Nuisance neighbour evidence..Need some recording advice

[Hankus]

Hello All,
There are many companies out there thet you can get a (Class 1) sound level meter to record this with. Campbells associates , or ANV or Bruel and Kjear etc. but you will need to note down the serial numbers of the sound level meter and microphone for the evidence along with the calibration certificate. Also another thing to remember, the smaller the microphone the less low freq it will pick up. So 1/2" or bigger is better. Bruel & Kjear do a 1" microphone that can fit their sound level meters and it is amazing!
If you have about £50 to play with, i recommend the hire route.
If you want to purchase something then a sound level meter will not show you all the frequencies unless you pay a few thousand. The cheap sound level meters average every freq it picks up to give you the LAeq dB level (if you are lucky) so it is best to hire something good.
Good luck.

[Hugh Robjohns]

Also another thing to remember, the smaller the microphone the less low freq it will pick up.

Sorry... this is a popular claim, but it is a complete myth.

The low-end response is not affected in any way by the size of the diaphragm; large or small are equally capable.

A capsule's low-frequency extension is only affected by the capsule's operating principle (pressure or velocity (pressure gradient) operation), and any electronics involved inthe signal path.

However, the size of the diaphragm does affect the high-end response, with smaller capsules having a more extended HF response than large capsules, essentially because of increasing self-cancellation of off-axis high-frequency signals, where the diaphragm size becomes a relevant proportion of their wavelength.

Where large capsules do bring benefits, however, is in the signal-noise performance; large diaphragms have a significantly lower self-noise than smaller diaphragms.

H

[TheSwede86]

Hello,

Really interesting thread.
Don't know if anyone still follows this but came across it when googling.

Anyway I live in Sweden in an apartment I own (bought) and don't lease and my neighbours upstairs (which are actually renting from the original owner) are driving me crazy.

They are nice and polite but they have 2 children and my roof / their floor is concrete and the apartments are so extremely responsive (?) that I hear when my neighbour goes out of his squeeky bed, walks / stomps to the bathroom and then don't even get me started on the sound when he flushes.

Sure they are normal sounds you need to live with I guess but when the kids start running around it is so loud that I hear them even though I have noise cancelling earbuds on me with a podcast on high volume from 08-24.

The kids not withstanding there are generally a lot of things that get dropped on the floor and other various stomping / thudding sounds.

I can also hear them through the vents (guess it is through the vents) almost to the degree I can get what they are saying.

I kid you not, from the moment I wake up until I go to bed and especially since working from home due to Covid I've been wearing my earbuds, all the waking hours of the day.

These sudden stomps and thuds have given me way higher pulse then normal and I am nervous all the time and feel stressed and depressed. Even when it's quiet the anticipation of it makes me stressed.
I am thinking about moving but I really love my apartment and have had some work done on it so I really feel at home here and it is the way I like it.

You don't know how long these sounds last or when they stsrt and there can be these thuds and stomps even as late as 23 (but then not someone running but rather individual thuds).

So I was looking into buying a microphone to record this to provide to our housing committee I guess you call it?;
Persons who live here who are voted in and handle contracting of maintenance for the buildings etc.

I've read the post about the BM800 and found this;
https://noerdic.se/products/bm800-mikrofon-kit-usb

Sorry for the link in Swedish but the specs should be quite clear otherwise I'll happily translate the key parts if Google Translate is wonky.

However the BM800 microphone was recommended to pick up floor vibrations if I understood the reply and my use-case is to pick up the sound of kids stomping / running around upstairs and thuds and thumps that comes from my roof / their floor.

Would the microphone I linked to be a suitable alternative?

If not are there any other suggestions for around max €50?

Appreciate your time and this thread in general, stay safe people.

Best Regards

[zenguitar]

Welcome to the SOS forums.

We have questions like this regularly. And the answer is always the same, you need expensive, calibrated, tools to take the measurements/recordings.

And once you have the information you still have to convince the management committee who are almost certainly ordinary people who don't understand what the measurements are telling them.

Don't waste your money and efforts on recordings. Instead spend a fraction of the money on drinks and snacks and invite the committee for a small drinks party and let them hear for themselves.

Andy

[TheSwede86]

Welcome to the SOS forums.

We have questions like this regularly. And the answer is always the same, you need expensive, calibrated, tools to take the measurements/recordings.

And once you have the information you still have to convince the management committee who are almost certainly ordinary people who don't understand what the measurements are telling them.

Don't waste your money and efforts on recordings. Instead spend a fraction of the money on drinks and snacks and invite the committee for a small drinks party and let them hear for themselves.

Andy

Thanks for your reply.

Yeah I will contact the committee again, when I talked to them they seemed sympathetic and asked me to document the noises and get back to them.

I have tried recording it using my phone's microphone and even tried an external microphone connected to my phone but the recording is a poor representation of the sound:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07YDKBXKV/re ... UTF8&psc=1

I have documented it as well but due to the nature of the sound it is intermittent so an entry for an hour might look like this:
10:00-10:03 Thuds
10:10-10:15 Running / screaming
10:19-10:20 Stomps
10:25-10:30 Dragging something across the floor
and so on so you basically can do nothing else then sitting with an excel spreadsheet and your phone and trying to document the sound and feeling your pulse rise.

Music normally is a consistent sound so an entry for an hour there might be:
23:05-23:40 Music

I will go ahead and contact them again and let the chips fall where they may, it's either that or moving.

Naturally I've contacted my neighbours and even written a letter about the problems and they said that the building is responsive and "kids are kids" and I should take a broom to my ceiling and thump back when I hear them or go up and talk to them.

I just think that those actions should not be necessary

Best Regards

[CS70]

Yeah I will contact the committee again, when I talked to them they seemed sympathetic and asked me to document the noises and get back to them.

As Andy says, "document the noises" as audio recordings is simply not gonna work, and the best you can do is to invite a couple of the committee people over for some drinks and let them witness by themselves.

But: the Excel thing is not a bad idea. The very fact that you go to the length and effort to document events and their precise days/time can be a far better "proof" than a lousy recording that can be easily dismissed.

Even better, I'd avoid the Excel and make a paper log - easier to have at hand and it's intuitively less easy to tamper with.

You could try to mount isolating panels on the ceiling, but low frequency vibrations would pass anyways and there's no telling how much it would help without evaluating the room and its construction (plus making of course your room slightly smaller).

Perhaps in Sweden there's a city office specifically for this kind of disturbance problems?

Naturally I've contacted my neighbours and even written a letter about the problems and they said that the building is responsive and "kids are kids" and I should take a broom to my ceiling and thump back when I hear them or go up and talk to them.

I just think that those actions should not be necessary

Perhaps they shouldn't, but that doesn't help you. The thumping idea is not bad as gives the parent a clear trigger to tell the kids to keep quiet.

[shufflebeat]

...invite the committee for a small drinks party and let them hear for themselves.

Lovely idea. Annoyance can be represented on paper but you might just as well interpret it through the medium of mime.

There's really no substitute for feeling that actual annoyance yourself.

[TheSwede86]

...invite the committee for a small drinks party and let them hear for themselves.

Lovely idea. Annoyance can be represented on paper but you might just as well interpret it through the medium of mime.

There's really no substitute for feeling that actual annoyance yourself.

Don't really know what happened, posted a reply and just got directed to the main forum overview.

Anyway a shorter reply than my precious:
When I have guests over it's dead quiet.
The neighbours probably notice when I have guests and they tell the kids to be quiet and doesn't take the "fight"
with the kids unlesss they know I have guests over.

So I risk to invite the committee over and it's basically dead quiet. Would be quite irritating

But thanks for your suggestions guys, I'll email the committee on Monday to discuss further actions.

[zenguitar]

Don't really know what happened, posted a reply and just got directed to the main forum overview.

Sometimes it is easy to click the wrong button. The black Forum Index button will do what you described. I still click the wrong button sometimes when I'm typing quickly.

Andy

[l1ndyl0u5]

Hi, I have a similar problem but the neighbour is in the flat above me and has the speakers on the floor so I can hear the bass thudding all the time. I tried to record it on my phone but it does not pick it up. I need something to stick on my ceiling. Is there such a thing? Thanks

[Sam Spoons]

Hi and welcome to the forum.

Sorry to pass on bad news but gathering evidence by means of a contact mic will be a waste of time as it simply will not be accepted. It will be well worth your time to go back and reread this whole thread as there is a wealth of advice WRT what will and will not work when dealing with this kind of problem. Some by people who have had first hand experience and more based on the science.

HTH

[Adiponectin]

Hi, I have a similar problem but the neighbour is in the flat above me and has the speakers on the floor so I can hear the bass thudding all the time. I tried to record it on my phone but it does not pick it up. I need something to stick on my ceiling. Is there such a thing? Thanks

I am having exactly the same problem with my neighbour and here is what I found:

There is no need to get a professional equipment to capture the bass sound, in fact, the sound could be perfectly recorded by iPhone (or maybe other good digital recording devices, my assumption), the key is how you could replay it. I am using the Sony WH-1000XM5 Headset ( the 4th generation also works), you will hear exactly what you are suffering from, but I am not sure whether this could be used as a court evidence, as I am not at the step ( even very close) to sue my neighbour.

[tea for two]

I reside in a flat. Families living either side as well as above and below.
For this reason I hardly ever play my hifi and if I do it's max 1/4 volume.
Also for this reason I would never get monitors I do all my stuff on headphones.

Early last year flat to the left a family moved out. I was a bit saddened as they were a lovely family.
In moved students partying until 3-4 in the morning loud music dancing hollering.
They were doing this upto 3 times a week.

One night I went out bleary eyed saying please look at my state lol I can't sleep. They said sorry soooory.
Then carried on. Being students they didn't get it.

What happened a month later some of the Mothers in the block of flats really laid into the students threatening them with the council and police.
The Mothers then got hold of the Letting agents then laid into the Letting agents

I heard all this.

Result.

Letting agents moved students out and a family moved in.

::

So I suppose I'm saying are those noisy neighbours tenants is there anyway to find out whether they are tenants if so perhaps somehow getting hold of Letting agents.
Perhaps also talking to others in the block of flats and getting them together if they too are affected by the noise.

[Wonks]

But any recording you make yourself will be a waste of time. You'll have no reference level, the recorded level will depend entirely on the amount of gain applied to the mic signal and its proximity to the noise source, and on playback it all depends on the volume level of the playback device as to how loud it seems.

You are far better off getting in touch with the relevant authorities and getting them to do their own measurements with a calibrated sound level meter. Anything else is pretty much a waste of time.

[RichardT]

If you want some initial evidence, and you have an iPad, you could try the app SPLnFFT whose level meters should be accurate to within ±2dB once calibrated. The app calibrates itself using the speakers and microphones on the iPad.

If the sound level comes up very high, this might help push the local authority into taking some action.

As others have said, recordings are completely useless.

[Wonks]

Whilst it is the norm for most environmental noise measurements, an A-weighted SPL reading has a lot of bass roll-off to it, so you'll probably want to use a C-weighting, which is only 5dB down at about 24Hz.
Compare that to A-weighting which is -20dB down from peak at 100Hz and -50dB down at 20Hz.

A-weighting approximates human hearing response at low volumes (40dB) and C-weighting at loud volumes(100dB). I expect B-weighting would be more appropriate for the volume levels involved here, but sadly that's no longer used.

dB(A) is the normal measurement standard for H&S applications, as it centres on those frequencies most likely to cause hearing damage. However, even loud bass sounds will contribute very little to the overall loudness value measured using an A-weighted meter.

So, taking both A- and C-weighted values would be a wise move. But even then, it all needs to be recorded relative to the background noise when the music isn't playing at the same time of day. Measuring 70dB(A) when the background noise is 68db(A) is a very different thing to measuring 70dB(A) when the background noise level is normally 35dB(A).

[Hugh Robjohns]

All very good points.

The other issue is the frequency of nuisance noise — how often the disturbing intrusions occur.

For that, keep a detailed diary of days, times, durations and content. That will probably end being far more important as evidence than a dodgy uncalibrated sound recording.