As people often say, it's your neighbours who can make your stay pleasant or abysmal.

Although I have to admit that from what I've seen so far, the quality of the sound insulation in Swiss buildings is terrible. Back home I lived in four different apartments, and never heard any noise from any neighbours above, below, or to the sides.

We are a family with three kids.

I'd much prefer people told us if they found us 'too noisy'...otherwise, we carry on with life regardless.

On the 'plus' side, our kids make noise from about 6:30am, go to school at 7am, get home at 5pm and go to bed at 8pm, so in the scheme of things we probably don't make 'too much' noise - and currently live above a restaurant where I suspect they just turn up their 'mood' music' to balance it out.

Certainly, living in an apartment is quite different to living in a detached house... but if you can hear your neighbour's TV, you should tell them....

One potential solution, would be to invite the neighbours in question up, while they are in the middle of a gun-fight movie scene, to actually show them how noisy it is for you. Not rudely, just an invitation, and to give them an idea about their volume selection. You could also ask them if there are things you do that they hear, that you could change to accommodate them - collaboration is positive!

I had to do this (not in Switzerland) and when the neighbour realized our floor shook and we could hear every word of the movies/music, he quieted down (though it didn't stop the pot fumes we had floating up through our vents).

No, you should complain and it will encourage your neighbors to come to you directly if they have a problem. Writing notes is a very passive aggressive approach common here (that or complaining directly to the landlord).

And complaining isn't synonymous with bad vibes. When we first moved in, we did a bunch of drilling to put stuff up. We stupidly did it on a Sunday thinking it was fine during normal hours as per our contract but a neighbor knocked to let us know Sundays were out. He was so nice about it and no bad vibes remain. We even did recent Xmas goodie exchanges with them too.

Unfortunately, there are some things that you just can't change. For instance, our guest room gets a smoke odor from the neighbors below and we've plugged in an air freshener to handle it. If all the rooms were like this though, we'd be forced to move.

Honnestly, I think smoking outside someone home should be prohibitted if is affecting another home. In your case is "only" the guest room, but is a terrible smell to have to suffer constantly.

@Misha Mary: you have an easy solution to stop the noises, ask your bf to smoke inside your place or outside in the street.

You are recommending someone smokes in an apartment with kids in it? Really?! How about her husband just stops, not for the neighbour but gor the family, to be a better example for the kids and use the money saved for something more useful.