How to Record Noise From an Upstairs Neighbor at Night

At a glance

Five apps and one handheld meter, on the job that matters at 2:40 a.m.: can it run all night, and can it tell you afterwards when each noise happened and how loud it was. I built Snore Timeline, so read its row with that in mind.

Left out of the table: Noise Log, built for this exact complaint with on-device storage and 30-second clips, had two ratings on the day I checked [26]. TapMedia’s Voice Recorder records without limit, and 212 of its 500 most recent reviews are one star [25].

Why the clip you tried to catch came back empty

I read all 94 written UK reviews of The Noise App and the busiest UK forum threads on noisy neighbours. The same failure runs through them. The noise is intermittent, it happens at night, and every tool people are handed records only while someone is awake holding it.

Which tools miss night-time noise, and why

Nobody complained that a recording was too long to review. Every complaint is that the tool captured too little, too late, or nothing. Two limits apply to any phone: it understates low thuds compared with voices [1] [2], and a recording proves the pattern, not how the floor felt.

Record the whole night, then read the list

Snore Timeline is a snore recorder. The same machinery that finds snoring in eight hours of audio finds a dropped weight at 2:40 a.m. A US reviewer in May 2026 used it for exactly this: a noisy flat upstairs, and a segmented timeline that pinned down the time of each outburst.

Before bed

1. Turn on Loud Sound Detection in Detection Settings. It’s off by default and catches anything the snore classifier can’t name.
2. Leave the threshold on Automatic. It sits just above the room’s measured noise and re-measures every minute. Or choose Fixed and set it 15 to 20 dB above the quiet reading on the live meter. Bedrooms sit at 30 to 40 dB.
3. Pick the Basic quality tier. About 8 MB an hour, 64 MB a night, and it keeps the frequencies below 4,000 Hz where thuds and bass live. Use Standard, 15 MB an hour, if the noise is shouting.
4. Plug in, point the mic at the ceiling or shared wall. Recording uses 5 to 7 percent of battery an hour. Switch off fans and white noise if you can; steady noise raises the threshold.

In the morning

1. Open the episode list. Every loud sound sits there with its start time, duration and peak dB. Scan for the biggest numbers or the hour you were woken.
2. Tap one. Playback starts about two seconds early, so you hear the room, then the thump.
3. Zoom out to the 1-hour view. The whole night fits on one screen, and a run of apricot bars at 2 a.m. stands out. Apricot is the colour for a sound the app counted but couldn’t name. Long-press the waveform to jump to the nearest episode.
4. Remove the misfires. The cat knocking something over has a remove button on its card, so the count reflects the neighbour.

Get it out of the phone

1. One clip: tap the download icon next to an episode. It saves with two seconds of padding either side, and the share icon sends it by Messages, email or AirDrop.
2. The spreadsheet: the Export Report sheet makes CSV files for a date range. Its Detected Events file has one row per sound with an ISO 8601 timestamp, an end time and the peak dB.
3. The whole night: the same sheet adds the full recording as one audio file, or every episode as separate clips.

Copy times from the episode list into your diary rather than relying on file names. Nothing leaves the phone until you share it. No server, no account, no analytics, and a privacy label that reads Data Not Collected. Details on the detection, timeline, storage and export pages.

What a phone recording can and can’t prove

It proves when. A timestamped list across two weeks shows a pattern, which is what councils, landlords and courts look for, and what an officer who arrives after the noise has stopped can never witness. NYC311 says police respond within eight hours and act only if the noise is still happening when they arrive [14]. The professional service that stamps each occurrence with its time costs upwards of $1,000 [2].

How accurate is the dB number?

Roughly. NIOSH tested phone sound-meter apps in a lab: the best iPhone apps read within 2 dB of the reference, but built-in microphones across devices ranged from 14 dB low to 11 dB high, and an external mic was needed to get within 1 dB [19] [20]. Snore Timeline’s own documentation calls a phone on a nightstand an uncalibrated reference. So read the number as a comparison: 68 dB at 2:40 a.m. against a 32 dB room says more than 68 on its own.

How loud is too loud at night?

So a 60 dB thump at 2 a.m. in a 32 dB room is well past the point where sleep research expects you to wake, and past the UK night-time line, with the caveat that your phone’s reading could be several dB off. A calibrated measurement for a formal case is a job for the council’s equipment or an acoustician. A handheld meter such as the Extech 407730, $114 with 2 dB accuracy, answers how loud and never when, because it records no audio [27].

The diary landlords and local authorities ask for

Across 13 UK forum threads and Housing Ombudsman decisions, a written diary came first in nine and recording equipment only after it in five. The Housing Ombudsman called it appropriate for Hackney Council to ask for diary entries before installing monitoring equipment [11], and in a Peabody case two weeks of sheets showed the noise fell between 8 a.m. and 11 p.m., so it was judged living noise [12]. In a 2025 Southern Housing case, a resident’s recordings of stamping from the flat above led to a sound survey, a carpet recommendation and a £450 award [32].

Hounslow’s sheet has five columns [10]. An overnight event list fills four of them. The fifth is yours, and it’s the one the officer reads first.

• How long: Basingstoke asks for 7 to 14 days and warns that a one-off party or children playing is unlikely to count [9].
• What counts: City of London wants a diary and recordings, and says furniture moving or doors closing is everyday noise unless it is at unreasonable hours and persistent [8].
• In the US: NYC311 covers banging, dragging furniture and loud music, and sends repeat complainants to the tenant association, building owner or super with their log [14]. Your city’s page has its own night hours. Match your diary to them.

Where The Noise App fits

• Who it’s for: UK councils and housing associations. Residents report through it to a provider that has signed up [31].
• The limits: five 30-second recordings per 24 hours and at least two weeks of them at Oadby and Wigston [4]; each clip date, time and GPS stamped and uploaded for officers at Pembrokeshire [6]; 5-second minimum, 30, 45 or 60-second maximum at Harborough [5].
• Its weight: Brent Council prosecuted a breach of an abatement notice on the app’s recordings alone, and the magistrates accepted them [7].
• How to pair them: the overnight list tells you the noise comes at 1:50, 2:20 and 2:40 most nights. Once you know the pattern, be awake with The Noise App open at 2:15 for the official clip.
• The meters: the NIOSH app is free, declares Data Not Collected and stores no audio [24]. Decibel X keeps a time-stamped history, and 75 of its 500 most recent reviews are about the subscription [23]. Both give you a number while you’re awake, neither a list of what happened while you slept.

Recording rules, in plain words

I’m not a lawyer and this is not legal advice. These are summaries of official and legal-reference pages, linked so you can read them yourself.

• US: federal law allows recording a conversation with one party’s consent. The Digital Media Law Project lists ten states, including California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and Washington, that require everyone’s, and says recording a conversation you’re not part of and couldn’t naturally overhear is almost always illegal [16]. Footsteps aren’t a conversation. An argument through the ceiling can be. If voices are the noise, read your state’s page first.
• UK: councils want recordings made from within your own home [8], and Noise Act measurements are taken inside the complainant’s dwelling [13]. Hounslow’s sheet notes its contents may be used in court, so keep every entry truthful and dated [10].
• Everywhere: keep recordings to yourself and the people handling the complaint. Posting a neighbour’s night online turns your evidence into their complaint. Describe it as what it is: an uncalibrated phone mic showing when a sound happened and how loud it was where the phone sat.

Frequently asked questions