What is the most effective way to get our neighbors to turn down their music, sound levels?

If you don’t want to deal with it directly, call the landlord. If that doesn’t work, call the cops.

^What @WestRiverrat said. Landord then cops.

Call BOTH but call the landlord first.

Aim speakers toward their walls and play something loud and annoying when you know they’re sleeping.

@JonnyCeltics Crank up your music to the same level, walk over with a beer or cup of coffee. and say hello. Ask to sit down and talk.

When you saw the apartment for the first time, as a prospective tenant, did you have a discussion about the noise with the landlord or the person who showed you the apartment?

I would knock on their door and ask them politely to turn the music down. If it continues, I would call the landlord.

It should not be loud after 11 pm. I believe that is the time when it becomes a police issue, legally.

I once lived in an apartment, and a noisy neighbor moved in. The bass on her stereo system would cause my pictures to bounce on the walls.

I asked her to turn it down, and she did. It was the end of the problem. Had that not worked, I was prepared to take it to the landlord. I once had a noise problem with a different neighbor in the same apartment and called the police who never came.

Noise polution is noise polution, I think you need to call the police if they are keeping you up

Go to their front door and start yelling, “Oh yes, baby! Yes! Oh baby! Oh my God, yes! OH GOD YES, BABY!” When they come to the door and say “What the fuck are you doing?” just tell them, “Oh, sorry, I wanted to be sure you could hear me! If you’ll turn your music down, I’ll stay in my bedroom.”

Negotiate the time for band practice.
Suggest options for sound-proofing (carpets, etc)

Ancedote: When in college, my cousin had a neighbour who played hip=hop at unreasonably loud levels. The RA refused to intervene, so my cousin countered by playing Cantonese opera at unreasonably loud levels. I think the whole hall suffered for a while but the neighbour soon stopped.

Surely there must be some sort of harmonious way of dealing with this. If I were one of the neighbors, I would appreciate a heads up from you rather than the landlord or the police. Why not just ask them to discuss this concern with you and work out a solution? Maybe they would be willing to turn down the volume after certain hours.

If I were the landlord, and a tenant came to me with a complaint about the noise, it might give me back-up in order to put the noisy tenants on notice and possibly evict them. If they haven’t been a problem in the past, then it might be worth sound-proofing the basement and restrict their music to that area or require that they keep the volume down.

I have no solutions that are better than all the ones suggested, but I have to say that I LOVE the idea of @lifeflame‘s cousin’s Cantonese opera fortissimo as a good defense.

In college I had a guy in the apartment upstairs who would have tons of people late into the night/early morning any day of the week. I would be more tolerant on the weekends, but when I had a 9am class to get to, I didn’t want to deal with his shit. I went up a few times and asked him to be quiet. He would apologize, cut it out for that night, then start up again another night. Finally one night I cracked. I had pulled an all nighter, I had been up for 36 hours straight, and wanted to go to sleep. That turd was having one of his parties, so I gave up and called the cops. Granted it took them over an hour to show up, but they did, caught him with pot as well, and he got thrown in jail for a few nights. I slept like an angel :)

Moral of the story – call the cops. But do be careful because if they are making the noise during the day when there are no noise restrictions, you may be SOL. But most towns have noise ordinances, and if he is doing this late at night or too early in the morning, you’ve got a beef!

Call cops and Landlord. I had this same problem living in the city. I kept the cops comming to my neighbors all the time.They finally got a noise polution ticket for over $100.00. LOL Ha!

I eventually moved to the country in( the woods). Now all I hear is birds singing…glorious.

Landlord and cops.
If that does not help, build a short range, low intensity, directional EMP generator.

I would definitely ask them politely, first. If you go straight to the landlord, and they assume you’re the one who complained, they’re more likely to be passive aggressive about it later, whereas if you bring it to them first, the problem could be solved right off the bat with little to no turmoil.

That didn’t work with me I tried it. I ask please turn your music down; I had to work tomorrow.They told me they didn’t give a $%@#.and I can kiss there A$$. So the cops arrives and the musice was down at least for that night..But it was up again the next night.

I usually just play stuff when they are sleeping. They get the hint.

I’d ask the landlord to pay for soundproofing of your apartment :-D

Then the landlord will really get to work on asking them to stop. And when they ask, “Who complained?” the landlord can’t say anyone complained.