to think our concierge is a bit batty?

[winnybella]

We live in the first floor flat, she has her lodge on the ground floor and my kitchen and ds's room overlap with it.

Over the last 2 years she came to complain about ds jumping and running and that she's afraid her ceiling will collapse on her because of it. Now my ds is v.rarely running around, he's almost 9 and spends most of his time playing nintendo ds and reading. He also is here just 1 week out of 2 and obviously goes to school.

Then she came few weeks ago to complain that our washing machine makes her boiler vibrate and she's afraid it will fall down so can I do something about it. There is no other place in our flat to put the machine in.

She just came up and said that ds is running all the time (and in fact, he did just now- for 10 seconds) and she's afraid of her ceiling and will be calling the landlord.

Now, since ds doesn't run and jump (or very rarely), maybe it's dd she's hearing, but what can I do about 22 mo I don't know, tbh.

I don't listen to loud music, my kids don't run around in the courtyard and make noise, hmmm...generally speaking I think we're rather a quiet family.

Will I get in trouble with the landlord? And should I live in fear of my floor collapsing?

Can you put in carpets (hello again btw!)?

Temporarily while the DC are small.

It's true that in a lot of flats it really does sound like people are coming through the ceiling.

Hi

Hmm...well,I guess I could (although don't have money for at the moment and with 2 cats it would be a nightmare to clean).

But aren't her worries about ceiling collapsing and boiler falling off a bit strange?

I can sympathise with her as someone who also lives underneath someone else who appears to make a lot of noise - but I don't think they do make any more noise than most people, the flat is just very badly soundproofed, and I suspect that might be the case with you too.

I've only ever complained once and that was because of some midnight hoovering (!) but I just accept that the sound is a bit crap and get on with it.

I would speak to your landlord about making the property more soundproofed - for example do you have laminate flooring that doesn't have a proper underlay underneath it? Switching to carpet might make a massive difference.

At least then you can tell the lady downstairs that you appreciate that the soundproofing is bad and you're trying to deal with it with the landlord so she knows you're doing something but at the same time you're not accepting any blame.

I think that she should call the landlord if she's that frightened of the ceiling falling it, it sounds like the building is in a terrible state.

Or she's just being completely melodramatic.

Unless your lease states no children, or unless they are running around at night, she is being U.

TBH, I have lived in a house with poor sound-proofing and it sounded like the people above were moving furniture around and jumping up and down when all they were doing was pulling out chairs and walking. But this isn't your fault - she needs to accept some noise is always going to happen with children, or ask the landlord to put in sound-proofing.

Could you go down to her lodge while the washing machine is going and see for yourself? Or get DS to move about and see how it sounds from below - maybe use mobile phones to instruct him to do things?

I've met your concierge. She is indeed batty. Just look interested and agree with whatever she says. Say you too are concerned about the floor falling through, and you too will be bringing it up with the landlord.

Does she still go ballistic when you tip toe carefully, apologising profusely, over the the floor she's just mopped?

See, she's usually nice to me and dcs- but a bit of a false smile thing going on.

No, there's no loud nightime activities going on here-at all. By 9 all kids are in bed and I'm in front of the laptop or tv!

The building shouldn't be in a terrible state, but the floors are old wood and loose and creaky- but that would be up to the landlord to fix that, I think? I'm not changing 80 sq m of flooring!

I can totally appreciate that perhaps soundproofing is poor but I resent her complaining about things I can't really change.

I mean, the washing machine complaint. What exactly am I supposed to do?

Sorry, just in a bad mood, as DP stranded in a queue at St.Pancras with supposedly 3000 people in front of him- not sure if he'll get here for Christmas at this rate!

I lived in a top flat years ago and always assumed we were pretty quiet until the man downstairs took ill and I went down tyo see him,the noise of my DH just walking on the floor(with carpet) was like a herd of elephants running around,not much you can do it's lax building standards from years ago.