If you live in a flat

[Tappingthetopfloor]

Can I ask what floor you’re on and how much noise you hear?

Ground floor would be great but I’ve heard that it can be so noisy from several floors above you, so we’re now looking at a top floor flat but want to know if there’s something we may be missing and haven’t taken into consideration?

Neither of us have lived in a flat before but we are in a noisy terrace! So we have no idea how different noise wise it might be.

This is all so positive - thanks everyone for your input, been so interesting reading all your experiences and whilst there’s no guarantee that there won’t be noise or issues, I do feel at least that we’ve done the right thing by opting for top floor.

I used to live in a ground floor modern apartment with good soundproofing. My first set of neighbours were mostly ok. We complained a couple of times. The last set (before we moved out) were constantly shouting on speakerphone and the whole block could hear them. We were right next to the communal door and that could bang sometimes but we got used to it.

We never heard the neighbours at the side (we shared walls).

My friend is in a modern apartment building and it's so quiet it's like no one else lives there.

Like anything it depends on others.

I think a top floor apartment would be quieter but then you've got all the stairs to cope with.

I live on the first floor of a Victorian conversion. When I moved in there were a family with 2 kids upstairs who went on to have 2 more, so 4 kids in a 2 bed flat. I never even heard a baby crying. The dad asked me if I ever heard anything and said that the kids were never allowed to run around etc, as they knew what a nuisance it could be. They moved out and a new family moved in, again with 2 kids and went on to have 2 more. Now I hear the sound of running and jumping which makes quite a racket. I didn’t want to complain and just told myself that it was normal kid noise and hopefully wouldn’t go on forever. The mum was aware of the noise however as she apologised for the disturbance and explained that her little boy was autistic so I guess that makes it harder for the family to regulate his behaviour. I try to be tolerant and the mum is trying to get a move. So it very much depends on your neighbours and also what you are able to put up with. I’ve met people who get quite obsessive over noisy neighbours and can’t tolerate the slightest sound in which case they would be better off on the top floor.

I don't actually live here but i am currently staying in my sons central Leeds Docks area flat. Fairly new and modern i think.. Very small flat, at at the end of an "arm" of the building on the 6th floor. Can't hear a thing apart from the odd police siren.

I live in a 70’s build top floor flat. I occasionally hear my neighbours on the shared stairwell, but not often & it’s not intrusive. I never hear any noise from inside other flats like TVs, washing machines etc. I’ve never had a complaint about noise either, even though I have kids and hard floors.

I think a lot of older purpose built blocks are designed well to avoid noise problems. Our floors are sold concrete and we have no shared walls (stairwell divides the flats).

Other pluses are that rhe flats are big & have garages / parking spaces - my friend was viewing flats in newer blocks recently and told me some of them had no parking / made additional charges for a parking space.

I would like my own garden though 🙂

Middle floor of Victorian conversion. No side neighbours. At the back of building which is already on a quiet street. The noise transference between floors something to check, I would be very vigilant if buying a flat. Both my upstairs and downstairs neighbours are fairly quiet but you can hear loud talking (not enough to make out words). White noise blocks it out. Door banging from a previous downstairs neighbour was really annoying as it vibrates, and sometimes the upstairs guy sounds like he's tap dancing. I think middle floor reduces my heating bill, but I would prefer top.

Ground floor. I hear what I would class as normal household noise from above (voices, TV, walking around, shower), but nothing excessive and only in daytime horus. Its fine.

18th, top floor. No noise from other flats, some noise from people in the corridor but not a lot.
Noise from traffic and tube station but I tune it out most the time.

Occasional rave that keeps two whole boroughs awake while the councils argue about which of them should deal with it.

We lived in a second floor flat, the only noise that ever bothered me was traffic noise as it seemed to carry up.

I used to live in a ground floor Victorian conversion - whoever converted it did a brilliant job with the soundproofing as I could barely hear my upstairs neighbours - plus the layout worked really well as all the bedrooms were on the same side.

I now live in a Victorian terrace and it is a lot noisier - especially as our bedroom is sandwiched between living rooms on either side in first floor flats.

Occasional rave that keeps two whole boroughs awake while the councils argue about which of them should deal with it.

😆😆

I'm in a 2nd floor flat , 1980s build top floor , rarely hear any noise apart from when people are in the communal garden as the sound travels upwards .

I often wonder if the family below can hear me as I'm clumsy and often drop things but they've never said anything !

I currently live on the middle floor of 3, and have done for 13 years.

Honestly, it's luck of the draw. At the moment, I never hear anything from the people below me, although the people who lived there before them liked to play music at funny times. But it was never enough to really bug me.
The people above me seem to go through phases of making noise, and then silence for weeks. They seem to do a lot of door banging, and I sometimes hear him shouting obscenities at the football on tv!

Before them though was 2 lads in their 20s, and they were AWFUL. Loud parties many weekends, and banging on doors. The police were called out a few times. Then they just suddenly disappeared. I suspect their landlord kicked them out.

We're a pretty quiet neighbourly block as well. A few months ago someone new had a very loud party that went on in to the small hours (apparently - it was the other side of the building from me and I heard nothing). Others in the building made their feelings known pretty emphatically and vociferously.

There have been no repeat incidents.

3rd floor with another above me. Relatively new and built from scratch. Noise is awful it's actually worse from downstairs more than upstairs. Can also hear everyone's conversations, washing machine vibrations at rediculous times of night, when their water is running, pretty much everything. Oh and everyone had hard flooring installed due to open plan kitchen livingroom so that adds to the noise contribution.

Oh that’s so bad! @Kd96 That would be my biggest worry with a flat.

You have my sympathies, I’m currently in a newish build terrace and the noise level is very similar to yours but I’m hoping that this top floor, older build flat will be better soundproof wise.

I've found noise insulation poor in the UK in general, before I came here I happily lived in various flats and never heard anything.

We were ground floor in four in a block and the impact noise from above was horrendous, it was like a herd of elephants tap dancing up there. So next time I tried a top floor flat but the deaf old guy got a some sort of bassy speaker and that come up through the floor.

I'm in a detached house now.

Top floor is great to save on energy bills. We never use heating as the heat from the other 2 flats rises up to us

I live in a purpose built block of flats, I'm in the middle of 4 floors, with paper thin walls/floors. I can hear the neighbours sneeze and pee. No I'm not joking, I wish I was. If I'm in the bathroom at the same time as the neighbour above I can actually hear him peeing above me. It only happens at night when it's otherwise silent, can't hear him during the day when there's other background noise. During regular day times though I can still hear next door's children and downstairs' tv and someone in the block is suffering with allergies at the moment so I can hear them sneezing.

We lived in a first floor flat, so someone was above and below us with corridors and outer walls on the sides.

Sometimes at night, if we were sitting very very quietly, we could hear a squeak of furniture from someone. During the day, not a damn thing.

We're on the first floor of a 4-storey 1960's concrete block. It's shaped like cell-block H and our only adjoining wall is the one behind fitted wardrobes in the bedroom. We don't hear any noise from downstairs (we have thick carpet, must help?) but have had odd disturbing neighbours above us over the years (laminate floors, loud radios and the odd shouting match). Yes, the top floor would probably be good but there's no lift and I feel safer on the first floor (could fashion an escape rope out of sheets if necessary!).

Top floor.

My neighbour had a baby and I didn't even realise until I bumped into her 6 months later, so no noise from the next door flat. Obviously nothing above. I've never really heard anything below.

I went to a residents meeting once and the person I met lived on 2nd floor and said they could hear everything.

The main noise I do hear is when my balcony door is open in summer, and everyone else's is too. You can hear their TV etc. But I quite like it, it's comforting.

Also we recently had building works - remedial works for cladding , the drilling was insane but I had noise cancelling headphones, these are a godsend now I realise.

We are in a new build flat (about 7 years old now), mid floor of 3 and don't have any noise issues. No connecting walls which I think makes a massive difference. Flat above we can sometimes hear moving around if we are sitting quietly and we do hear the washing machine loudly but it's only ever for a few mins. Downstairs we never hear unless we both have our balcony doors open, at one stage they had extended family staying for several months (6 people in a 2 bed flat including kids/toddler and a dog) and we still rarely heard them.
We have a toddler and downstairs say they rarely hear her thankfully. Upstairs haven't complained so I guess they don't have any issues.

In a previous 40 year old purpose built ground floor flat we only shared one wall and didn't have any issues there but used to have a lot of issues with noise upstairs, 2 separate tenants so I don't think it was them being particularly noisy.

I guess my point is it's really hard to tell if there will be issues!

I think the key things to look at are construction and configuration of the building.

Ground floor.

Luckily the flat above is empty at the moment, and the people above that aren't noisy, but yes, you do hear things- heels on hard floors, furniture scraping etc. Every sound there is, is magnified. No children in the building at the moment. But we do hear next door's grandchildren when they visit.

Previously I lived above people and they commented they hear everything. That was a less solidly built building though.

There's going to be some level of noise in any shared building- it is what it is. You just have to hope you have considerate neighbours and not the Mumsnetters who start threads about how they aren't U because their kids are playing trains on the hard floors from 6am while their 4 dogs bark for their breakfast!