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Apartment living comes with the expectation that you’ll hear your neighbors from time to time. But when the noise becomes constant (and starts interfering with your sleep) it can quickly become unbearable.

One renter says they’ve lived peacefully in their bottom-floor apartment for seven months without any issues, until their upstairs neighbor suddenly began stomping around the apartment at all hours of the day and night. According to OP, the heavy footsteps have become so frequent that they’ve been repeatedly jolted awake in both the early morning and late at night.

After reporting the issue to the landlord and even leaving a polite handwritten note asking for more consideration, OP says the stomping continued almost immediately, leaving them wondering what options they have left before the lack of sleep takes an even bigger toll.

What else can I do about my upstairs neighbor stomping?

Hi everyone, I’ve lived in my apartment now for about 7 months.

I live on the bottom floor and I’ve never had any issues with my neighbors, but for the last 2 weeks my upstairs neighbor has been constantly stomping all over their apartment.

It’s all day long. It literally sounds like they sit down for an hour or so and get up and start walking as loud as possible.

That sounds distracting to say the least.

It happens at the early morning hours, to the afternoon, and into the night. I genuinely have no clue how they’re walking around so much.

The stomping has woken me up multiple days in a row. It also affects my daily life as I work long hours and come home to this.

I emailed my landlord about the issue yesterday, and they said they’ve reached out to the tenant.

Thank goodness.

Last night at around 11pm the stomping happened and woke me up.

I wrote a handwritten note, stating I’m their downstairs neighbor and the constant loud walking is affecting my sleep and my daily life.

I asked them to please be more considerate that someone lives below them.

PLEASE.

I taped the note onto their door. This morning at 6am, I was woken up by the stomping. I went upstairs to check if the note was still on their door, and it was not. Meaning they took the note off and are fully aware of the issues they’re causing me.

The stomping has continued since then, and that was about 9 hours ago. The stomping happens every 30min-an hour consistently. I emailed the landlord again about this and they said they will continue to reach out to the tenant. What else can I do?

This is affecting me really bad. My mental health and sleep is so messed up right now.

Reddit was far less sympathetic than OP expected, with many commenters saying that hearing footsteps from an upstairs apartment is simply part of living on the bottom floor. While people acknowledged that the noise sounded frustrating, they pointed out that walking around one’s own apartment—even with heavy footsteps—isn’t inherently unreasonable.

Many readers questioned what exactly the upstairs neighbor was supposed to do differently if they were simply going about their daily routine. Unless the tenant was intentionally stomping, blasting music, or violating quiet hours in other ways, commenters felt they had every right to move around their own home. Several also suggested the issue may be poor building construction rather than inconsiderate neighbors.

Others encouraged OP to adjust their expectations and focus on practical solutions, such as earplugs, a white noise machine, or requesting a top-floor unit when their lease is up. While documenting the noise and communicating with the landlord wasn’t viewed as inappropriate, many doubted there was much management could do if the neighbor was simply walking around their apartment.

The overall consensus was that this is one of the unfortunate realities of apartment living. Reddit largely agreed that if normal footsteps are significantly affecting OP’s quality of life, the long-term solution may be finding a living situation with better sound insulation rather than expecting the upstairs neighbor to change how they walk.

This person says they just paid them back in a passive aggressive way. 

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a barn owner who wants to evict a tenant who promised to build stalls but never did.

>This person says there’s really nothing they can do.

And this person thinks OP is being selfish.

Reddit’s verdict was simple: sometimes the problem isn’t the neighbor—it’s living on the first floor.