Flooring Noise Issue in Condo

[Eric Sanders]

Hi Everyone!

I've got a little bit of a flooring predicament and I'd love to get some advice from you guys! Please bear with me as your help will be greatly appreciated!

I currently rent out a condo within a poorly built building which has crummy frame construction in between floors. Lukily, the ROI on this thing is pretty good but renting this unit comes with its fair share of headaches.

My tenants (who are leaving at the end of the month) have been great with me throughout their residency, but the unit owner below me (who happens to be the HOA president) has called me every month this past year, complaining loud foot step noises in the middle of the night in and near the bedrooms, most likely from jumping out of bed. There have also been some comments about how noisy it is all around the condo, as the eating area and living spaces all have laminate flooring (with bad padding), but the noises from daily living operations are bearable (although noisy) for the unit owner below.

Admittedly, the carpet and padding in the bedrooms seem to be pretty thin, but just outside the bedroom there is a laminate floored hallway to the bathroom, which seems to be excessively noisy, especially when being traveled in the middle of the night. 

FYI, my lease does require tenants to cover 50% of the laminate flooring with area rugs and padding beneath, but it hasn't seemed to help much. Honestly, even from my perspective, I'm amazed the HOA allows laminate flooring to begin with.

I've looked into ways of soundproofing, or significantly mitigating noise transmission from my condo, and from what I've heard, even the most dense, best impact absorbing underlayment for laminate flooring won't do much in a poorly built building. Removing subfloor and installing isolation clips / strengthening the construction between floors isn't really an option as the building isn't mine. 

People are suggesting that installing carpet everywhere is the best option to prevent future noise complaints, and I'm open to the idea, but I think there's a few ways I could skin this cat, and I would love to hear your opinions. Please keep cost in mind when suggesting an option. Feel free to reference the attached (and crude) drawing in this post.

Option 1: Replace all carpet and padding in bedrooms, remove laminate from just outside Bathroom #2 (not numbered) and install carpet and padding just outside bathroom as well. 

Option 2: Remove all laminate, replace with carpet and padding. This option seems odd though as I can't imagine people would like carpet in their eating area.

Option 3: Remove all laminate, install tile in eating area and try to make it look like rest of tile in kitchen. Living room will then be new carpet.

If you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them!

Thank you!

-Eric