To think having people live above you is awful

I just wanted to come on here to say I live in a detached home with land and despite this my neighbours on both sides are horrendous. One has a dog that barks and wakes me up at all hours of the day or night. The couple yell to each other and are generally like ASBO neighbours from hell despite this being a lovely area with large detached houses. They annoy the shit out of me.

The bloke on the other side spends his whole life staring at me through the fence. Crime Watch style.

Just wanted to give you an example of being disturbed by neighbours in a property where I shouldn’t really hear them. I still do. It drives me mental. It’s like peaceful country life with beautiful birds and wildlife and then the background din of chavs shouting their heads off at each other.

FML.

I know it's because they're concrete, that's why I posted it!!

The flat sounds lovely OP. You can't predict your neighbours wherever you live. I live in a gf flat and it's been fine (apart from the single dad whose daughter came to stay every other weekend and was learning to play the cello, it was clearly early days). Having private outside space is such a rarity in a flat it's got to be worth the trade off. I have a garden and would prefer that any day of the week than a top floor flat without any outside space.

We live in a 1930s purpose built block wirh people above and below. We have concrete floors and ceilings. Upstairs is a single older lady and we occasionally hear her shutting cupboard doors nd the washing machine going but that is it. We have had one floodin incident in nine years - the pipe feeding her toilet cistetn suddenly failed and water came through our bathroom light fitting. However she was very apologetic and arranged for an electrician to come out immediately and paid for repairs.

We hear nothing from downstairs and they have never complaiend to us, so I assume we aren't noisy!

The reason you don’t hear anything is the concrete. Those 1960s buildings are so much better than new builds when it comes to noise transference.

I live with people underneath and next door and the impact noise is a bloody nightmare. As are the kids that shriek, scream and slam doors, and the asbo neighbour who blasts music and has their tv on at a deafening volume.

@TheFatCatsWhiskers1 Old door which they said wasnt up to spec self closed
New one doesnt

Time for Panorama/Dispatches to get involved.

It doesn't help that the government guidance is so unclear, which the self-certified fire door inspection people use to their advantage and mislead people. The whole thing is a shambles. My most recent inspection report says something about gaps in the smoke seals, then refers to intumescent strips and lists them as 20 mm, but the previous report (by the same person) states they are 15 mm. Then there's something about 'unfilled rebate (head-leading)', I have no idea what that means, plus lots of gaps. I feel like some if not all of these things are things that I can do myself, but I don't know where to find guidance in plain English on how to do it. They know the average person doesn't understand these things and play on it. A neighbour was quoted 'at least £600' last year just to adjust the threshold gap!

Thats not me. thats from 2023. Laws changed again last year so the poor fucker probably faces paying out yet again.

We live in a first-floor flat with 3 above us, 1 below but none either side (think Cell-block H). The building was erected in the 1960s and is concrete - all floors, ceilings as well as shell. We own but up and down are rented (sometimes just for a year) and we've had an assortment of neighbours with/without small dogs/children. Perhaps we've just been lucky but, in 25 years, we've rarely been disturbed by noise - the odd loud argument or dog barking on the stairs. I think it must depend on the construction of the block?

Have you contacted the manufacturer? There’ll be a label somewhere (if you can’t immediately see it, look on the top edge of the door) they will know what they supplied and if It was tested with smoke seals or not.

You only need a fire door on your front door if it opens into a communal space. And existing front doors may be nominal fire doors. You need a proper inspection by someone who knows what the hell they are doing. PM me if you want to find a proper qualified fire door inspector.

I had my ceilings soundproofed in a Victorian maisonette. I could hear the upstairs flat’s cat thumping its tail on the floor. The problem is that without adequate soundproofing (and there was none when I bought the flat) the space between the upstairs floor and my ceiling acted like a drum, with all sounds being amplified in my flat, including their creaky floorboards and them talking, opening their drawers, and all their footsteps. I could hear them saying “would you like a cup of tea” and I often shouted “yes please!” even though they were not talking to me. I had 4 inches of soundproofing put on the ceiling and it dampened the sound but didn’t completely remove it.

Exibit A.

https://www.safelincs-forum.co.uk/topic/5714-fd-30-door-replacement-mandated/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIfWbxleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHaPdnAK1XYc09ItLJ1mYu87cuFOmNji-MkZUHnnxwaJ-4ywZsZi0QDNX6w_aem_dJWoqrAjHmltVvNRY1o1Yw

From page 2.

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Posted May 29, 2023
I'm in this situation, except it's really messed up... I am a leaseholder in a block of Council flats. The building is 3-stories, and ~9m tall.
Five years ago my block of flats had all of the doors replaced (£880 each) "in accordance with fire safety regulations".
They said that these refurbishment works included "replacement door and frame (door set) which are compliant 30 FD 4 panelled doors along with the associated ironmongery which includes door viewers, security chains, letter plate and numerals".
After they did the work, we looked at our doors and found that they are FD30S doors, in that they also include the intumescent strips and smoke seals.
That's all fine... but fast-forward to today, and now they are trying to replace our FD30S door sets again, this time... with FD30S door sets (again).
When we asked why, they said the following:
"The current doors to a number of flats within [REDACTED] are not fully certified FD30s door sets, and while I can see some of the components we would expect to see in an FD30S doorset, they have not been installed together and tested as a complete set to achieve at least 30 minutes fire resistance from both sides. For this reason it has been recommended that these doors are replaced with complete certified composite FD30s doorsets, as per current legislation."
Is it me, or is this insane?
We have in writing from the Council that all of our doors are FD30 rated doors, and were invoiced when these works were completed. We don't specifically have anything saying they are smoke doors, but you can clearly see that they are.
We have tried to get basic information from the Council regarding these works for a year. They have ignored all of our requests, both written and verbal, even thoughout the consultation period. To summarize these issues:
When the FRA was done
We don't have a copy of the FRA or know what's on it
We don't have a itemized breakdown of costs which explains why the works are 480% more expensive than last time (£4,200 per door set vs £880 5 years ago)
We don't know what regulation has changed requiring FD30S door sets installed as independent parts to be entirely replaced by composite FD30S door sets
The Council and their contractor continue to ignore all of the tenants and our requests, and are pressing forward with the works as of last week and intending to invoice us, and have us pay for these works. It's insanity!!
Can anyone help us to understand why our existing FD30S door sets are not adequate? Are there actually new regulations that require do FD30S door sets to be replaced like-for-like with composite door sets if they were not installed all at the same time?
If that is true and our doors are not up to current legislation, thus requiring replacement, aren't the Council thereby liable for a criminal offence having left all of the tenants here at risk of death from fire (The Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 - clause 1.2)?
I also noticed that the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022: fire door guidance - clause 6.5, states that since 23 January 2023 any Fire Risk Assessments must include checks on flat front entrance doors on both sides - we know for a fact that this has not been done.
Please Save Our Souls! 🙏🙏🙏 Any help of advice will be a God-send as they are undertaking the works now!

It really depends on the building...

I've lived in flats where I've heard nothing (Victoria house conversion) and I've lived in flats where I've heard everything (footsteps, sex, snoring - purpose built flats!).

If it's not too much hassle I think I'd ask for a viewing during the early evening and/or times when the upstairs neighbours are guaranteed to be in, just to put your mind at rest.

I'd also consider having a contingency plan for insulating against sound in case it turns out to be a nightmare.

We had our ceilings soundproofed in a victorian conversion. We even could hear the guy fart.

I live in a lovely apartment with a huge patio, that’s right on the canal side. I have people above me and literally never hear a sound.

Oh! Surprised it took everyone so long

My last place was a ground floor flat and it was torture tbh I could hear everything and they purposely made my life hell just because they could , I was so lucky and got the opportunity to move and then ended up with another nightmare neighbour but in a house , they have now thankfully been evicted but I will say when there upstairs you literally can’t get away from the noise where as in a house you can move to the other side and I would never go back to a flat , if I had to have a flat I’d only want top floor , I think the fact your worries about it also means any little noise now you’ll be concentrating on always

Not THAT easy, it went on for ten years before the village got together...

Glad that had an easy solution though.

Being extremely sensitive to, and not being able to do anything about the normal expected noises from a conversion flat above, is a different scenario entirely. I would never choose this, no matter how many fireplaces or nice cupboards a flat may have.

But there can be noise anywhere. I lived in a detached house with a good thirty yards between me and the house next door. Then the house next door became an Air B&B and it was so regularly used as a party house which kept the whole village awake that the entire village wrote to the owner (who stopped letting the house out as a result). My bedroom overlooked the gardens and I'd be kept awake by the shrieking as everyone chased everyone else around whilst drunk at 4am. That was fun...

I currently live in a flat and the twat upstairs has a big dog. I'm constantly having to listen to the dog run around. And he lets him shit in front of my back door and doesn't clean it up

I don't think you can ever predict it. I moved into a gf maisonette and it had a one bed flat above and I thought great, will only ever be a couple or single person. The i am not even joking when I say a family of FIVE moved in and it was hell for 3 years they lived there! 3 kids running up and down throwing things, jumping all in a one bed flat.