Floor and ceiling joists and impact noise reduction

I've lived in half of a duplex for a few years. Structure is a one story side-by-side duplex with one party wall spanning about 22 feet/6.7 meters. It was built as a single family home in 1950, then later converted to a duplex, I don't know what year. The entire building is approx 1100 sqft/102 sqm.

Foundation is vented crawl space with exposed joists and there is an attic void. I've never been up there but it's accessible from my unit. So is the crawl space.

Now, I love living here. It's wonderful. The previous owner recently sold it and the new owner moved into the other unit and allowed me to keep renting. Amazing! She took out the carpeting in her unit and good for her, I get it. However, I've learned that carpet was doing incredible work muffling impact noise from that unit. My unit is still carpeted. I live alone and I'm pretty quiet so I don't think she gets much noise from me. Airborne noise between units isn't too bad. We don't share ducts. It really is the impact noise of her and her young children. My bedroom isn’t on the party wall and I have a solid wooden framed captain bed with blankets and pillows stuffed in the drawers, a carpet between the frame and mattress, a dense latex mattress, and I can feel the vibrations from the impact of footfalls when I'm in bed. I'm looking for any mitigation strategies. I don't expect full elimination of noise. I'd be happy to collaborate on a solution with my new landlady and help pay if it comes down to working on the joists or insulation.

I've been reading lots of different articles/posts/blogs, and looking for ways to retrofit floor and ceiling joists to reduce impact noise and vibrations. I'm finding some conflicting info. So I'm wondering:

  1. Can installing blocking or support beams to the floor joists be an effective way to increase the frequency of the vibrations enough to reduce impact noise? Basically, could this be a reasonable ask? (Keeping in mind I'll contribute to cost)

  2. Since I already have some heavy pieces of furniture and I'm working with a small space, are there other ways to effectively add mass to my unit's floor (temporary or not) without digging into the floor itself?

  3. I don't want to do this, but...if the other options aren't realistic, I might try explaining the situation to the new owner and politely offering to buy her a throw rug with a heavy pad, at least for the kids' room. But she is in no way obligated to use carpeting if she doesn't want it.

I wouldn't necessarily pursue all three of these, but I'm looking for a solution that will work for everyone before broaching the topic with the new owner.

This is one of the sites I've been reading: https://www.kurtzresidential.com/blog/joist-design-repair

Thank you.

Posted Feb 16, 2026, 8:24 PM UTC

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