To feel like DS has been unnecessarily told off

[IloveJackWhite]

I'm so upset - DS is only 17m and loves running around. We live in rented flat and neighbours below (also tenants - who moved in knowing kids were in here,after us) have banged on their ceiling twice tonight in response, I think, to DS running around.

He goes to bed at 7.30 so it's not like it's late and he's just excited to see his Daddy for 1hr before bed. I feel so upset and as though he's been reprimanded. DH is not getting why I feel this way and doesn't care what they did as we aren't in the wrong.

I feel like we're letting our son down not having a place where he can be free to do what he likes (within reason!) in his own home and that our neighbours have been unreasonable. AIBU?

clearly wimple has enough money to pick and choose where she lives

lucky her

OP - I've been there, renting in a flat, I know it's hard when you can't easily make changes yourself. I would ask the landlord if there could be a change to carpet and/or look into (as someone said above) whether flats are supposed to be carpeted.

Having said that, it's not like you've got a bunch of teenagers jumping up and down on teh floor and I do think your neighbours have to accept a certain amount of noise as normal.

Vicki2010 - that sounds awful - we'll be gone by the summer I hope but I really don't think we make that much noise that is travelling. DS has been walking since 10.5m and neighbours have been there since late summer, so it's a bit weird really.

The landlord owns the entire building and I think all flats have laminate. We rarely can hear upstairs stomping though.

JackWhite

Do you know they are banging in response to your DS? Like, are they definitely doing it after he's just jumped or something, iyswim?

My sister's DP just moved into an upstairs flat and whilst he was unpacking in the evening the neighbours kept banging on the ceiling to tell him to be quiet.

Later, he went down, introduced himself, and said next time could they have the courtesy to come talk to him. The guy apparently looked blank and then said, 'Oh... I was installing a light fitting.'

nah after a bit, you just think he is a loon to shout and swear when they are playing on the carpet in socks. ( if we didn't we would go insane worrying) Can't see what we can do about it really. We can't afford to move yet and neither can he I suppose. We try to keep the running and jumping to the morning when he is out at work, and there is only about an hour in the evening if that when they are playing. We could be having loud parties til 2 am or lots worse things. It's the weekends that are worse, but as we can't do much about it, everyone has to put up with each others noise.

Won't do any harm to go downstairs and tell the neighbour what you told us. They'd have to have a heart of stone to ignore a child's need to play with Daddy for an hour before bedtime.

Promise that all the running around will stop at 7.30 on the dot, and stick to your promise. Stand at the top of the stairs and make sure they hear you cry 'That's all now, Mr and Mrs X want to watch corrie' or whatever. You'll soon be best mates.

The grumpies downstairs are worth cultivating- nothing worse than falling out with your neighbours unnecessarily.

I have to agree with Wimple.

However considerate your neighbours are there is always going to be some noise.
We all know in most flats, especially new builds (in my experience) you will be able to hear the people upstairs, even just general "living" noises (washing machine, kids playing, high heels etc). YABU to complain about this. If you do not like to hear noise then rent/buy a house not a flat!

If you do not have the choice (ie, council allocated housing or given the flat as was homeless) then you aren't really in a position to complain.

Excessive noise not included in this of course, then of course have a moan if they are being very loud and antisocial

This is an interesting thread from the perspective of someone who lives below a family with three children (4, 10 and 14) and we have two of our own (10 and 15). Many of you are taking the view that the complainer is being unreasonable and should simply be more tolerant. It is possible that you have never been on the receiving end of such noise and I would hope that you never are. We do not want to restrict the children upstairs, but we don't want the sound of their lives as a continual backing track either. IloveJackWhite, do you have bare laminate flooring, because believe me the sound of a four year old child runnning the length of a flat is extremely noisy. Our neighbour refuses to put down rugs as she doesn't like them, won't put felt on legs of chairs because she doesn't want to. We have tried asking politely, explained that we are not expecting silence just an attempt to reduce the noise. Our daily routine is accompanied by constant heavy footfall from outdoor shoes, thudding and banging, skateboards being rolled, conversation heard over loud TV, chairs being dragged across floors, shouting and screaming, on particularly bad occasions our ceiling visibly vibrates and the light fitting swings wildly. Any attempt to explain how intrusive the noise is just gets dismissed as intolerance. We have never had a noise issue with two previous sets of tenants until the carpets were removed and when we tried to sell, three separate offers to buy our property were withdrawn when the buyers heard the noise from upstairs. Of course, there will be people who are simply being intolerant, however please don't dismiss a "complaint" out of hand there may be a genuine issue of serious disturbance. It's not as simple as just don't live in a ground floor flat, both parties need to accept that a) there will always be a level of noise in a downstairs flat and b) living upstairs doesn't exempt you from a degree of responsibility, i.e. uncovered wooden and laminate flooring is simply downright inconsiderate.

how can he make a noise when he is wearing slippers

unless they are clogs