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AIBU?

To be stressing about neighbours (noise related)

19 replies

paintyourbox · 21/03/2013 20:19

We live in the middle of 3 terraced houses all owned by the same landlord.

One set of neighbours are great, the others have always blanked us but no problems.

Landlord came round tonight and said neighbours had complained that DD gets up too early. She is 9 months and goes to bed at 7.30pm, sleeps straight through until 5.30am or 6.00am.

As soon as she wakes we take her through to our room so she doesn't disturb anyone so she is only crying for 30 seconds or so (that's the time it takes us to get across the landing!). Neighbour has said that she's finding it "hard to deal with" and wants us to do something about the noise!

I am now stressing incase our landlords ask us to move out! We have put a travel cot up in our room so DD can come in with us for the night. Not really sure how we can lessen the noise?!

AIBU for having a massive stress about this?!

OP posts:

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Froggy2013 · 21/03/2013 20:30

YANBU. Difficult one though - maybe have a chat with neighbour?

maddening · 21/03/2013 20:38

Speak to environmental health - am sure this would count as living noise not statutory nuisance - it doesn't sound like you're bu at all.

MirandaGoshawk · 21/03/2013 21:13

What a shame that neighbours didn't talk to you about it. Maybe they would know they WBU. Having it 2nd hand via the landlord means it's hard to judge whether it was just something they mentioned in passing, or if he asked if all is OK, or whether they made a big deal about it.

I suppose if you could have her in with you it would mean they wouldn't get teh sound? Depends where their bedroom is. I'm no expert but I would expect that as she gets older she will wake up & amuse herself for a while without crying. Maybe someone could confirm this?

Just one other point - I used to find women with babies, and babies themselves, a total PITA and was completely intolerant of them. It was only when I got pg that I realised I'd been envious!

paintyourbox · 21/03/2013 21:27

Miranda your post made me laugh- I was one of those intolerant women too!

Our landlord is really nice- apparently neighbour went to seek him out when he was visiting his parents (who live opposite!).

I wish they had just been upfront with us. I feel mortified that we have disturbed them- I don't even play with DD in her room as I am really scared of noise.

It's funny in a way as she is actually pretty noisy herself- I would never say anything as its just the general noise of the house. I think that unless you live in a cottage in the middle of no-where, you are going to hear your neighbours!

OP posts:

myfirstkitchen · 21/03/2013 21:36

They're being unreasonable. It is just living noise. What are you meant to do? Put her in the garden? Babies cry. It's part of life.
You are paying for a room for her why should she go in a travel cot in your room?
Not they it's not annoying for her but she ibu going to the landlord like that. And she's noisy herself!
You sound very considerate neighbours I bet she's lucky to live next to you.

MisselthwaiteManor · 21/03/2013 21:38

I would love early morning noisy-baby rather than the noise our neighbours produce! I actually think they throw their furniture at our wall. And there's a hysterically screaming woman who visits them in the middle of the night.

I would go visit your neighbour and offer an apology and she might soften.

evansthebread · 22/03/2013 00:46

You should house swap with my neighbours for a few weeks - then they'd know noise. Dogs barking at 2am, drilling and hammering at midnight etc. You get the gist.

You sound very considerate. I do believe there's nothing your LL could do about a baby crying briefly at that time in the morning and, to be honest, he'd be pretty thick to get rid of tenants like yourselves.

To make life a bit easier, though, I'd pre-emt and either visit or write to both LL and neighbour. Anything for an easy life.

Kytti · 22/03/2013 06:43

You are paying to live in the house. It's your daughter's room. She should sleep there if that's what you want. It's living noise, there's nothing wrong with that. There is nothing either of them can do about it. You can't be evicted for a crying baby. I had awful neighbours who complained about my dd once. AND THEY HAD CHILDREN! None of their business. You sound lovely, don't let them stress you. xxx

HappyJustToBe · 22/03/2013 06:57

I know how you feel.

DD is 21mo and has always been a poor sleeper but has started screaming st night. The CM thinks it is night terrors.

We feel so bad for our neighbours. I took some chocolates round to each side and they admitted it could be disruptive but they accept it is par for the course with a small child.

Wish I had some advice but there isn't much you can do - it will get better.

microserf · 22/03/2013 07:25

I wouldn't feel bad for your neighbours. From what you describe it sounds like completely ordinary living noise. They are bu to complain.

Do what you can, but don't feel bad about it. We had the neighbours around moaning about the baby crying 2 days after I had a c section. It was all very awkward until dh asked them what they thought we could do about it. That rather stumped them and they wandered off.

curiousgeorgie · 22/03/2013 13:55

They can't do anything though... Presumably you have a contract, and children cry! That's just life.

Maybe have a chat with the neighbours?

SuedeEffectPochette · 22/03/2013 14:00

The only thing your landlord can do is wait for your contract to end, serve the correct notice and ask you to leave. It's quite hard for landlords to serve the right notice these days, as they can't serve notice if the deposit was not correctly protected. This gives most tenants something like security of tenure (right to stay) in my view. So don't worry about the noise your baby is making!

cathpip · 22/03/2013 14:04

I remember my old house (pre children), we had a lovely but loud family who lived next door, the first xmas we were there they popped round to warn us/apologise in advance for what ever time there children woke up and started squealing on xmas day. I won the sweep stake it was 4am!!! children and babies make noise and its not as if you are ignoring your daughter. Yanbu

SummerInSicilia · 22/03/2013 14:09

YANBU, but from your neighbour's point of view, a baby crying every morning at 5.30, for 30 seconds, is enough to well and truly wake them up for the day, and even though it's normal living noise, is it really fair to do that to them every day? Your baby is only 9mo, could you not keep her cot in your room until she's a bit older?

Airwalk79 · 22/03/2013 14:28

When dd was a baby The little girl who lived next door once announced over the fence that, my mummy hears your baby in the night, she dosent like it! I told her that I could also hear her mummy in the night, and I didn't like that!

Didn't hear any more complaints, or any more late night sagging for a while either!

Airwalk79 · 22/03/2013 14:29

*Shagging not sagging!

Wibblypiglikesbananas · 22/03/2013 14:59

It's a tricky one. We live in a rented property which has a basement flat below. The people downstairs complained about our toddler running around from 6am and we have tried to keep her upstairs as long as we can in the morning. It's not always easy though and our kitchen is above their bedroom...

However, there's a bit of me that thinks we should be able to live how we like! She is 18 months old, she's going to fall over and drop things and it's not my fault that the landlady did a cheap conversion job meaning that there's barely any insulation between their apartment and ours. And we pay double what they do in rent as we have the whole house above them.

In the interests of keeping the peace, I'd go round and say you'd heard they'd been disturbed, you're sorry that it's caused an issue and here's a list of things you've done to try and mitigate the noise. This is what I did with the people below us. They've also been into our house and seen that we have rugs everywhere, seen that we try to get DD to wear slippers so she's quieter when tootling about and have said that once the weather improves, we'll take her out early in the morning on the weekend. As you said, you can hear them too and people tend to forget that! We did point out that we can hear them below us when they have the TV on loudly and I don't think that had occurred to them!
Conversely, our neighbours either side of us can't hear a thing, I checked, as the walls between the properties are so thick.

If you can help it, it's not worth causing a huge falling out about - though I agree it's galling!

BonaDrag · 22/03/2013 15:02

A baby crying is not classified as nuisance noise. Fuck them, frankly. Boots sells earplugs.

MirandaGoshawk · 22/03/2013 21:44

Airwalk

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