I mean, a car battery isn't going to do anything even if you could complete a circuit. You can just grab the terminals on a car battery, 12V isn't high enough to be noticeable on dry skin.

You'd want to solder on the hot lead of an extension cord hooked up to 120 if you wanted to make sure they never touch that pole again.

Disclaimer: don't do this, it'll probably kill.

You can short the terminals on a car battery with your body with no issue (there's a theory that that's why you see it in movies so much - if anyone actually tries it the studio isn't giving them an idea that actually works. Same with duct-tape gags and chloroform), but it might melt the hardware and set the floor on fire which would be fun! What they should really do is connect a HV source and charge up the pole. Won't cause any lasting harm, but hopefully it'll convince them they drove a screw through a live wire.

Not unless the person two floors downstairs is in on it

For someone to get electrocuted, the current needs to flow through their body. Electricity always follows the path of least resistance, so there's basically no way to do that from upstairs.

If you attach both terminals of the battery (or a stripped extension wire) that wouldn't do it. Assuming the pole is conductive, the electricity would just go into the screws, into the pole, across to the other screw and out. If the pole isn't conductive it would probably do nothing at all. Maybe the floor is conductive, in which case it would go into the screw, through the floor/ceiling and out the other screw. There's just no way to do it where the electricity flows from a screw, down the pole, into the body of the pole dancer, then somehow back out and up to the battery.

Even if the person who owned the stripper pole wanted to electrocute themselves it would be difficult. Assuming the pole is conductive, if you attached one electrode near the ceiling and one near the floor, the electricity would just flow through the pole. It wouldn't make a detour to go through the body of the pole dancer. You'd basically have to clip one side of the battery to your toe, the other side to the stripper pole, and then grab the pole with your hands. And, even then, it might not do it -- you'd have to have sweaty hands and toes to make the path through your body conductive.

I really hate the movie trope where people can get electrocuted by stepping into a puddle that has something electricity-related in it. It's almost as bad as the trope that you get blasted backwards if you're hit by a bullet / shotgun blast.

Nah, that wouldn't. But if you connected just the hot line (right eye of the outlet smiley face) that would do it. Wouldn't recommend it because you could kill them by electrocution or kill even more people with a fire.

Seriously though, this is def something you take up with the landlord, the fines and payment for the repairs alone will be punishment enough.

I highly doubt the electricity would flow to the pole itself at all if you connect both contacts to the top

Thinner than the lag bolts are long...?

I got drill bits that can go pretty deep. The reason this shit doesn't happen to professionals like myself is that I am scared of electricity and power tools and have no clue what I'm doing and have people do it for me.

SMH

My browser history now includes several Amazon listings for stripper poles.

I have learned that:

1. The listing ALWAYS calls them "dancing poles" but Amazon knows what you mean,

2. About half of them are sold as "unisex" even though all of the photos of them in use show women,

3. Only some require drilling into the ceiling. The few that do ship with screws or lag bolts that are approx. 2 inches in length and come with drywall anchors.

So, if installing any of the poles from Amazon's first page of results, your floor would have to be approximately 1.5 inches thick.

If the downstairs apartment had no ceiling treatment and you looked up at joists and subfloor, you might get here if she decided to attach between the ceiling joists. In a typical residential structure with a drywall ceiling, you'd need lag bolts some 10 or 12 inches long to reach through the plate of the pole, 3/4" of drywall, 8 or 10 inches of floor system depending, 3/4" of subfloor and 1/2" of flooring.

Or glue. Glue would be hilarious.

That’s just quitter talk.

Decades old sludge dripping on your face just seems like good practise for what's to come

Small correction- AC power doesn't "travel in waves". It just oscillates up and down with respect to its reference, and same with its current with respect to its impedance. Just looks like a wave if you look at its position over time.

With a completed circuit with low impedance, it would trip your breaker. With completed circuit with large enough impedance to not trip breaker, it might burn your apartment down in a number of ways. Could also kill neighbor if they are somehow making a return path, as current disrupts your nervous system where once they get caught in the shock they lose control of their muscles and are held in the current unable to let go, electrocuting them until death. If insulation is high enough to effectively be an open circuit, your neighbor on the pole wouldn't know it was electrified in the same way a bird sitting up on a power line doesn't have a clue its anything but a normal wire in the air. Largely depends on how the pole is installed and if its touching any metal or electrical wires where it is mounted on top, bottom, or both. Also if neighbor is ground level or if another apartment beneath them. A lot of variables create.a lot of possible outcomes.

Would not recommend, lot of risks with little to no chance of any reward

Step one of leaving a light on for a month might be a big hole in this plan those days. Electricity diff would be like a dollar or 2 at worst because bulbs are like 12 watts now. If the temperature went up by a couple degrees one day the AC would make it fluctuate just as much as that and you wouldn't even notice on a bill