it’s extremely common for americans to dismiss apartments because they simply cannot fathom the idea of housing that actually blocks noise, it’s one of the primary arguments i see used against denser housing.
Yup. Over here in the Western US, nearly every apartment is built as cheaply as possible and run by slumlords that will do everything that they can to refuse to return deposits. Painting over bugs and black mold between tenants is the norm, in my experience, not the exception. Add to that that insulation between apartments is scant, if present and frequently there are no physical barriers between apartment building attic accesses (in every top-story apartment that I’ve been in, it would be easily possible to gain access to others’ apartments via the attic and the attics also act to channel sound between all top apartments).
it’s extremely common for americans to dismiss apartments because they simply cannot fathom the idea of housing that actually blocks noise, it’s one of the primary arguments i see used against denser housing.
Yup. Over here in the Western US, nearly every apartment is built as cheaply as possible and run by slumlords that will do everything that they can to refuse to return deposits. Painting over bugs and black mold between tenants is the norm, in my experience, not the exception. Add to that that insulation between apartments is scant, if present and frequently there are no physical barriers between apartment building attic accesses (in every top-story apartment that I’ve been in, it would be easily possible to gain access to others’ apartments via the attic and the attics also act to channel sound between all top apartments).