Reduce Hallway Noise In Apartments: 7 Best Ways (Explained)

One of the drawbacks of living in an apartment is dealing with hallway noise.

Since you live in a building shared with many other tenants, you hear noise from hallways. You hear it when someone walks by, children are running in the hallways, or someone is hauling their heavy furniture in the hallway going to their apartment.

Getting all these disturbances in your unit can be annoying, so how do you reduce hallway noise in apartments?

Here are the most effective ways:

1. Install Door Sweeps

Hallway noise can enter your apartment through the gap under the main door. If there’s a gap under your door, this is most likely why hallway noise enters your apartment.

Installing door sweeps on your apartment’s main door can help reduce the amount of hallway noise entering your home.

Door sweeps are often made of plastic, rubber, wood, or aluminum.

While they were originally designed to add insulation and help keep a space warm by preventing cold air from entering, they’re also effective in avoiding noise.

They are inexpensive and easy to install, which makes them a practical solution for reducing hallway noise in your apartment.

2. Add Weatherstripping on the Edges of Your Apartment Door

Weatherstripping is commonly used to seal air leaks around doors and windows. They’re made to prevent drafts in houses.

Adding weatherstripping on the edges of your apartment door can also reduce hallway noise.

The most common material for weatherstripping is vinyl, which resists moisture and will hold up well once installed on your apartment door. You can also use weatherstripping made from metal if you want a more affordable option.

Like door sweeps, weatherstripping is easy to install and effectively keeps hallway noise out.

3. Install a Draft Stopper Along the Bottom of Your Apartment Door

A draft stopper, or a draft blocker, is designed to prevent cold air from entering the apartment. It’s a cloth tube filled with batting, beans, rice, or other material.

Installing a draft stopper is another effective way to reduce apartment hallway noise.

Draft stoppers act like weatherstripping and door sweeps as they are installed along the bottom of apartment doors. The difference is that you can make draft stoppers on your own.

If you have basic sewing skills, some spare cloth long enough to cover the gap under your apartment door, and something to fill it with, you can easily make a draft stopper by following instructions or video tutorials online.

4. Place a Carpet or Rug in Your Apartment

While carpets and rugs are often used as decor pieces in apartments, they also have some functionalities.

Carpets and rugs can help reduce hallway noise in apartments. This is because they can help prevent sounds from bouncing around the home.

Sounds travel through surfaces and can bounce around a room. Adding carpets or rugs to your floors can effectively prevent this, especially if you add a rug pad beneath it.

If you want to reduce noise by a significant amount, it’s recommended that you get high-pile carpets or rugs.

The thicker they are, the more effective they will be.

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5. Install Curtains Behind the Door

Curtains are commonly placed on windows as functional decor pieces. They’re designed to give you more privacy and make the room darker, especially on bright sunny days.

When you install curtains behind the door, they can effectively reduce hallway noise in your apartment.

Curtains can help minimize noise when added as a layer behind the door. They’re generally inexpensive, depending on the material, and they’re easy to install, which makes them a practical solution.

Any curtain material can do the trick, but if you have extra money to spend, it would be best to get soundproofing curtains to reduce hallway noise.

6. Decorate your Walls

Wall decorations are nice, but they can be functional too.

Some musicians add foam or cloth on the walls to soundproof their recording studio or room, but of course, you would want a more stylish solution for your apartment.

By decorating your walls, you can reduce hallway noise in your apartment.

You can do this by placing wallpaper with a nice print or decorative tiles on the walls. If you want a more renter-friendly solution, peel-and-stick wallpapers and tiles are available at hardware stores and home decor shops, and they’re not too expensive.

You can also hang wall art, tapestries, and framed photos.

If you have a bookcase or shelf, move it next to the wall between the hallway and your apartment. Doing this can be quite effective in reducing hallway noise.

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7. Install Soundproofing Panels

This may be the most expensive solution to reduce hallways noise in apartments, but it’s also the most effective one.

At the mention of soundproofing panels, you might be thinking of the ones often seen in recording studios of bands and musical artists, and these panels wouldn’t look good in a home. There are more suitable options nowadays.

Installing soundproofing panels on your walls will prevent hallway noise from entering your apartment.

If you will opt for this solution, it’s best to talk to your landlord or property manager first if this is allowed.

Final Thoughts

There are many ways to effectively reduce hallway sound in apartments.

It’s up to you to choose which method to use, which can depend on your budget, the amount of effort needed, and whether your chosen method is renter-friendly or not.

Of course, if you own the apartment, installing something permanently on the walls would be easier.

If you really find hallway noise unbearable, you may also want to speak to your landlord or property manager to see if they can do something to minimize the noise in the building.

Sources:

7 Ways To Sound Proof A Noisy Apartment

10 Easy Ways To Reduce Noise In A Room

How To Soundproof A Room Or Apartment