I've been lucky to regularly live at the top floor of the buildings I've resided in. Freshman year, off-campus, my first year in DC. All of those I didn't have to deal with upstairs neighbors, and that's been so freeing. I'm someone who's very sensitive to sounds in my environment, and so I try to be courteous as an upstairs neighbor.
That being said, my first year in DC I worry that I was the problematic upstairs neighbor. The building I lived in was built in the 1950s. It was all wood flooring, but time had warped the wood, and so the floor creaked like a motherfucker. I did my best to be cognizant of this fact. Treading lightly, not being super active or loud, but unfortunately I was also still actively in a band at that time. And I was trying to get into Switch Fit.
I learned to fear the downstairs neighbor. Where he could have come up and asked nicely for me to keep it down (though I muted my actions as much as possible), instead he resorted to the good 'ol yelling and using a broom stick on the ceiling trick. The amount of times I'd hear banging, even when I was making absolutely no noise, had me so anxious. I began playing less, singing basically not at all, and took to tiptoeing around the apartment.
I've not really talked about the anxiety that stems from C-PTSD. Nor have I talked about my C-PTSD in general on here. I don't want to get too in-depth, but my family was dysfunctional in that midwest 'everyone is angry at everyone' way. So I learned to be quiet. I learned to sequester.
Unfortunately, that wasn't enough for this guy, who even would bang when it was the middle of the day, and I had to put furniture together. There's no quiet way to put furniture together!
Regardless, I'm no longer there. I'm now in a much older building, one with solid plaster and brick walls, and solid concrete floors. Or something like it. All I know is it's quiet as hell, and it's Greatly Appreciated. Sorry for being the shit upstairs neighbor. I try to do better!