Second door into bedroom in rented apartment

Mr November

I've recently moved into a new apartment with two friends. Annoyingly (and rather bizarly) there's a 2nd entrance into my room from the sitting room/living area. It's a wooden sliding door and can't be locked. I solved that by just sticking a set of drawers on against the door so now it can't be opened from either side.
But the main problem remains which is noise. Given that there is just a door separating my room from the living room, noise transfers quite easily either way. If the TV is on for example it can pretty much be heard crystal clear from my room. Not really ideal.

The question I have ultimately is what are my options (if any!).

I've thought about blocking up the gaps underneath/above/between the door/wall by stuffing them with something. What exactly I'm not sure. And how much of a difference that'd make if any, I dont know.

I read about soundproof blankets which if big enough could maybe help? But how exactly would you hang it over the door without having to physically fix it on somehow. As its a rented accomodation, I cant just go banging nails into the wall.

Are there any more drastic measures which could be taken? i.e. Speak to the management company to see if a perminant fix could be made to it... like building a wall!!!!
I'm pretty sure this set up wouldn't suit any tennant at all unless they were to use the room as a dining room. The room is fitted with BERs so it is kitted out as a bedroom and not just an optional room now.

Any other ideas!?

Thanks in advance...

Victor

You are sleeping in a dining room.

Mr November wrote: »

The room is fitted with BERs so it is kitted out as a bedroom and not just an optional room now.

I don't understand this piece.

Potentially what you need to do is both seal the air gaps and put enough mass between you and the other room. Can the chest of drawers go in front of the door? Can a tall book shelf or something be put on the other side?

JuliusCaesar

Are you renting the apartment? I'd suggest you speak with the landlord, who must surely realise that your bedroom is in fact a 'reception' room. Get his/her permission to hang a heavy curtain to muffle sound. In fact, get them to send a workman over to do this. Must be a good heavy and lined curtain. Read up on sound insulation, it seems that like heat insulation, you need a gap and less 'bridges', so stuffing the gaps in the doors won't be enough.

blah

If the issue is noise when you're trying to sleep/study etc, have you tried earplugs? Simplest solution might be the best.

odds_on

I've recently moved into a new apartment with two friends.

Are you sure they are "friends"?
If they are friends, have you spoken to them as regards keeping the noise down especially between the hours of 10 or 11 p.m. and say 7 a.m.

Is your name on the lease agreement?
Do you each have your own lease or is the apartment rented to you as a single unit?

jmayo

Victor wrote: »

You are sleeping in a dining room.I don't understand this piece.

Sounds like it.

BTW OP did you not notice the seond door before you moved in ?
Sorry OP if you had to move in for financial or other reasons and did not have a choice, but it always amazes me how people only realise some things after they move in.

Oink

Victor wrote: »

You are sleeping in a dining room....

Yup. The landlord stuck a bed into the living room to try and squeeze as much rent as he can out of the property.

Your options:
-Find a DIY solution that will never quite work and live with it
-Ask the landlord if he could build a wall (good luck with that...)
-Move out and find a house where the landlord won't take the piss.

tara73

that's a tricky one. lived in such conditions before.

what is important to know first, noise travels through the tiniest gaps. you can have a 1m thick concrete wall, if there's only one gap/hole in the wall, be it very little, the 1m thickness is useless as the noise will travel through it almost 1:1.
so a curtain isn't really much of a help.

I'm not familiar what kind of sound proofing materials dyi shops provide these days, but go there and ask.
they could be soft and flexible (often air filled as the sound is reflected and captured in it) and therefore suitable to apply to a wall. make sure that there are absolutely no gaps between the wall/door and the material.

as I said, it's tricky and depends if you find some good material. It will probably look odd on the wall as well. but you can still put the drawer or a big cupboard in front of it.

as others mentioned, inform your landlord about the issue, he might get involved or at least pay for the expenses you have.

odds_on

Oink wrote: »

Yup. The landlord stuck a bed into the living room to try and squeeze as much rent as he can out of the property.

Your options:
-Find a DIY solution that will never quite work and live with it
-Ask the landlord if he could build a wall (good luck with that...)
-Move out and find a house where the landlord won't take the piss.

You can't really blame the landlord. The OP viewed the property and saw what was involved; unfortunately, without thinking that the friends could be noisy at inappropriate times.

IMHO, the problem is the so-called friends.

Oink

odds_on wrote: »

You can't really blame the landlord.

Oh yes you can. He is advertising a living room with a bed in it, as a bedroom.

odds_on wrote: »

The OP viewed the property and saw what was involved;

You could say that OP was inexperienced and naive, but he's not the one trying to take advantage of people.

odds_on wrote: »

unfortunately, without thinking that the friends could be noisy at inappropriate times.
IMHO, the problem is the so-called friends.

OP did not say that the TV was too loud, or that his friends were making too much noise. He said that noise carries too easily between the two rooms. Of course it does. It's a living room, not a bedroom.

I still think the landlord is taking the pish. Seriously OP, I think you need to find a proper room, if you can afford to move.

Mr November

Sorry, meant B*I*R’s! à so it’s not just a bare room turned into a bedroom– ultimately a dining table would look odd in it for example!

Yes, I’m renting the apartment. It’s managed by a management company not an independent landlord.

They claim that the room is a bedroom. Was designed and intended as such.
We asked if other Tenants had devised any solutions to sound proof it in other units as it must obviously have come up before.
They claimed that nothing could be done on their part to ‘fix’ it – certainly not as a permanent fix anyway.

Yes they are my friends I’ve moved in with. We have each just moved into the place. There was actually a debate over this room due to its size vs the smallest one.
Them making noise is not the issue. They’re not being overly noisey. The sound simply travels so easily through door that its impossible to use the living room whilst being ‘quiet’.
We each work different hours so no matter who had this room, noise would be a problem for any of us.

Yes, we can work out a bit of common sense rules with regards to TV and general use of the room beyond particular hours midweek but it shouldn’t be too restrictive for anyone.

Anyway…

So I just need to find a temporary fix for it. Something which I don’t have to nail on etc.
I stuffed the small gap between the door and the wall with some towels during the week to see if that had any effect. And yes, it did help. It muffled a lot of the sound out. So this is encouraging enough. I’m gonna pay a visit to a DIY store and see what I can find. I’m thinking the for a start I can stuff the gaps between the door/wall/doorframe/floor with foam or something similar and use some sort of insulating tape on either side (so long as this isn’t going to damage paint work etc. If I can plug all the gaps in this way I think it’ll drown out much of the louder natural sound which is coming through.
A further step might be to block up the inside of the door with a load of cardboard and then tidy that up somehow with a curtain/hanging blanket/bookshelf (Mind you, I might need to buy a few more books!!!)…

Thanks for the comments. Any other bright idea’s with regards to a fix would be much appreciated.

JuliusCaesar

polystyrene is no good. it needs to be something with pockets of air. Egg boxes used to be the cheap solution. I wonder if bubble wrap layers would work?

Mr November

Yea funny you should say that, I came accross some the other day when opening a package and wondered if that could help do a job... however I didn't have enough of it to test it out. It's worth a shot though. Will have to do some routing around to find some more

Joey the lips

I would not like this. Especially if your bringing a girl back. Have the landlord block up the door or consider moving out.

astrofool

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

polystyrene is no good. it needs to be something with pockets of air. Egg boxes used to be the cheap solution. I wonder if bubble wrap layers would work?

While the air content of polystyrene is suitably small, making it one of the densest materials available.

Egg cartons work due to the shape rather than the air content.

Mr. Loverman

Would sticking things on both sides of the sliding door help reduce the noise?

Mr November

If it were a snug fit maybe. But ultimately it'd involve buying a pretty big book shelf or something. That plus stuffing the alcove/space left behind it would surely do something alright.

Ray Palmer

JuliusCaesar wrote: »

polystyrene is no good. it needs to be something with pockets of air. Egg boxes used to be the cheap solution. I wonder if bubble wrap layers would work?

Missing the main method to reduce sound. Increased denisty is the key not adding air pockets. Air actually generally makes it worse the same way an accustic guaitar works.

JuliusCaesar

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Missing the main method to reduce sound. Increased denisty is the key not adding air pockets. Air actually generally makes it worse the same way an accustic guaitar works.

You are right. I'd just remembered egg boxes from years ago. But

I've heard that sticking egg boxes or acoustic foam to walls will help soundproof a room. Is this true?

Egg boxes can make a marginal improvement to some aspects of a room's acoustics by breakingup reflections from hard surfaces, but they are virtually useless for soundproofing. The same is true of lightweight suspended ceilings, acoustic foam and even Rockwool (Rockwool tends to be used for acoustic treatment or for damping out resonances inside partition walls. All these materials have their uses, but they're mainly for acoustic treatment, not for soundproofing).

The modern trend for wooden floors, no tablecloths etc means that restaurants and modern apartments are very noisy places. OK, OP, I'm back to recommending heavy heavy curtains!

BostonB

Move out of the dining room and into a bedroom or just rent somewhere else.