Neighbor always playing piano

[Anonymous]

Our neighbor is a piano player. By this I mean he plays 5-6 times a day, morning till night. We asked him to please not play at night though he sometimes does, and because we share a wall we hear every single note. He does not play lightly, often we hear him really banging on the keys. Now, we live in a great neighborhood and don't want to leave, but my husband is losing his mind and wants gone. He's pissed that these people have a piano they play so often and it makes our previously quiet home with our kids now feel like an apartment we are renting. So I ask - have people moved for such a thing? It's not like we can ask him to stop playing - it's his whole life apparently - weekdays before work, right when he gets home and ALL weekend. Nice people otherwise.

[Anonymous]

If they are nice people then you can approach them.

Request them in a manner that they can save face. If someone would say "Your piano playing makes our house very noisy" vs. someone who says to you "I know it is an imposition but could you not play the piano from noon to 2 pm because Larla naps at that time. We will be very grateful." You would be more apt to listen to someone who requested you and asked in a polite and humble tone.

[Anonymous]

Tough position to be in. I think it's reasonable to ask him to not play (late) in the evening, but clearly he is not going to give up piano playing.

You could talk to him to see if there's a way to move the piano to another location in the house?

[Anonymous]

if everything else fails, Give him a digital piano as an indefinite free loan that can be used with headphones and request him to play it at the problem hours.

[Anonymous]

Can you ask them to split the cost of sound proofing the shared wall?

[Anonymous]

my father is like your neighbor, he loves playing the piano and plays it all the time. he now lives in a SFH with a large yard, so nobody cares. we grew up in a rowhouse though, but the walls were very thick (like almost half a yard of rocks and full bricks) so the neighbors were not bothered (and he played in the evening too).
you should find out what type of piano your neighbor is playing. if it an electronic piano, then you can ask the neighbor to use headphones. this is what my father does when he visits. he plays for hours our electronic piano with the headphones on, and we do not hear anything. otherwise, you may look into noise-profing your wall. I had a friend years ago who gave piano lesson all afternoon in her apartment. her neighbors were obviously not thrilled, and she did some work so her living room was noise proof and the neighbors were happy. if you share a wall and can hear anything, maybe you should try to see if we can do some works and block the noise. unless you move to a SFH with a large yard around you, wherever you move, you may end up in a similar situation (noisy dog barking all day, opera singer practicing all day, little drummer and so on).

[Anonymous]

At least he isn't a night club techno dj

[Anonymous]

At least it's not loud sex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At least it's not loud sex.

+1

If he can't/won't move the piano and he won't stop playing in the evenings, consider soundproofing your space.

The noise ordinances are usually for much later at night or for noise that is excessively loud. You can have someone measure the decibels and compare that to your local noise threshold ordinance. It is probably below that or other neighbors would be complaining as well.

When I lived in Chapel Hill, my neighbor was a bagpiper. I adjusted.

[Anonymous]

Omg this was my life!! Literally one month after we moved into our row home, our neighbors bought a grand piano. She was quite good (concert pianist) but that's not the point. I did approach them nicely about the hours, which they did not take well but did reduce the time they played. It made me SO edgy because I never knew when the piano would suddenly start playing (and since it was a grand piano literally next to our shared wall, it sounded like it was in our house). Thankfully, they moved, but it sucked. I have no advice.

[Anonymous]

Pp here. Had it gone on for longer I would have look into soundproofing

[Anonymous]

Is your neighbors house soundproofed? Maybe they need to get more rugs, tapestries, etc?

Also, playing before work? I don't think any noise is acceptable before at least 8 am. Surely that's in your HOA docs?

[Anonymous]

Could you ask if they'll consider moving the piano within their apartment? Like, instead of having it against your shared wall they move it to another room or against another wall.

[Anonymous]

You can invest in floating sound proofing drywall, they are very effective and if it is just one room, it would not be overly expensive to put in.

[Anonymous]

Play something yourself that you prefer to drown out the sound. Northern indian music is a great white noise generator.