When we first moved to Washington, D.C. from Nebraska we lived on Capitol Hill near the Eastern Market Metro train stop. Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill lived two houses up the street from us on Independence Avenue SE.

Since we were poor students we shared the worst house on the block with three out-of-work actors, a lesbian girlfriend of a dentist and a stringer for an Irish newspaper who spent her days sitting in the living room writing nothing.

Our roommates would yell at us every day to “stop stomping your feet when you walk” as we strode across the floor or ran up the stairs. Midwesterners, we discovered, have heavy feet even while walking barefoot, and when you share a house with floors and stairs constructed of wood, every step you take is like a hammer on a bass drum. We wanted to fit in and we wanted to get along with our new roommates so we adjusted our walk and for the past 15 years we now walk swiftly and quietly like cats skittering along the clouds.

When we moved to New York a year later, we discovered no one here cares one whit about heavy feet because the world is cursed everywhere with the booming sounds of shoes against bass drum wooden floors and stairs.

Women in high heels are especially hard on the ear and when you live in a big building where all the floors above you are constructed of wood. You have an all-day cacophony of banging drums and it makes your ears sore! Why do people refuse to walk with a lighter step? Why do people stomp their feet so hard on a set of wooden stairs as they race to their fourth floor apartment that the entire building shakes?

Are people so unaware of how heavy their feet are on the ears of others? Is there a polite way — without Washington, D.C.-style yelling — to ask someone so unaware to become aware of the clomping of their feet?

27 Comments

  1. I’ve noticed that walking into our living room, we live on the 2nd floor, it shakes a bit so I try to be careful because I’d want the other person to do the same. We once asked if we were too loud and they said we were fine. Then they were like “well we have heard your cats” which are louder when the scurry across the hardwood floor than one might think.

  2. I’ve noticed that walking into our living room, we live on the 2nd floor, it shakes a bit so I try to be careful because I’d want the other person to do the same. We once asked if we were too loud and they said we were fine. Then they were like “well we have heard your cats” which are louder when the scurry across the hardwood floor than one might think.

  3. You were kind to ask, Robin! Most people don’t care and don’t want to know if they are clomping walkers.
    The new thang in apartment houses today is hardwood floors. Ugh! They are hard and wooden and incredibly drum-like. I much preferred the days of wall-to-wall carpeting. It was easier on your neighbor’s ears!

  4. You were kind to ask, Robin! Most people don’t care and don’t want to know if they are clomping walkers.
    The new thang in apartment houses today is hardwood floors. Ugh! They are hard and wooden and incredibly drum-like. I much preferred the days of wall-to-wall carpeting. It was easier on your neighbor’s ears!

  5. We live in a townhouse and our neighbors are muscians so we have real drums all day long. You can’t hear yourself think. When they aren’t rehearsing they are giving lessons.

  6. We live in a townhouse and our neighbors are muscians so we have real drums all day long. You can’t hear yourself think. When they aren’t rehearsing they are giving lessons.

  7. Oh, that’s painful, Simmering, and much worse than, say, a stereo thumping — because they can claim it’s part of their livelihood need. Not an excuse, really, but harder to complain about in the end…

  10. You got that right! We had neighbors who had three dogs that were left alone all day long and all they did all long was bark! And bark! They were obviously lonely and terrified but the owners didn’t care. That’s animal abuse.

  13. I did make a few calls but no one cared because no rules were being broken. I think the animals basically starved and held everything in all day. It was sad. We didn’t live there very long because of the painful howling and the realization we had no way to cure it.

  19. well you can pick them but you don’t know what they’re like until you live with them awhile.

  20. well you can pick them but you don’t know what they’re like until you live with them awhile.

  21. well you can pick them but you don’t know what they’re like until you live with them awhile.

  25. Yeah, Dave, I like your advice! Harr!
    We have a lot of women in our building and the new shoe this season seems to be the 6 inch heel-and-sole-lift model made entire of wood so they really are walking all around with little sledgehammers on their feet.

  26. Yeah, Dave, I like your advice! Harr!
    We have a lot of women in our building and the new shoe this season seems to be the 6 inch heel-and-sole-lift model made entire of wood so they really are walking all around with little sledgehammers on their feet.

  27. Yeah, Dave, I like your advice! Harr!
    We have a lot of women in our building and the new shoe this season seems to be the 6 inch heel-and-sole-lift model made entire of wood so they really are walking all around with little sledgehammers on their feet.

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