Hi Everyone - Just joined the forum. Thanks for all your knowledge and insight.

Here is the situation: I live in a mid-rise condo in Chicago. The upstairs neighbors moved out and replaced the hardwood floor because of water damage. Installers were noisy, but I figured that is normal. Place remained vacant for 2-3 months.

New neighbors have moved in... and boy are they noisy. Not on purpose you see, it's mostly footsteps - I've lived here for 6 years and my wife and I are now contemplating moving because of the noise. It was never this bad prior to the floor replacement - heck, barely knew anyone was up there.

Details to date: I believe the floor is similar to ours - floating ash finish around 740 SqFt. There are steal I beams and concrete flooring between our ceiling and their floor. We can litterally hear every footstep along with creaking in specific areas. I was even able to hear the woman on the phone today.

What to do? I've been investigating options for our unit. It seems we could add a layer of drywall from www.quietsolutions.com to our ceiling, but I'm not sure that will take care of the footstep thumping (it's like living in a giant drum ). The person I spoke with at Quiet Solutions pointed out that the sound needs to be stopped at the source... the floor. They do have an underlayment product that should do the trick. Of course, the couple up there are not interested in incurring additional costs - especially when the floor is new and they really like it.

I'm going to do some more investigation into who the installers were and what product / installation was performed. But I'd appreciate any advice on this kind of situation.

For instance:
A) Is anyone familiar with Quite Solutions and specifically, the effectiveness of adding a layer to the ceiling?
B) If it is a floating system, could the floor be lifted and a better sound deadening material be placed underneath? Clearly this is some work, but maybe it would not be as expensive as replacing the entire floor.

Thanks in advance for your help and I will keep posted as I learn more.

Most multi level condo buildings won't let hard surfaces be used as flooring in the upper levels, only on the ground floor units, just because of what you speak.

If it is written in your condo rules, they will have to remove it and go back with carpet or be force to move out, even if they own it. Then the proper removal and proper flooring as to not disturb, the neighbors.

It seems to me there should be something in the homeowners covenants about this. As Perry says, many condos severly restrict what floor covering can be used on second floors and above due to the noise factor. You can also ask the association about this. It is possible the previous owners had some sound dampening underlayment under their floors but that was removed and not put back when the current owners replaced the floors. A decibel meter can be used to determine the actual volume of the sound from upstairs and the measurement used to inform the association that the current owners are in voilation of noise restrictions. Then the association has the responsibility to enforce the covenants and restrictions.

Could be a Texas thing Perry runs into. I've worked in dozens of condo/highrises in Florida and never heard such a thing as no hard surface flooring. Laminate, hardwood, stone, you name it--it's there, but there are requirements for cork sound control underlayment.

Your condo association would know to do's and don'ts.

Ken is correct. Cork Underlayment is used for sound control. your description indicates lack of proper underlayment, or lack of underlayment. I say lack of underlayment as a possibility because of the level of noise from foot steps alone..
Ray