Why so many Toronto floors squeak
Toronto floors squeak because so much of the city’s housing is old. In the 2021 census, 29 per cent of Toronto’s 1,160,895 private households lived in homes built in 1960 or earlier and 58 per cent in homes built in 1980 or earlier, while about a quarter lived in homes built after 2000 (City of Toronto 2021 Census Backgrounder, Table H.1). Across the rest of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area, the 1960-or-earlier share is 12 per cent, less than half Toronto’s.
The same backgrounder shows the other side: 353,215 Toronto dwellings, 30 per cent, are condominiums, against 16 per cent in the rest of the GTHA. A high-rise condominium sits on a concrete slab, so a noise there comes from the flooring or its underlay rather than a joist. The joist-and-subfloor squeaks we repair from the basement or through the floor are in Toronto’s houses, semis and row houses.