Gym below us nightmare - slab damaged, need help

[Neha]

We live on the fourth floor and there's a gym right above us on the fifth. We've owned this flat for about twelve years and the gym has been there for ten. The weight‑lifting area is right over one of our bedrooms. People there keep dropping 50‑100 kg barbells and dumbbells onto the floor as if they're feathers. I'm not even talking about the noise; the impact itself scares me. We hear massive thuds all day and sometimes the whole room vibrates. Every single day, hundreds of kilos are slammed onto the same spot. Maybe I'm overthinking, but I genuinely fear something could go wrong. We spent our savings buying this home, and it's terrifying to sleep under a room where heavy weights are constantly being dropped above our heads. We've complained to the gym owner and asked for thicker rubber mats or extra foam, but nobody cares. It's a small apartment complex with no active association to raise the issue to. Even the police haven't helped, and the gym owner seems to have enough influence that nothing changes. Am I being unreasonable for being worried? Do repeated impacts from 50‑100 kg weights dropped for years affect the flooring or structure at all? Or are we just expected to live with this forever?

[Ajay]

How did they even allow a gym in a residential complex? You're not unreasonable, you're just a regular guy living in a country that sometimes treats people like cockroaches.

[Harshit]

In this case you can't do much except talk to the gym owner and make an agreement that if anything happens they will bear all expenses to rebuild it. That's the solution, and you could try shifting your bed away from the dumping area.

[Danny]

It's no different from a 90 kg person jumping repeatedly. The weights have bumpers that absorb a lot of the impact. No, you're not supposed to just live with this. Have you spoken to a lawyer? You might want to try that. When it comes to lawyers, get the best ones you can. I built a weight‑lifting platform at my parents' house on the first floor using rubber sheets sandwiched between plywood. No sound or vibration is felt on the ground floor even when I drop 140 kg on it; I actually measured it. If nothing works, you could offer to buy and install some cow‑mat and plywood under those platforms. It wouldn't cost more than 10k and would really dampen the noise for everyone.

[Ravindra]

100kg dumbbell, lmao, clickbait.

[Kavitha]

Dropping weights, even heavier, is something that the building can withstand with a proper dead‑lifting platform and HD rubber flooring. But how is there a commercial operation in a residential building? Get a lawyer. Get them evicted, send a legal notice for noise, damage to property and unlicensed operation.

[Preeti]

You should check those RCC building demolitions. It's not easy to break reinforced structures even with heavy machinery. Nothing is going to happen, at least not in your lifetime, so relax about that. As for the noise, just offer to pay fifty percent for extra rubber matting for that particular space or just pay it off. P.S. this isn't the right sub to ask this; post it on a civil‑engineering sub.

[Pankaj]

This isn't a question for gym rats lol. It's a gym - people will drop weights, whether that's good etiquette or not.

[Siddharth]

:3

[Shobha]

I don't even understand why anyone would put a gym on any floor except the ground floor, when a resident will definitely be staying below.