Due to a double job relocation I have moved to a new city and am living in a temporary residence for a year until I get to the final place. We didn't want to share walls with people, but we ended up in an apartment building. Both my wife and I are noise sensitive, and so we chose an upscale apartment complex (e.g. expensive) with good reviews and such, and chose the top floor of the building. Go figure, we have people below us that play loud bass.
Before moving in I told the rental community director that we needed a quiet place, and she told me it shouldn't be a problem because they have a zero-tolerance policy. Now I'm stuck in a tricky situation, not certain how far I want to push this. I decided to be neighborly the first time, and knocked on their door rather than going straight to management. The guy that answered the door was immediately nervous, claiming the walls are thin, and asked that I just let them know when noise is a problem rather than going to management (I think they have had complaints before... possibly the guy said this). They quieted down for the rest of the night, but the next night they are back up to the old volume.
Fortunately, they have tended to turn off music prior to sleeping hours (so far). If they disturbed our sleep, this would quickly become a disaster scenario. I don't want to push them too hard... you hear the stories about people getting pissed off and then purposely making noise in the middle of hte night as revenge, or getting louder. On the other hand, I don't know how common that is, and the though of living with this for a year triggers anxiety. I find noise, especially loud bass, to be particularly intrusive to the feeling of a home being a home. The fact that they are making just as much noise a day later certainly means they are either oblivious or don't care.
So I can either suck it up for a year, go knock on their door again whenever they make noise and see how that goes, or go to management. I suppose there is even the 'call-the-police' route, but they aren't THAT loud, just enough that I can distinctly hear the bass whenever they watch TV, which is several hours a day.
Any thoughts/suggestions? I get that living in an apartment requires some amount of dealing with noise... how much is reasonable? I wont complain about how loud they bang their doors/dressers (which we hear all the time), or their loud car (yes, they have the one car in the whole building that everyone can hear when they drive). Their music isn't ridiculously loud, though occasionally it is borderline and argh, the bass!
I suppose another route i can take is to try to ask the neighbors below them if they are bothered. I haven't even seen these people yet and this involves more legwork.