes usually between 10-12 at night one of the more stimulating vibrations sweeps through the building, accompanied by some thunking noises.. I'll let you use your imagination what that might be.

When I talked to the neighbor about all these vibrations, she played dumb, but I did get one bit of information I don't think she is lying about. She said she only had the one ceiling fain - in the living room, which matches the old MLS listing photos. Which throws the entire ceiling fan theory about the mechanical "bumping" in the bedroom out the window.

Doing some more reading, infrasonic / sub sonic harassment is a very real thing, but it is hard to prove. I still need to find some good way to record all this. It would be interesting to show the vibrations all stop during a momentary power outage.
 
I know this is a crapshoot, especially since you said someone already tried recording the vibrations with a phone (what app did they use? Or did they only try recording audio/video?). But you could try asking someone with a smartphone to install eQuake (or whatever the iOS equivalent is) because it has a 'test' or 'demonstration' kind of mode for its sensor feature that displays info on the screen as Mercalli data, so coupled with a decent phone should be able to pick up even the slightest vibrations.

Otherwise, you might want to try suspending some sort of lightweight object from the ceiling (or on a wall, the same way one would hang a picture perhaps) to see if it visibly slightly swings.
 
I used to manage commercial real-estate for a company I worked for and we occasionally would get noise complains from landlords or other tenants in our buildings. There are acoustical consultants that can professionally measure vibrations and sounds and determine source with suggest remedies. Look for Acoustical Consultants in your area.
Just a side note on how I feel your pain. My previous neighbor installed built-in speakers into their walls for a surround sound system. The side effect to this was that this caused their whole house to vibrate, but they did not notice it. The houses in the neighborhood were built into a limestone slab that carried those vibrations and even augmented them to the other houses nearby. I had a great relationship with that neighbor and we worked together to try to resolve the issue. However, even if the volume was at it's lowest setting, my entire house would vibrate and shake. That went on for a few months while my neighbor tried a few things to limit the noise/vibrations. He finally just resigned to not use his built in speakers. He used floor speakers that were baffled by the carpet that did not have the same problem.
 
Thank you! "Acoustical Consultant" sounds like the sort of person I am looking for. Glancing at a few, it sounds expensive though. But all I really think I need from someone is to document this issue so I can make it stop.

That is an interesting thought about wall speakers. That reminds me, when she first moved in last year, I could hear hear drilling in to all of the beams in the walls down there. I assumed it was for something decorative, but now I am wondering.

Also, interesting idea about hanging something from the ceiling. I've been wondering it it is vibrating too - if not, perhaps I could hang a hammock so I can get some sleep :p but I don't want a giant hole in my ceiling.

And to anyone thinking all this is not possible, it IS possible. I even inadvertently built something myself during all of this that kind of does that. I was trying to mitigate the vibrations by introducing other low vibrations inside my room (such as in to a chair or bed leg). It's weird, when I run it, I don't hear any sound, and I don't feel any additional vibrations, but on repeated tests -on the people who are still alive-, the downstairs neighbor freaks out and starts slamming doors or blaring her stereo, or increasing her vibrations, or such. Tempted to just leave it running, but I don't want to be the a-hole. If I do try that again, I'll use white noise instead.

Edit: Also, this fake traffic track she is running is almost hilariously bad. Most of the time it tries to make it feel like there is a single truck strongly idling nearby, except there is no such truck nearby and we don't get such trucks back in this corner of the complex. (I once lived somewhere where this did happen sometimes). The idling sound is a perfectly smooth wave form with no roughness. The real traffic vibrations we get out here are a very low, rough, combination of dozens of distant vehicles at once.
 
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Sounds like you are doing it already - but if not, maybe take notes on it to look back on to find correlations.
And a smartphone with a good accelerometer would have interesting new things to collect data with.
Also, do you have a good carbon monoxide detector? Just checking, not doubting what you are experiencing :)
 
I did think about the carbon monoxide possibility. Which reminds me, it has become apparent she has some kind of air venting system, from the sound of it in her utility room. I've noticed it running before but lately there have been some nasty chemical smells from down there, so I am guessing she is using it to vent that sort of thing, and the very cold temperatures lately have made it obvious it is sucking some air from my unit. Easy to show with strips of tissue paper. Grumble.

I don't own a smart phone. But would a smart phone accelerator really be anywhere on par with scientific equipment?
 
I live in a block of 10 units. Three stories. The lower story is the car park, and the two upper stories are the units. I live in a unit in the middle story. On two occasions, I and the residents around me on my story, heard loud industrial type sounds (hammering, drilling, etc.) coming from the units above us. On both occasions, after the sounds went on for much longer than seemed reasonable, some of us collectively investigated, and to our surprise, the noise source was not above our units, but BELOW, in the car park. (In one case, it was an electrician affixing a lamp fitting to the concrete ceiling, and in the other case, it was a resident affixing rubber padding to the concrete poles either side of his car spot.) So, unprofessionally, I reason that these must have been vibrations that traveled up through wall supports, and then were converted to sound waves above us.
 
Understood. Things might not always be what they seem.

I've already made some mistakes jumping to conclusions due to some very bizarre coincidences. Which is why I wish there were an easy way to measure these - then I could hopefully easily compare them to others and quickly say if it was bad or not worse than anywhere else, or quickly analyze the patterns and possibly help find the real causes.

But that reminds me of a story I read about some people who heard some odd "construction" type noises. Some minutes later their fancy beach-side Florida condo unit was at the bottom of a rubble pile.

Point being, sometimes you have to go with what you have.
 
YES!
»TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEĂD«

I live in a block of 10 units. Three stories. The lower story is the car park, and the two upper stories are the units. I live in a unit in the middle story. On two occasions, I and the residents around me on my story, heard loud industrial type sounds (hammering, drilling, etc.) coming from the units above us. On both occasions, after the sounds went on for much longer than seemed reasonable, some of us collectively investigated, and to our surprise, the noise source was not above our units, but BELOW, in the car park.
Something like that happened to me as well - one apartment I used to live in years ago was plagued by horrendous grinding and furniture-dragging noises in the middle of the night, which were absolutely coming from above. At one point, after several nights of sleep deprivation, I lost it and went banging on their door in the wee hours (a move that correlated poorly with self-preservation in that particular neighborhood). The bewildered tenant's place actually turned out to be perfectly quiet. Later found out that the source was an apartment not only below me, but well away off to the side as well. Somehow the building's internal construction channeled those vibrations into what sounded like a point several centimeters inside my ceiling.
 
YES!
»TECHNICIÄNS ÖF SPÅCE SHIP EÅRTH THIS IS YÖÜR CÄPTÅIN SPEÄKING YÖÜR ØÅPTÅIN IS DEĂD«


Something like that happened to me as well - one apartment I used to live in years ago was plagued by horrendous grinding and furniture-dragging noises in the middle of the night, which were absolutely coming from above. At one point, after several nights of sleep deprivation, I lost it and went banging on their door in the wee hours (a move that correlated poorly with self-preservation in that particular neighborhood). The bewildered tenant's place actually turned out to be perfectly quiet. Later found out that the source was an apartment not only below me, but well away off to the side as well. Somehow the building's internal construction channeled those vibrations into what sounded like a point several centimeters inside my ceiling.
I had this exact same problem, "horrendous grinding and furniture-dragging noises in the middle of the night". It sounded like it was directly over my head. It went on for months, driving me insane. I went floor by floor, trying to find the source of the sound. I think I finally found it two floors up and a few apartments over, but it seemed to move around. I even heard it three floors up. Eventually, I had to move for my own sanity.

What I don't understand is that nobody else complained about it.
 
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