To be annoyed with a neighbour who says my dd's alleged stomping in the morning is making her sick?

[pranged]

A new neighbour moved in to a downstairs flat about two weeks ago. Four days in she comes upstairs to say she can hear noises in the morning. I said ok we will try to keep it down. Then we got a letter from the building management saying her landlady has complained. Her email was a list of "transgressions" the tenant started taking 48 hours after moving in! We have since ordered carpets and underlay and are waiting delivery. This evening we got another visit from the tenant who says she is sleep deprived because our dd wakes her up! She is now very sick and dizzy and suggested we 'disciplined' or 'incentivise' our dd to not wake up early. AIBU to now completely lose it? Help. What do I do?
P.s. we have beautiful parquet floor ..... That we are in the process of covering up and we don't wear shoes in the flat.

You sound like a very nice person OP and I'm sorry you're feeling stressed and depressed over this. You're putting down carpet and underlay, don't wear shoes in the house and your day starts at a not unreasonable 0630. You have explained to the neighbour that DD needs to get up then and that is when your day starts. End of discussion. I would be more sympathetic if your neighbour had any very specific suggestions for example please move trampoline to end of garden, please don't put your washing machine on after 9pm, please don't play loud music at night . But please don't live your life in your flat ... Sorry, cannot accommodate.
Incidentally I am typing listening to my upstairs neighbour's washing machine and I can hear when he sneezes, wees, what TV channel he is watching. Amazingly it doesn't bother me that much, because he is living his life and not being an arse eg with banging music or selfish night time noise.

"Have you ever been in a downstairs flat when the floor above is wood or laminate? Most landlords now ban wooden / laminate floors."

The floor is an original period feature.

I lived in a 1960s ground floor flat in a block where all the floors were parquet. It wasn't an issue.

our upstairs neighbour complained us walking about gave her migraines and closing our front door woke up her PFB 32 yr old son from his nightshift sigh sometimes neighbours just dont let others live , if you live in flats or houses with thin walls you have to put up with a certain amount of everyday normal noise , I hope you sort it out , the best thing i did was just close the door on neighbours face after 5 yrs of her moaning ,

Hi. I had new neighbours move in next door to me two years ago. Since then it has been like living with another family in my own home. Due to bad sound proofing and either no carpets/wooden flooring I know when their three year old gets up and what she is doing until she goes to sleep. Do not underestimate the stress caused by noisy neighbours as I have found it very stressful hearing this child 'clump, clump' around incessantly. Fortunately for me I have been told this family is moving out in the near future. You are doing the right thing by laying underlay/carpets and are showing consideration by doing so. Hopefully your neighbour will appreciate the efforts you have gone to.

I realised last night when I couldn't sleep that I can hear my neighbour snoring. The houses were built before 1850 and the walls are very thick. His snoring must be pretty loud.

You don't live next door to us do you, McKayz?

I dont think so. Unless you are about 35, male and have a little girl who stays at weekends.

He must usually be drowned out by DH but as he's away I can now hear neighbour.

Wooden floor in a 1st floor flat is a no-no. I once lived under someone who had it and it was a nightmare.

She seemed a bit rude, but you do come across as very "my child can do no wrong" when in reality the noise can be horrendous and does drive you mad, however quiet you, who are used to your daughter's noise, think she is.

It could be that neither of you is being unreasonable. Some flats just have crap sound insulation. We spent a miserable 12 months living in a very very noisy flat below a family with 2 children who used to get up and run around on wood floors and bang on the piano directly above our bedroom. In those young & free days 7.30am at weekends seemed very very early (especially as we both worked long hours and were rarely in bed before midnight).

I don't think the neighbours were doing anything wrong - they were just living their lives. The problem was the lack of soundproofing. As soon as our tenancy came up for renewal, we moved out (into a house). I would never live in a flat again. Fortunately, as we are no longer in London, we have a choice about that.

I think heliumballoon's post is very sensible.

Pranged will be acting completely reasonably. It is as EmsyJ says, the problem of poor sound insulation. If the neighbour can hear someone moving around upstairs, they are probably not stamping/clomping/thumping/whatever. They are probably just walking around normally just like the neighbour is doing in her flat.

Op- I think you are being perfectly reasonable.
Ask your landlord exactly what you are supposed to do.
6.30 am is a perfectly reasonable time to expect noise from a 4 year old.

Did this woman know that she was moving into a flat with a family above her?
I really think she is unreasonable to expect to live in a flat and not hear noise from above and around her.
I also agree with the poster who said she probably hears you and dh getting ready for work, plus her other neighbours getting ready for work eg flushing the loo, switching tv /radio on, opening and closing wardrobes, shutting doors, washing machines, tumble dryers etc etc etc BUT she would look like a lunatic if she complained about that. So she has gone for the easy option of blaming a young child for doing things that a young child does.

I can hear my dd opening and shutting her wardrobe, I can hear anybody walking about upstairs. that is one reason why I would never have wooden flooring. We live in a detatched house and to be frank think this woman should have considered the noise levels before moving into a ground floor flat.

I would also tell her that she needs to contact her landlord to ensure adequate leves of soundproofing exist in the flat.

Have you actually explicitly told this woman that carpet is being delivered, and when? Or for all she knows are you completely ignoring her?

Hard floors really are a lot noiser than carpeted ones. No question.

You might argue about whether the amount of noise is tolerable or not, but you can't sensibly argue that hard floors are as quiet as carpeted ones.

IMO it is not reasonable to have noisy hard floors if you live in a flat above someone else. I think you were lucky the previous tenant didn't complain to you If they had done then perhaps you would already have done something about it and the new tenant might not be complaining now.

'Math I just can't believe your assumption that she has no illness and simply doesn't like children. Is it really so hard to believe that someone in a downstairs flat may have one of the lovely degenerative diseases available out there and might also be a little intolerant to others? Really??'

Yes I do -- I inferred that she was child averse form her suggestion that the child be disciplined. This bespeaks a neurosis about children imo.

If your nerves are in such a state that the normal noise of a normal family going about its normal life in the flat above you is impossible to bear, you should probably make an effort to secure some sort of detached accommodation for medical reasons, or make sure your upstairs neighbours were quiet elderly people.

I think the woman has made a mistake moving in to this property. OP you are clearly trying to help but it is a sad fact that some people just don't play well with others. I fear that's what you have here. You can put the carpet down but you'll still have a child and some people don't like children. It's as simple and as horrible as that.
Be clear that you have gone to expense to try and help but that's as far as you're going and you will not discuss this further, as long as the noise described comes from normal family life carried out at reasonable hours. For a working family 6.30 am is a reasonable hour.

PigletJohn, I think you must have missed the bit about this being a 1930s parquet floor. The inconsiderate person who fitted this floor has probably long since ceased trading.

If you move into a 1930s flat then you are going to have to accept that a lack of sound insulation is one of the original features. It goes with the picture rails, empire line doors and dodgy plumbing!

If you want good sound insulation then you need to move into something a lot more modern.

I would tell the neighbour that carpet is coming but leave it at that. I would certainly not be asking the neighbour what more she wants me to do. I am with Math on this. This is not someone who is ever going to be happy.

But you would surely agree, Gnome, that hard floors really are a lot noiser than carpeted ones.

We no longer like 1930's plumbing, and many more of us have noisy TVs and washing machines now.

SoupDragon Sun 06-May-12 12:28:20
"Have you ever been in a downstairs flat when the floor above is wood or laminate? Most landlords now ban wooden / laminate floors."

Pretty well all flats in Sweden, where I used to live, are like this: carpets are viewed as a really gross 1970s fad. And the majority of the urban population lives in flats.

Pretty much the same in France and Spain, isn't it?

So are houses particularly badly built in the UK or are people just less stress tolerant?

I didn't say that - I was quoting someone else.

Turniphead - I'm afraid I wouldnt categorise 1980s & 1990s as modern for something like this! We had an 80s house for a while which had all the soundproofing quality of wet tissue.

I think you answered your point yourself in your second sentence. If it matters to you then check.

The house I am in now is 2006 build and I would say the sound insulation is pretty good (neighbours have small children & newborn and we dont hear a peep from them).

I looked into all this as I had a series of complaints when I rented out my first floor flat from the lady below saying they were walking loudly and demanding they wear slippers. I emailed the noise people at the council and they said that there is nothing they would do as its the normal day to day noise of people living. I have a clause in my leasehold that I must have the flat carpeted but apart from that there is nothing more that I had to do.

You have to expect noises like that in a ground floor flat. Im sure its annoying some mornings but what can you do?

Interesting comment Cory. Our house when we lived in the Netherlands was made of concrete with brick facing - pretty standard where we lived I guess because of the condition of the building land (basically north sea bed).

The sound proofing quality of that house was excellent except when neighbours were actually hitting the walls (eg drilling a hole to hang a picture). Then it sounded like they were in the house with us.

It is very difficult to perfectly soundproof between floors IMO. Goodwill and tolerance both ways is needed.