[GreenLantern]

Alright so the gf and I moved into a new pad, it is a concrete condo building. The floors and walls are thick, you can't hear TV or conversations or anything like that, but it seems as though footsteps are amplified. I can hear people walking, thats not bad, but chairs scraping on the concrete is like nails on the chalk board. Keys dropped, or anything dropped is a jolting sound that has woken me up multiple times.

The people above us are night owls, usually the noise wakes me up around 1:30 am or 2 am, and I don't get back to sleep for at least a hour or two. My gf and I have both slept through our alarms multiple times already as a result, being late for work, and we have only been here two weeks.

I figure it is someone who works shift work, and they are just doing regular stuff like sitting at a table, walking around. And that is fine, I can't ask someone to stop living. I am just curious what others have done in a similar situation, I have looked into condo rules and there is a 11 pm noise curfew. But really, can you ask someone to stop walking up and down their stairs? (It is a loft style condo, the stairs are steel and you can hear the distinct sound, I swear the guy runs stairs for cardio)

I have always been a light sleeper, so this is a bad combo. I sleep with a fan, and that helped a lot in my old room, but this wide open concept seems to dumb down the noise of the fan, making it ineffective. The drier is much too loud, as it is right near the bed. We have a AC unit that makes a good amount of noise, but it is downstairs and we are upstairs.

Looking for suggestions on how to deal with the neighbour in the friendliest way possible (I do want to have my own parties and not get ratted out every time) and also a way to deal with the noise (noisemakers). I was thinking I have three options, go behind his/her back to the condo board/care takers and make a formal complaint (last resort). Talk to him in person and ask what the deal is, if there is any compromise we can reach (in my experience a lot of people do not like personal confrontation and he/she might be intimidated), or get a louder noise maker to block it all out.

Thanks.