For city apartment dweller audiophiles. Have you ever had neighbors banging on your walls?

The exact same scenario happened to long ago in a Condo I owned. I had Snell Type A2 Speakers sitting on thin carpet, just the cabinet, no footers or feet. The floor under the carpet was concrete. This was in 1978 and the only product out was Tiptoes which looked like a Hershey Kiss, only pointy. I tried using them but the point wasn’t pointy enough and they were unstable. 
Well, not discouraged, I drilled 4 holes in the concrete pounded anchors into the holes and screwed lag bolts into the anchors. The speakers rested on the flat heads and could be adjusted so all 4 were even. 
The minute I turned the system on, I heard a tremendous increase in the bass, and imaging. It also sounded louder. Within a week, one nasty neighbor went to my door telling me to turn it down, which I did many times as his unit wasn’t even close to me. Then, the Police showed up one day while I was playing it. They didn’t think it was too loud, but the distant neighbor did. I asked the Officer if I could accompany them to the neighbors home and I did. Well, it was almost inaudible, and he had a clock on the wall ticking was more obvious than slight bass thump I could hear. He got pissed and said to the Police, “I don’t want to hear anything”.  
Before I went with the Officer, I cranked it up much louder than it was playing when the Cops first showed up. 
Thank God, the guy moved out shortly after. He didn’t Own his Condo, he was renting it, not permitted and never saw him again. 
It was the Bass that carried through the concrete, nothing else. 
 

Uhm, yeah, sure!

Decades ago, I had a sociopathic neighbor who got angry with our Seven Days Magazine neighbors downstairs from us whose staff worked at all hours of the morning to meet publishing deadlines.

One night, they are at it again, he grabs a 2 x 4, breaks down the fire exit door, and starts swinging. One guy had to be sent to the hospital.

The landlord owned the magazine and told his lawyers to spend whatever was necessary to get him out of the building by any means necessary. He was gone within a month.

I managed to avoid my neighbors wrath: I let him know that I had a girlfriend who carried a gun all the time for self protection and that she’s the nervous type. 😬 🫨

In the late-80’s my woman and I moved into a nice building one block off Ventura Blvd. in Sherman Oaks (the street upon which one could indeed see vampires---Goth high school kids---walking west, as reported by Tom Petty in "Free Falling"). The apartment had a nice big living room and a cement foundation, so I was expecting to be able to achieve good sound.

I got everything set up (VPI HW-19/Rega RB300 rewired with Cardas by Brooks Berdan, and a Decca Super Gold pickup, Van Alstine-modified Dynaco PAS2, Bedini 25/25 power amp, QUAD ESL’s with KEF B139 woofers in transmission-line enclosures), and late one morning put on the first LP. The first song had not ended before the phone rang. It was the apartment building owner, informing me that he had received a complaint from the old woman who lived in an apartment in the other "wing" of the property (one of those horse-shaped buildings common in the 1940’s and 50’s). My apartment and hers were not attached in any way except through the ground. And by-the-way, she permanently installed a pair of men’s work boots right beside her front door, to scare away would-be burglars. Koo-koo.

I already knew there was gonna be trouble because on the first night in the initial apartment we took in the building (directly above hers), when we turned on the TV the first night she banged on her ceiling. The TV was not turned up loud. Luckily another apartment became available immediately, and we got away from the old bag. Apparently not far enough.

That phone call was the first, but far from the last. In fact, each and every time I played music she called the owner. There was no choice, we had to move. We got lucky and found a 2-bedroom house in Burbank, and the rent was the same as the apartment. We lived there for ten years, with not a single increase in rent. 800 bucks; them were the days. 😊

"horse-shaped"? Oops, horseshoe-shaped.

I have the opposite problem in my condo in Philadelphia. I’m surrounded by old deaf people but a fellow moved in upstairs whose child stomps around like a maniac and is prone to fits of screaming. So I blast him with my Genelec system that includes a sub. When the child starts in I turn the system on full blast so the windows and walls shake. I habitually rise at 5 AM so I let loose then to interrupt their sleep. Guess what? No more problems. You can try to be nice but that doesn’t work. This method does. Colombian and Mexican narco rap or Uzbek traditional music works great!