Stupid as it sounds I would try talking with them first. We had upstairs neighbors move in when we were living on 9am-1am days and they liked to get up at 5:30 and have screaming matches first thing.

The landlord basically shrugged when I complained, so this went on for about a month. Then Larissa woke up one morning with a migrane while this was going on. I waited for the din to drop off then I tromped upstairs in my pajamas and rang their doorbell.

I calmly and firmly informed them that my wife suffered from migraines, they had woken us up every day for the last week, and that we could hear every word of their shouting matches. They were very, very embarassed by this (there were disputes over household chores and also allegations of cheating on both sides) and said they would do more to be aware of us.

I thanked them and as a sort of reciprocal olive branch, I volunteered that if we weren't turning our music down early enough in the evening (which was around 10pm and never really that loud to begin with) to just knock and let us know.

I guess they really weren't aware of how far their voices carried, because after that I think we were only woken by them once. Granted, part of that seemed to their moving their arguments to about 1:30 in the afternoons, but it was still a better arrangement than when things started.

I know we were lucky in how things worked out but I really would suggest a gentle confrontation to start and see what happens. At least then you can escalate with full knowledge that they're douchebags and not just shockingly ignorant.

And the one thing that working in customer service has taught me is, people are more ignorant than I ever could have possibly imagined.

I hated apartment living for this reason. And if you have to have one, be on top. Often the structures just aren't set up for reducing sound, and what seems like an awful racket can be normal living-noises.

+1 on just talking with them about it, in as neutral a tone as you can manage. It's at least worth a shot.

Good luck - that's a rough situation and you have my sympathies.

I am so sorry that you've been sick and have these apartment annoyances on top of it.

I think that talking to neighbours can only help, they might not realize how loud they are. If you are really, really afraid to talk to them, there's always the tactic of making lots of noise yourselves and seeing if they notice, but that can backfire in a lot of ways.

Would a white noise machine help?

You have my sympathies as well because I really hated living in apartments.

The point of making noise wouldn't be to "get back" at them, but to show them how easy it is for noises to spread. For example, in our condo, we could hear whenever the neighbour let a cupboard door slam shut instead of just closing it. So we were careful to just close our doors gently. If there had been more noise than that, we would have approached them, but that was about it.

Our worst neighbour was in a row of townhouses not attached to ours but just beside, whose teenage son started yelling racial epithets at a family that had just moved in next door. I yelled at him to Shut Up and he did. It still surprises me that it worked.