Unreasonably loud walking from upstairs neighbor

By anonymous

My wife and I recently moved into a new apartment and have been consistantly having noise issues with our upstairs neighbor. Our situation is a little different than most, however, because the noise does not originate from loud music, but rather from very heavy walking. This is not normal walking noise, as it rattles dishes in our cabinets, pictures on our walls, and light fixtures throughout the apartment. I even sent recordings of this happening to the office. Further, it occurs nearly non-stop from 6:30 a.m. to midnight, every day.

After a few weeks, we attempted to introduce ourselves to the neighbor and ask him to be aware of the noise he makes in our apartment, but he refused to answer the door. Following this attempt, we notified the office of the issue we were having. They told us they would inform the neighbor and asked that we let them know if the problem persists. We waited a week, and with no change, we went to speak with the office again. Now this has gone on for over a month, and the assistant property manager has informed us that the neighbor is aware of the issue, that he assured her that he is not trying to be noisy, and that she is confident that the situation would work itself out.
I believe that the neighbor is not intentionally being loud, and I actually suspect that we may have been misled when we were told that the apartments are "built to condo spec" (usually meaning a layer of concrete between levels and greater insulation in the walls) which was a major selling point for us. With all this taken into account, it appears the issue can be categorized in one of three ways:
1. The apartments are in fact built to the "condo spec" standard that we were told of before signing the lease, and the upstairs neighbor is continually walking unreasonably loudly.
2. The neighbor is walking normally and reasonably, however the build quality of the apartments is not what we were promised and as a result much more noise is being transmitted than what would be expected.
3. Neither 1 or 2 is true, and we are simply being unreasonable in thinking that we shouldn’t have to deal with our cabinets rattling all day, every day.
Judging from my most recent communication with the office, they are no longer interested in doing anything about the noise, short of moving us into a different apartment. I would be interested in this option, except that having just spent several thousand dollars moving across the country, I can’t afford to take days off of work to pack up and move again, and don’t feel that I should have to be the one that is inconvenienced, financially, and at the cost of my time, to resolve the issue.
What can I do?

Edited on: Thursday, September 19th, 2013 3:18 pm

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