Posted on 05/03/2011 8:02:06 AM PDT by SmithL
When Jack Hagerty closed on his new condo three weeks ago, he thought it had everything he wanted: a quiet, safe Glen Park location, easy access to BART and a backyard for his 10-year-old son. Turns out it came with an extra feature - a self-described "leather sex" enthusiast living downstairs.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
"He's entitled to his life," Hagerty said. "I just wish he'd told me sooner."
Hagerty said all was well until he announced that he intended to remove the carpet and padding in his unit to help with allergies. The downstairs condo owner explained in an April 24 e-mail that he opposed the idea.
"I am a sexual enthusiast and enjoy leather sex," the man wrote. "At times, it is possible and even likely that the sounds of leather sex will be coming from my bedrooms to your bedrooms without an effective sound barrier. While it is not my issue, you may find you need to explain things to your son as it could be confusing to him since it frequently doesn't sound as pleasurable as it is."
"I just don't think it is appropriate for my son to bear witness to that," Hagerty said.
But the neighbor says if Hagerty just left the carpet and pad on the floor everything would be fine.
"My lifestyle shouldn't have anything to do with this," . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
I say he should sue the real estate agent, based on undisclosed facts regarding the condo, requiring the agent to buy the place from him.
“Leather sex,” two words that don’t make any sense together, yet can’t be googled for clarification.
If it’s weird in SF then what?
That sounds like the entire city of San Francisco.
I doubt that a simple carpet and pad would deaden the sound of a whipping coming from downstairs.
Sounds like b.s. to me. The guys downstairs is probably not thrilled to hear the noise of someone walking on wood floors above him.
So essentially this is like buying a place where a murder was committed, only the murder keeps getting committed every day in an adjoining room?
Perhaps when the leather is up downstairs, he can invite his friends over to do some clogging on the wooden floor.
A splendid cartoon from the late, lamented B Kliban comes to mind:
A couple are standing up from their comfy chairs in their cozy little living room. They’re looking at the ceiling with scowls on their faces. The husband is holding a broom, banging its end against the ceiling.
Title: “Downstairs at the Mormon Tabernacle.”
Real estate agents make a big deal about knowing all about a condo/townhouse/house - so, it’s time to put up or shut up.
Best response yet, and maybe the enthusiast will put sound deadener on HIS ceiling.....
Carpets, pads are very good sound reducing materials. If you design a home theater system - one of the things you discover that what stops sound really well, are differing material densities. One such product is Quietrock, which is essentially drywall with a thin sheet of metal embedded in the plaster.
When you have a solid floor, then place a foam pad, and a carpet on top of it - you make a pretty effective sound barrier. Being a good neighbor means taking into consideration of not only what sounds are being masked by the existing flooring, but what shoulds you are muffling from going downstairs.
Undoubtedly this is protected in San Fransico.
A crying baby, however, would be grounds for eviction.
I have a friend who has a home theater in one of his upstairs rooms.
This thing is amazing:
65” screen
Booming stereo
theater seating complete with cup holders
The best part?
The room is on hydrolic jacks that moved the floor, bumped it and tilt all timed to the movie.
Even the seats have the ability bump, vibrated, etc timed perfectly to the movie.
Don’t know how much it cost but must have been $500k and he still pays a service fee to the company who installed it so they will take movies and program the room to be tuned to the movie.
Really nifty feature: You can’t hear it in the hall, the next room or even standing right under it in the kitchen.
They put down some kind of barrier that just plain stops the noise.
They played the last scene from Avatar. It was blasting real good when I left the room and then “poof”. Like a cloud as the door closed and I couldn’t hear it at all.
At least the perv was kind enough to give him a heads-up in writing.
Hagerty is taking out the carpet to help with a medical condition, which is common.
If the downstairs neighbor knows that his activities create a noise hazard to his neighbors, then he is required to ameliorate the problem.
While carpet and pad can be an excellent sound barrier it should not be required over health issues for the new owner.
If there is one thing I hate, it’s carpeting. You would have to vacuum five times a day to keep it clean. Beautiful rugs on wood floors ....now, that’s civilized. And whether buying or renting, investigate your neighbors. Stupid to mive in upstairs from a pervert.
Clever, I like it.
My favorite trick is to lay a 2x6 footer and header on a wall, and then when you use the 2x4 studs, make them interstitual. So, you have one set of 2x4’s for hanging the drywall (Quietrock) and another set of 2x4’s that the other room’s sheetrock mounts on.
Most people hang one wall on a 2x4, then hang sheetrock on the other side of the 2x4. Sound hits the theater walls, and the wall radiates the sound to the next wall - then they get mad when a movie plays and everyone else can hear it. This process doubles the cost of your 16 inch upright studs (a whopping $2/stud) - which is really a very effective and cheap way of doing this; it makes running speaker-wire and power much easier.
Other tricks is to use the adhesive foam that you use to weatherwise your doors/windows down each 2x4. Hang the sheetrock through the foam - the foam will help ‘deaden’ sound to the 2x4. And for $20 you can buy enough of this foam to do the entire room.
There are metal strips shaped like a ‘Z’ that you hang your ceiling from. This effectively makes the entire ceiling hang on a ‘spring’. Mysteriously, this stuff is called ‘Z-strip’. You run them across your ceiling rafters at a 90 degree angle, then mount your ceiling sheetrock to this stuff.
Solid core door. Run your heating and AC ductwork through 8 inch diameter pipes to the main distribution channel. The longer the better.
The only thing that I forgot to consider with my theater; was providing additional ventalation to the equipment room. I used a LCD HD projector to a 120 inch screen, 11.2 channel Yamaha receiver plus equipment - it’s amazing how much heat this equipment generates.
The part that is surprising; is how important that theater room becomes for family events. The adults would gather there to play Guitar Hero, watch movies, relax and chat and play games.
My next house will have an even larger theater room. This became THE room that people wanted to use. Grandkids loved coming to Grandpa’s house to see movies, the kids went there to visit.
And soundproofing was a key part of this phenomina.
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