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having an interesting issue here. Imagine you live above some mental dude who starts a vibrating device and frames it against its ceiling - my floor (for your imagination, see example of this at the bottom), or just plays a sound speaker on low frequency. Vibration in my apartment barely feels when siting on a chair, however it does feel quite a bit when I am in bed - it either stops me fall as sleep, or wakes up. This is my nightmare for the last couple months.

Had all kind of tries (f.ex. truck tires under bed ^^), but nothing helped, apart of a temporarily solution - sleep in a different place every night (meaning - no bed, only mattress on a floor).

Need a real solution. My tired head brings one idea - a hanging bed (seriously). Some frame stands on a floor and on that frame my bed hangs. Yes that means I sleep kinda in a ship, but waving effect could be smaller if bed hangs on V shaped ropes (not vertical). See my art drawing example bellow (red is rope, blue is frame, black is bed).

My issue now is - would this even work? Any better ideas? If not, maybe an advice on what materials could be used? I live in Europe - so don't suggest bamboo sticks etc. Willing to find reliable and cheap materials (since I wont be living like this forever :)

If you don't like the idea of a "bad neighbour" problem here, imagine I live close to rails and same issue happens - vibration when train goes by.

Help guys, this is a real issue.

p.s. estimated total weight I would say 300kg. (no other person in bed except me, obviously...)

p.p.s. found an interesting idea from @broccoli here. Though a bit in doubt that that small vibration would cause bed to move instead of shake. If anyone could elaborate on this, would be great too.

enter image description here

enter image description here


Edit:

Answer from @Fred sounds reasonable, but adding an image of the tire chamber. Tried to put these 4 under the bed, but vibration reduction was too small. Also had vibration pads under the tire chambers.

Thats why hanging bed looks as a 'best' option for me :)

tire chamber image that been placed under the bed

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  • $\begingroup$ Not directly relevant to the question, but if anyone concerns - I do not cause trouble to neighbours. No parties whatsoever, even music played in headsets only. Its just because guy is a failure, living from his girlfriends pocket, while I have a decent job, active guy (in daytime). I guess this makes him feel a need to prove he is some value in this world... Or maybe he just don't like people living above. There are signs in this flat of previous conflicts, though. But I dont want walls to talk to me, I want them to shut up! :D $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 20, 2021 at 8:36
  • $\begingroup$ While I think physical measures will not be sufficient to bring a feeling of peace, a simple thing to do is try to find the sleep location available to you where the building structure is stiffest or vibrates least. You can investigate this with a cell phone app to record accelerometer data (doing so won't help your sanity however) // regarding the mass-on-spring "low pass filter" solutions, I think the spring length and travel may be impractical, but worth thinking about I suppose. $\endgroup$
    – Pete W
    Feb 21, 2021 at 5:20
  • $\begingroup$ Yesterday for some reason thought a new mattress might help (cause my previous even if is decent, has springs inside). So spent quite a bit on it and no result. 4 AM woke up. Flying bed seems as a last chance, while highly doubt about other ways - had three mattresses on each other, tubes, antivibration pads etc. $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 22, 2021 at 3:57
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    $\begingroup$ For your curiosity, I moved out. However, the prototype version of a hanging bed, seemed to make, at least, some effect (only half of the bed was hanged). Had many ideas of how to improve the construction (when its built), like use cones with metal plates to isolate, also Sorbothane (looks like its a new cool thing. Bought faked one from China (sry, u know my story), but thats just a crapy yellow rubber. Hopefully someone will make this one day - isolate bed for a good rest in hardcore environment. $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Apr 11, 2021 at 18:48

8 Answers 8

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It's difficult to say what will work in your situation. I think some trial and error might be involved.

Constructing a frame and hanging the bed as you suggest could work but I would vibration dampers under each leg of the frame and if possible in each of the hanging ropes. It seems a lot of work though.

It might be easier to put some vibration dampers under each leg of the bed. Which vibration damper to use is where the trial and error applies. Following are some suggestions to try:

Vibration pads or mats or even screwing an anti-vibration mount into the bottom of each leg of the bed.

Spring vibration damper - these come with either two, three or four springs.

enter image description here

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I would say it's the entire building, including your ceiling and even the foundation of the building that is vibrating. I have seen even the sidewalk shaking.

Remedies can be very elaborate and costly with just a slight improvement.

I would try something like this floor barrier in combination with earplugs and maybe eye blinds with rubber pads under your bed legs.

floor b

floor barrier link.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you, floor barrier sounds interesting. Earplugs is every night thing here, though not needed too much. Sound isn't an issue (that sound that comes from him. He is bit of a freak, listens through walls (to know where I sleep :D this is true... believe me. But this issue is solved) $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 20, 2021 at 8:41
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Apart from the other two valid options (rubber pads and anti-vibration mounts) another (maybe less expensive) option would be to increase the mass which is attached on the bed.

enter image description here

effectively you would be creating option (c) in the above diagram.

Increasing the mass, (in a simplified model) would decrease the eigenfrequency $\omega_n$. Therefore, (assuming the excitation frequency $\omega$ is of a single frequency) the ratio of excitation frequency $\frac{\omega}{\omega_n}$ would be increased.

Increasing the ratio of frequencies will lead you in a region of the transmissability ratio that has a lower value ($r$ needs to be lower than $\sqrt{2}$) to have damping of vibrations) - probably now the floor/bed/mattress system is below that.

enter image description here

So attaching some weight on the bed (in order to see some noticeable difference you would need to approximately double the mass that is attached to the bed, which in your case might be an issue). However, its much less expensive to start experimenting with this before buying anti-vibration mounts or elastic pads.

My strategy would be:

  • attach some weight and sleep a couple of night and see if there is an improvement (or worsening)
  • if it works (by increasing the weight), but its not enough, I would then opt for putting elastic pads (the softer the better)
  • the final step would be to try the anti-vibration mounts (which can be expensive). However, before I did that I would try to analyse the vibrations and find out the offending excitations.
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Here is an antivibration mount which will probably work, and is cheap:

Get you four small inner tubes (as used in wheelbarrows or small garden wagons, hand trucks, etc. and inflate them about half-full of air.

Cut you four squares of plywood to the same size as the inner tubes and place one square atop each of the tubes.

Lift your bedframe up off the floor and position one tube-and-plywood sandwich under each leg of the frame.

This will probably kill off the vibrations before they can get into your bedframe. If not, experiment by adding more air to the tubes, or letting some air out of them.

Please let all of us here know how this works out for you!

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  • $\begingroup$ I think I tried almost exactly as you suggested. Cant say I experimented with air inside, but tubes were under the bed and some wooden shells between tubes and bed. I dont know why this havent worked. Will try again to make sure $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 22, 2021 at 4:14
  • $\begingroup$ the air inside is important! $\endgroup$ Feb 22, 2021 at 7:06
  • $\begingroup$ Sorry, had air inside. Also, the issue with tubes, I think it even elaborates vibration effect, because in order to have those tubes under my bed I either must have bed frame on them or some hard flat surface, so mattresses wont bend. Now when vibration happens, that flat surface (or bed frame) spreads out vibration waves, so the feeling then is like a whole bed vibrates. While with only mattress on floor, wave doesnt travel from ex. head to legs. Not sure how effective was two mattresses on each other, will find out tomorrow. Somehow managed to sleep, but maybe only because the guy was lazy.. $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 22, 2021 at 8:00
  • $\begingroup$ You need a real metal bed frame with 4 legs to support the bed completely up and off the floor for my technique to work. these are common in secondhand stores and not costly. $\endgroup$ Feb 22, 2021 at 18:14
  • $\begingroup$ Will go with mattresses for now. Feeling quite confident on two decent mattresses, maybe havent seen his rage maxed yet, but third mattress will neutralise him for sure. And then... perfect home - do whatever, dont care, talk loud, go sleep late, early, rock evenings casually, Amazing life ahead. Will let know on results when all tests complete. $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 22, 2021 at 21:43
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I would try the cheapest way first - sleep on the stacked up mattresses without frame, nor box spring, to increase the effect of damping. A thick wall to wall carpet underneath will provide extra help to block out the noise.

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  • $\begingroup$ What I havent tried - mattresses on each other without bed frame, though highly doubt it will work after all that I tried... But thx, will try $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 22, 2021 at 4:03
  • $\begingroup$ @NightRider It will not reduce the noise, but surely will absorb/dampen the vibration on the floor. Does your wall, or window shakes too? $\endgroup$
    – r13
    Feb 22, 2021 at 4:26
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A number of years ago I was in a similar situation. As kamran says, the entire building is involved.

Before going further, I would point out that whether or not you are able to ignore it / whether you even care, is in significant part a product of your own stress level, possibly to do with the actual source of the disturbance, possibly unrelated. Current times are of course no help for this.

Work on things in your own life. If you start making progress there you won't care as much. (consider: people sleep through police sirens, freight trains etc all the time, if and only if they instinctively consider it normal and non threatening).

When you have a chance, move out.

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  • $\begingroup$ Happened once that went sleep 11PM, woke up 1AM. I know what you are talking about, but man, no one had considered this in context of vibration. Its way worse than sound and quite hard to make it up - I simply wake up whenever that freak starts that device... $\endgroup$
    – NightRider
    Feb 22, 2021 at 4:09
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I know there was someone who had a few blog posts about a similar issue and ultimately settled on low-cost anti-vibration pads.

Myself, I was theorizing if one could float a bed frame on a thin layer of water or air (like an air table game). Maybe not practical though.

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The woman below me and my husband purchased the exact same device you pictured to torture us with. It seems she snapped during lockdown as it was much more quiet than usual in our building with no traffic going by - it was a very, very busy thoroughfare in a big city heading to the freeway, but during lockdown suddenly it was completely silent outside and you could hear a pin drop. I guess she could hear those pins dropping over her head and blamed us. So I was laying in bed one day in the middle of the day, depressed, and actually heard her installing the device under our bed. I could hear her screwing it against the ceiling. At first when our entire floor started shaking I thought it must have been fan. But that didn’t make sense because you have to drill holes to install a fan into a ceiling. She has been doing weird things prior to this. She got a high pitched bird deterrent that was heard screaming loudly across the entire neighborhood because she blamed us for the birds that also started hanging around the fire escape now that there weren’t any tourists coming to golden gate park (a block away) they were coming to eat at our flowers.

Long story short, I couldn’t sleep. Couldn’t lay in bed.

My solution was to finally buy a hammock. I was finally able to sleep in the hammock until we were able to move.

TLDR: hammock

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