Complaints about footsteps from the apartment above are one of the most common issues a property manager inherits, and one of the few where the flooring genuinely is the cause.
They are also one of the most misunderstood, because the noise people describe and the noise that is actually travelling are two different things.
Impact noise is not the same as airborne noise
Airborne noise is a television, a conversation, a dog. It travels through the air, hits the building, and what stops it is mass: concrete, plasterboard, insulation.
Impact noise is a heel, a dropped remote, a chair leg. It is not travelling through air at all. The floor above is struck, the structure itself vibrates, and the sound is radiated into the ceiling below. That is why a neighbour can hear footsteps clearly while hearing nothing of the conversation happening at the same time.
It matters because the two are fixed by completely different things, and softening the room above does very little for impact noise. Rugs and furniture help the room they are in. They do not stop the structure from being struck.
What the underlay actually does
An acoustic underlay sits between the floor covering and the slab, and works by absorbing the impact before it reaches the structure. It is a decoupling layer, not a sound blanket.
That is why it matters far more with hard floors than with carpet. Carpet and its underlay are already a substantial cushion, which is the real reason carpet was the default in apartments for decades. When a hard floor replaces it, that cushion disappears, and the underlay is what replaces it.
Two consequences worth knowing:
A floating floor needs the acoustic underlay to work at all. It is not an optional upgrade line. The boards sit on it, and without it there is neither the acoustic performance nor the give the floor needs.
With carpet, the underlay grade is a real lever. A higher pile over a quality underlay is measurably quieter than a low-profile commercial carpet laid thin, and in an apartment that difference shows up in the complaints.
What the owners corporation will ask for
Most Melbourne apartment buildings have rules about flooring in their owners corporation, and most of them are written around this exact problem. Typically they require a minimum acoustic rating for any hard floor, and approval before the work happens.
Two things are worth doing before anything is ordered:
Ask for the building’s flooring rules in writing, early. The rating required varies between buildings, and a floor that satisfies one will not always satisfy another.
Keep the documentation for whatever underlay goes in. If a complaint arrives two years later, that paperwork is the difference between a short conversation and a long one.
Owners corporations are also entitled to require that the work be rectified if it does not comply, which makes this one of the few flooring decisions where getting it wrong is genuinely expensive rather than just disappointing.
What flooring will not fix
It is worth being straight about the limits, because flooring gets blamed for problems it cannot solve.
If the noise is voices, a television, or music, that is airborne, and it is coming through walls and the ceiling structure. No underlay will change it.
If the building has a lightweight timber floor structure rather than a concrete slab, impact noise carries further and a good underlay reduces the problem without removing it.
And if the floor above is already carpet over a decent underlay and the complaints continue, the issue is very likely the structure rather than the floor covering, and more flooring work will not help.
The practical summary
Footsteps and dropped objects are an impact noise problem. Acoustic underlay is the part of the floor build that addresses it, and it is required rather than optional in most apartment buildings. Get the owners corporation rules before ordering, and keep the paperwork.
Investa Projects supplies and installs carpet, flooring and blinds for investment properties across Melbourne, and works with the acoustic requirements of the building rather than around them. Every job starts with a free on-site measure, with the quote back within 48 hours, subject to availability.