I don't know if I could ever deal with (American) upstairs neighbors again in my life. The percentage of inconsiderate people meeting the percentage of multi-family housing with basically no soundproofing is a recipe for sleeplessness and rage.
The percentage of inconsiderate people meeting the percentage of multi-family housing with basically no soundproofing is a recipe for sleeplessness and rage
This problem is exactly why I will never live in a city again. I'm sure it's possible for multi-family housing to have reasonable sound proofing. I'm also sure it will never actually happen in anything except the most high-end units.. And even that soundproofing does nothing when you try to have the windows open during nice weather and discover that your neighbor's wife screams like an actress in a bad porno at 3am. Ya, no, fuck that noise. Gimme a small home in the forest with trees between me and the next asshole.
That all said, I quite like my current setup. I'm in a rural area with ~25k people in the county, last time I looked into it. The community I live in is more suburban in layout. We don't hear our neighbors unless they are really, really loud. But, we also have BBQ's on the regular with our neighbors and our kids are out and about together constantly. It's pretty darn idyllic.