Room To Improve

By MITCHELL OWENS
Published: November 2, 2006

Excerpt

Q. How can I muffle the noise from a neighboring apartment?

A. Dealing with ambient sound, whether it is from footsteps or your next-door neighbors’ colicky baby, is one of the challenges of urban living. Unless you live in a prewar apartment whose walls are as solid as Fort Knox, you are likely to be privy to many events in your neighbors’ private lives.

Soundproofing companies, including Acoustilog in SoHo (19 Mercer Street, 212-925-1365, acoustilog.com), offer other solutions, many of them relatively inexpensive, to implement with the help of a contractor or a handyman.

Acoustilog, which has created soundproofing plans for the tap dancer Savion Glover, the Dia Art Foundation and the architect Deborah Berke, provides an on-site consultation with Alan Fierstein, the company’s founder and president. The consultation includes a measurement of noise levels to ensure that they do not exceed the New York City building or noise codes. (If they do, soundproofing may not be your financial responsibility.)

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