Cracking parquet flooring questions

New here, but hoping I'm in the right place.

I moved into a new NYC apartment May 1st and have had trouble with the parquet flooring in the apartment.

Without being overly technical - it "cracks" at every step - here's some video I shot of it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJvJMFH3Bf8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-c1zKE4xsM

Building maintenance informed me the parquet tiles are laid on tar which is laid on solid concrete. The parquets also have a 1/8 foam under it that acts as an additional sound dampener.

They also claimed the noise is the polyurethane coating "settling" between the tiles and should go away with time. It's been 2 months and as you can tell the issue hasn't gotten any better.

So my question to you is if polyurethane cracking a real thing or did they just botch the job - not glue the parquets before setting them or use an incorrect coating?

Thanks any thoughts or questions are welcomed!

 

Sounds like total BS to me.
Tar is not used to install wood flooring.
How would they have use foam underlayment if the flooring was attached to the concrete?
Poly does not "settle" it would crack at the joints if there was an improper sub floor.

 

We just pulled about 800 sf of parquet flooring glued down with either cutback glue or tar. It all came up intact, wood and glue product with a slight tap of a pull bar and hammer. I can see why it would crackle underfoot. The glue used in our job was hard as a rock. If this was a new installation, gluing it with an underlayment was not proper procedure. What would hold the parquet to the concrete?

 

Thanks for the quick response. The other units I saw were incredibly quiet. I'm thinking it could be a case of using old cutback adhesive (the previous tenant was there a long time) and obviously there are some questions to what is actually in the subfloor.

Appreciate the responses. Stay tuned!