Is this weird or pretty normal?

[Meredithgray]

Moved into a new house, it’s a semi built 1971. Was in my sons bedroom changing his sheets & could clearly hear my neighbour using what sounded like a mop. She was sort of smashing it into our shared wall, washing the floor & skirting board I presume.

I can’t believe how bad the sound insulation is if I can actually hear someone cleaning their floor

What the hell piece of crap have I bought? It’s in south east so not cheap!

When we moved into our 1969 semi I cried when I realised what we could hear.
Laying the table, closing the cutlery drawer, sex, the tv……the endless tv. I couldn’t go to bed until they turned their tv off & I had to get up early for work!
I found myself tiptoeing around our house frightened to make a sound in the hope they would be more considerate.
Maybe it’s a one off if you haven’t hear any sounds previously. Laminate really carries sound so the rest of the house may not be so bad.

I presume next door have hard floors if she's mopping so there's no carpet to muffle noises. Not sure what you can do really apart from look into sound proofing on your walls. It's fairly typical to hear knocks against the wall in a semi, however expensive.

She was smashing the skirting boards against our shared wall downstairs just now so sounds like she is a cleaning fanatic. She must have one of those professional steamers or something because I could actually hear the hiss of steam 😲

She started cleaning at 9am and is still going strong.

Totally gutted I’ve bought this house now, what a pile of croc it is.

@3001signon

When we moved into our 1969 semi I cried when I realised what we could hear. Laying the table, closing the cutlery drawer, sex, the tv……the endless tv. I couldn’t go to bed until they turned their tv off & I had to get up early for work! I found myself tiptoeing around our house frightened to make a sound in the hope they would be more considerate. Maybe it’s a one off if you haven’t hear any sounds previously. Laminate really carries sound so the rest of the house may not be so bad.

I was just about to post but I was going to say exactly what you wrote . Only mine was an old pit terrace . I could hear the words on the tv

Yeah I think a lot of semi's/terraces have pretty poor soundproofing.

My neighbour works from home and I can hear the windows error tone through the wall, and well, pretty much everything they do.

Knives and forks scraping against plates, sneezing, talking, footsteps on their hard floors.. I could go on. It's awful.

@fedup078. We moved to the 69 semi because the 1910 terrace we lived in was awful. The neighbour was deaf and we could watch our tv with the volume off by listening to his through the wall! It was out of the frying pan, into the fire!

@3001signon honestly I'm starting to wonder if we lived in the same house!

I feel your pain OP, we live in a thin walled terraced and it is hell.

Neighbours on one side are absolute inconsiderate arseholes and we can hear everything even without them being the selfish neighbours they are.

New neighbours on the other side moved in recently and have been great so far. Until the weather has got sunnier and now I'm currently listening to their music blasting in their garden for the 4th day in a row alongside the never ending DIY. I am on edge.

I live in an Edwardian tenement (Scotland), so we connect with neighbours on either side (bedroom and living room).

Noise levels were never awful, but we made the decision a few years ago to soundproof the bedroom wall that connects with our (very nice) neighbour. Didn't do the living room, as it is expensive and we reasoned that the room that you really want peace and privacy in is your bedroom.

BEST. DECISION. EVER.

Seriously, if you can afford, get it done. Lifechanging stuff (and, as I say, our neighbours are nice and not even especially noisy).

If she’s banging something up against the skirting then you’re going to hear some noise / ricochet / vibration. I’ve almost always been able to hear some neighbour noise whether it’s been a Victorian conversion, a new build or my current 1950s house. The only really soundproofed home I’ve ever been in is my friend’s 2008 flat which really is spectacularly silent inside.

[quote fedup078]@3001signon honestly I'm starting to wonder if we lived in the same house![/quote]
Me too!
I’m not saying where it is in case you’re mad that you bought it off us