Check your lease to see if there is a clause that mentions "quiet enjoyment". That is the legal term for the principle that recognizes the right of a property holder or tenant to enjoy their residence without interference or disturbance.

There may also be applicable laws in your state regardless of whether that phrase is explicitly used in the lease. So you could very well have a clear legal basis for breaking the lease if you can establish that violation of your quiet enjoyment has occurred.

I Am Not A Lawyer so if you want to go down that road, I would advise seeking advice from one who specializes in tenant rights.

I presume you cannot do this, but if ya could get a place* out in the country on 5 acres or more. You'd no doubt have a longer commute, but rural America is mostly quiet ('cept during huntin season). Plus if you live on a big piece of property people will give you free cats and kittens (it's true!)

That said, if you can afford to move GTF out and get a top floor apartment. Noisy downstairs neighbors can still happen, but won't you hear their every footstep, shower and toilet flush.

*rent or buy a home

...where the wife never left the apt alone. She jump-roped in the living room for exercise. Children, and they had their own plus frequent guests who stayed for the weekend, were put outside when they misbehaved; apparently nobody considered that a screaming tyke might disturb the neighbors. I moved. No situation is perfect but some are intolerable.

I hate to admit this, but a decade later, after 9/11, I took satisfaction in the likely difficulties they were encountering as a result in their daily routine. What goes around comes around...

A few years ago I was in the exact opposite position. I was on the third floor in an apartment with all wood floors and I unintentionally drove the guy on the second floor crazy. Once I knew that there was a problem I did everything I could to alleviate it. This primarily involved getting some throw rugs and not wearing shoes around the apartment.

I would talk to the guy.

Next time, live on the top floor. Problem solved!

Tell them you've heard crashing noises from upstairs like furniture being thrown around or perhaps someone falling down - followed by silence. Tell them you're afraid to go upstairs and check.

Maybe the LL had a seizure and fell out of bed? How would you know?

It may be the second time was unlucky, or it may be that he wants more quiet than he can get in an apartment.

My then fiancée now wife had a neighbor below her condo in Washington DC who spent her days hitting the ceiling with a broom and screaming profanity laden demands at everyone to be quiet. The trouble was she did it at anything -- you would tiptoe to the bathroom and the sound of urine hitting the water in the bowl would literally set her off. Sitting at the dining table meals would be ruined by Joanie's foul mouthed screaming and the ceiling being banged. Security would be called in the middle of the night waking everyone up (yes no one had been making any noise.) Even reading a book seems to set her off (the turns of the pages.) Her immediate neighbors on either side were likewise driven crazy by her.

Finally we had enough - and started to retaliate - positioning ourselves in various corners of the apartment with brooms in the afternoon, we would bang the floor in succession (gently) driving her around her apartment screaming ever louder. Then we would exit the building by the back door and come in the front just as she called the concierge - leading to puzzled looks as she complained about people not in the building. We sort of house trained her -- anytime she went over the top, we retaliated - oh and we stopped walking quietly as we had previously done - hell we stopped giving a sh!t at all.

We nearly went to the point of dangling wind-chimes outside her window after a particularly outrageous episode - to see if we could get her to complain about the bells.

On the other hand, I had a stereo in one London flat I had that mysteriously, usually when I was on a long trip, would switch it self on at very high volume, and just as strangely, after a day or two turn itself off. I arrived back after being away for two weeks to very sullen neighbors who had had to get a locksmith -- and I frankly could not understand what went on (and was a little incredulous. The next time it did it, I came home to find it blaring -- in the end I just had to unplug the damn thing -- I think its infrared remote was being triggered by light through the window (someone else's remote), but I never did actually work it out.

Funny, when I lived in Japan I found out that there is a sort of social convention -- walls are soundproof -- my house there was 18" from the next one and the walls were thin. You could here everything -- so the rule was, ordinary household noise, you did not hear. On the other hand I remember in Dublin a neighbor who left their dog out in the back yard where it monotonously barked .. bark, bark, bark, bark - a bark a second for 3-8 hours - when studying it drove me wild. I have had tenants in a flat above me in a house my parents owned in Dublin (divided house they reassembled) who (country girls) would bring back unsuitable men at all hours -- and then some of their friends would arrive down to ask my room-mate and me to to sling these guys out, including on one occasion one who was trying to have sex with one of them at a party after she was unconscious from alcohol - clearly w/o her consent, while his friends smirked around. He, I dropped on his head a few times on the granite steps, the other we were not gentle with - the three naïfs complained that we were mean to their friends (I think that was the point that they were threatened with the termination of their lease.) One of these guys I found stoned wandering around my flat after he mysteriously found his way in.

I suppose what I am saying is that if you live in a city, house or apartment, you will have some noise - the question is, what's reasonable - is it too much or are you too sensitive.