I just moved into an apartment in CA under a year lease, and I am concerned that the excessive noise may make it uninhabitable for me. I have read that CA Civil Code 1941.1 and 1942 give tenants grounds to move out / break leases if the apartment is deemed in “uninhabitable condition.” What exactly constitutes this? And how do I prove the noise makes my apartment such? My first night in the new place I got @ 1 hour of sleep. I literally can hear every word my upstairs neighbors say, when they laugh, cough, when they open a drawer, close a cabinet, when they shift weight from one foot to the other (wood creaking sound), when they walk of course, and God forbid their 20+ pound dog starts running around. It seriously sounds like the ceiling is going to fall in. I have called the manager, as well as sent a certified letter saying I would try to create ambient noise to sleep at night, etc., and see if it will get better (in the letter I also included detailed descriptions of everything else wrong with the apt., of which there are many / I wasn’t allowed to do a walk-through and the mgr. filled it out / I was forced to sign with the lease)… but what are my options here, if this truly becomes unlivable? How do I prove how excessive the noise is? Can I rent a decibel recorder? And what threshold would it have to cross legally (a certain decibel level, or merely constant mid to low-volume noise)? Or should I just use a video recorder to record it “real time”? Please advise! And before you ask, yes I have lived in apartments before – ten to be exact, over a course of about fifteen years. This is just so above and beyond anything I’ve ever experienced, and I am really worried since I had to sign a year lease.