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.

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.

Not unless the person two floors downstairs is in on it

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

That only solves your problem. It doesn't add problems for the perpetrator, which is the only thing we are concerned with here.

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.

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

Did you mean kV? I don't know if 40kHz is high enough, but I know at some point it doesn't even shock anymore, just burns. Hence you can take a screwdriver in your hand, and get it close to high frequency Tesla coil / slayer exciter circuit (not that I know the difference) and have it flow through you no problem, just if you touch the spark directly it burns.

That’s just quitter talk.

That wiki says it’s common in hospitals and labs. Interstitial space is not the same as a floor cavity.

Also

The heights of these spaces are generally 6 to 8 feet (1.8 to 2.4 m) and allow easy access for repair or alteration

So yeah not common in a residential building.