Perception and Reaction to Floor Impact Noise in Apartment Buildings: A Qualitative Approach

Abstract

This study used grounded theory to understand how apartment building residents perceive and react to floor impact noise from upstairs. In-depth interviews with a heterogeneous group of 14 participants were conducted, and the acquired data were analysed to develop a conceptual model for describing perception and reaction to floor impact noise. It was found that floor impact noise had diverse sources, with the majority originating from footsteps. The participants negatively perceived the noise as annoying and disturbing, and sleep disturbance was reported the most frequently. Cognitive and avoidant coping strategies were initially adopted, and complaints were only thereafter registered if the noise persisted. It was also observed that exposure to the noise led to self-reported health problems and concerns. The developed conceptual model highlights potential intervention measures for controlling noise perception and reactions to floor impact noise.

How residents in multifamily housing cope with neighbour noise: The role of attitude towards the neighbours

“…The experience of living with children in the past had made her understanding of the children's noise from upstairs (“My children did the same, kids just run all the time”). This quote also supports the previous finding that those living with children are likely to be more empathetic to children's noise when it is coming from their neighbours (Park et al, ). Given that children's footstep noise is one of the most common noise sources in multifamily residential buildings (Park, Lee, & Lee, ), residents living with children or those who have previously lived with children may also be more empathetic to other noises from their neighbours.…”

“…The paper then discussed how different attitudes may result in different coping strategies. In line with previous reports (Park et al, ), the coping strategies consisted of cognitive coping and behavioural coping. Cognitive coping included repression and empathy, while behavioural coping included avoidant copings (e.g., using earplugs) and vigilant copings (e.g., making a retaliatory noise).…”

“…This emphasises the important impact of various factors on the residents’ noise reaction (Levy‐Leboyer & Naturel, ). This is in line with Park et al () which suggested that subjective reactions to neighbour noise are affected by various factors such as attitudes, past experience of noise exposure, noise sensitivity, and acoustic factors (e.g., noise level).…”

“…As this research particularly focused on the interrelationships between three constructs (intervening condition, contextual condition, and action/interaction), these are marked with the thicker borders in Figure 1. The relationships between the constructs were developed based on the stress theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984) and Park et al's (2016a) conceptual model on subjective responses to neighbour noise.…”

Emotions evoked by exposure to footstep noise in residential buildings

“…Korean emotion lexicons were collected from narratives of residents living in multi-family housing buildings in South Korea. First, interview transcripts from a previous study [ 32 ] were used to collect emotion lexicons regarding footstep noise. The interviews were carried out with 14 residents (five males and nine females) living in multi-family housing buildings; their ages ranged from 21 to 55 years and the length of residency in their houses ranged from 10 months to 15 years [ 32 ].…”