My neighbours 3 floors above me make sounds so violent the entire building shakes. Police couldn’t do anything. Need legal ways to fight back.
I live in an apartment building in a European city (Portugal) in an older building with terrible sound insulation. I work from home, so I’m used to normal city noise like traffic, construction, neighbours, occasional furniture moving, kids running around, and doors slamming.
For the past 3 months, the tenants in the 4th floor apartment have been creating extremely violent impact noises almost every day. I live on the 1st floor, three floors below them, and the sounds are still loud enough to interrupt calls, concentration, sleep, basically anything. Not like you can hear from the calls or anything, but it affects my concentration and peace of mind.
The noise is hard to describe, but it sounds like repeated dry explosive bangs, very heavy impacts being slammed into walls or doors, and strong shocks that make the building echoes. Sometimes it feels like furniture is being body slammed or thrown, other times it is rhythmic banging. The entire building echoes from it.
It usually happens between 12pm-4pm and 7pm-8pm. Episodes last 5 to 20 minutes and repeat several times a day, almost daily, including weekends.
Before anyone asks, there are no renovations, no visible work, no normal furniture moving, and it does not sound like normal family noise or occasional accidents.
The family who lives there are Muslim refugees. They do not speak Portuguese. Not that it matters, but for context, they are not doing heavy fitness / gymn workouts, apartment renovations, or anything that basically includes injecting money in that apartment.
I already tried handling this directly. I went upstairs politely, initially to check if there was an emergency. The woman who answered barely spoke Portuguese so we used simple English. She never explained the noise and there was no mention of repairs, emergencies, or anything similar. The interaction stayed calm and respectful.
After that, the noise stopped for about two weeks and then returned exactly as before.
I also called the police 3 times now. The problem is the noise stops as soon as they arrive, so they could not witness it directly and, by law, they could not take action beyond a verbal warning (welcome to Portugal).
They advised me to contact the building administration or landlord - still waiting on their reply.
At this point I am exhausted and trying to find legal ways to make them stop or simply legally retaliate this without affecting other neighbours. Any ideas?
TL;DR:
Neighbours on the 4th floor have been causing violent, building-shaking banging noises almost daily for 3 months. I live on the 1st floor and can still hear it clearly. I have tried speaking to them, called the police, and contacted building administration, but nothing has changed. Looking for legal, petty-but-lawful ways to escalate or pressure them specifically without affecting other neighbours.