downstairs neighbour insisting I install soundproofing in my flat

[Popskipiekin]

Oh it's a long one.... never mind, hope some of you can get to the end!

We own a top floor flat, part of a block of 4. As per the rules of the leasehold, all areas of our flat are carpeted aside from the kitchen and bathrooms. It's just me, DH and DS (2), and I promise we live very boring quiet lives, in bed by 10pm.

Our downstairs neighbour has recently taken to sleeping in her small back bedroom, which is situated immediately under our kitchen (laminate floor). She used to sleep in her other larger bedroom - and tells me that she can hear no noise throughout the rest of her flat, so she did not have this problem when she slept there - but is renting this out currently. She has complained several times that us walking on the kitchen floor "is like bombs going off by my ears" and that it wakes her up all the time. I don't know when she's sleeping as we don't use the kitchen after we go to bed I suppose we do go in there in the morning from 7am - and yes, there will be some people still asleep at this time, but we aren't stomping, simply going in the kitchen to make breakfast etc.

She has now said we need to install soundproofing in our floor. She won't do it from her end as the job is much harder to do from the ceiling side, apparently, and she will lose a lot of ceiling height.

She has offered to pay for the soundproofing but only on the condition that it is laid on top of the current floor (when it would be better to lift up the current floor and put it underneath - but that would be too much money as far as she is concerned). Laying soundproofing and a new floor would raise our kitchen floor 3cm, we'd have to cut bits off our kickboards, might not be able to fit back all the units that are currently there, would create a step into the kitchen and the floor on top would not be the floor of our choosing - just one that fits with her budget. I think it will all be very unsightly as well as a trip hazard, not to mention the risks of it being done badly/damaging our kitchen, and I just don't want to do it.

She is kicking up such a fuss and behaving as if we are the unreasonable party. The alternative she is offering is to go halves on the much more expensive approach of lifting up the current floor - but I don't see why I should have to pay for soundproofing in my flat when we are being very considerate and it's not a legal requirement. Our nextdoor neighbours often play music late at night so that we can't sleep - we have had to use earplugs and/or go and sleep on the sofa when it's bad. It's just London living.

Thoughts/suggestions? We are about to rent the whole flat, as it turns out, and I am paranoid that our neighbour will ruin our relationship with our tenants.

fight fire with fire, she BU and that's all there is to say! get legal, medieval and advise her that you no longer wish to verbally communicate- you are legally sounds and she needs to stop harassing you

Honestly, just stop having those conversations with her. As pp suggests, just come up with a stock phrase like 'I'm afraid there is nothing we can do' smile and repeat, but don't get drawn in.

She is the one being unreasonable. It's no good trying to pander to her.

I think your neighbour needs to sort out the soundproofing from her side.

A rug or a runner with a nonslip underlay would help muffle any sound. Felt pads under chair legs and so on. If there is any floor creaking then perhaps you can sort that.

If you want to do more than this then cushioned vinyl flooring on top of your laminate might help. But I think you're then nudging into the above and beyond what's necessary route.

Yanbu you don't need to do anything and only agree to work on your property which works for you and you are happy with and of course you shouldn't need to pay for sound proofing unless you make a lot of noise musical instruments etc. If she wants silence she will have to live in a detached house in the country. If she chooses to live in a flat for whatever reason financial or other she needs to put up with normal noise such as footsteps IMO you are in no way being unreasonable in the slightest

Also, could you ask her if you can have a listen yourself then get DP to walk around your place as if it was morning. Then you'll soon find out if she's exaggerating or not.

Do not engage. Tell her it doesn't work for you, you can't have soundproofing on top and a rug in the kitchen is unhygienic in your opinion.

I had neighbours like this once, it started with a suggestion of going to bed earlier (she wanted no walking past 8pm) and ended in her suggesting we don't use the loo after 8pm and use a bucket. I suggested she supplies several tightly sealable buckets so we didn't have to reuse and that I expected her to collect them in the morning to wash them out. She never returned to try and make me shit in a bucket. Yours sounds like she's going the same way.

Having been the underneath party, I can sympathise with her. I ended up on anti depressants through stress - combination of the sleepless nights and intimidation (man of the house looking in our windows constantly etc). Our lease proved they were in breach, but we still had to engage a solicitor and spent a year in misery.

As others suggested, check your lease but also check for any law changes; in my research I discovered that Scotland for instance had made law changes.

If your lease requires soundproofing, you will have to pay, but if not, it's her cost. Sound proofing the ceiling will have minimal impact on the sound issues as its impact noise but equally laying soundproofing on the floor over the top of your existing flooring will also be relatively pointless (I did a LOT of research, even flew to Edinburgh university!). If you're in the right, it's a case of your way or the highway...

In our case, we offered to replace the flooring and install soundproofing completely at our cost but this was refused; the tenants upstairs thought if they could force us out they would get allocated our home with its private garden, extra bedroom and bathrooms etc They couldn't understand we own our home so there was no possibility of them getting it. Several solicitors letters later, it finally sunk in and they no longer jump up and down at 3am and snack the broom against the ceiling and walls.

Soundproofing should be mandatory in flats IMO. It's easy to say neighbour noise is part of the package but some people who are particularly sensitive to noise cannot afford to live elsewhere.

OP YANBU BTW - if she's prepared to pay for soundproofing she should put it on her ceiling. It could increase the value of your flat though.

My flat has soundproofing that was put in before we moved in. The downstairs neighbours went to court to make the previous owners install it. I didn't even know that you could legally make someone do something like that. I think this was after a long battle over noise though, not just someone deciding to switch bedrooms.

YANBU ....but every flat I have ever lived in (not for some time) has stipulated no laminate flooring for noise reasons (check your lease). You sound very considerate but the noise is still obviously making her miserable or she wouldn't be offering money to sort it. The raised floor thing is impossible but show a bit of empathy and go with the no shoes/rattan rug thing maybe if you can.

We have upstairs neighbours with a 2 year old. I have no idea what they have as flooring. Sometimes I can hear the DS racing up and down, and when anyone has a shower up there it sounds like it's raining on the ceiling!

Tbh I just shrug, I have enough trouble running around after DD who's just turned 1 I can't imagine what she'll be like at 2... That's what you get living beneath someone! Definitely suggest the ear plugs, or if she's really being that stubborn, buy them yourself and post them through the letter box or hand them to her with a smile if you're feeling brave

YADNBU! You seem to be lovely neighbours and I'm surprised you didn't just laugh in her face!

PaniWahine and others who have been on the receiving end of noise from above: I really am sympathetic to what you have been/are going through, that sounds dreadful - and I have cried with frustration at our nextdoor neighbours warming up their electric guitar at midnight and practising the same riff over and over and over again.... I just don't think we're creating that much of a bother (this kitchen isn't lived in like the kitchen in a house might be, it's just a small functional area for cooking/washing up and then we go away and live our lives in the carpeted areas).

We fortunately are absolutely within the terms of our lease - I've had to review them very closely recently for letting purposes anyway, so am more than aware we are compliant.

There is backstory - oh isn't there always - that the neighbour's family actually used to own the whole building, one flat per sibling, and her sister used to own ours (this was about 20 years ago, we didn't buy it from her). So she always says if her sister had bothered to put soundproofing in the flat then she wouldn't have this problem.

I think with new builds or house-to-flat conversions nowadays there absolutely is the legal requirement to put in soundproofing and I do think it is a good idea - it's just it wasn't a requirement in the 60s when this was done.

Check terms of your ownership and any covenants. If you're compliant she can bugger off

YANBU. We are the downstairs flat, upstairs has laminate floors which she drags her side tables across and puts on the TV at 10.15pm every night very, very loud (we think she is going deaf) above our bedroom. We just shrug and deal with it as flat living conditions and sleep with ear plugs.

If she chooses to sleep under the kitchen she's better soundproof her ceiling.

MillionToOneChances unfortunately impact noise isn't improved by soundproofing the ceiling. You need to soften the area of impact eg the floor. That said, if the upstairs neighbour wants the work done, it should be at her cost and flooring to the OPs choice (within reason)

*sorry DOWNSTAIRS neighbour Opps!

You can get really quite nice indoor / outdoor rugs, made from woven plastic yarn, I am considering one for my kitchen (cold floor) in a grey and white Scandinavian style pattern. Alternatively you could buy soft slippers for everyone.

YANBU

Report her to HMRC as well to make sure she's not going a over her rent a room allowance. Easily done in London.

That will take her mind off the problem for a while

Definitely stop wearing shoes in the house. It's not nice living under people who clunk about in shoes. Otherwise it's not your problem you have to live.

What do you all have on your feet? If you are not doing it already, it may be that the problem can be easily solved by sticking to socks or soft-soled slippers. It's just common courtesy to do that and entirely reasonable to point it out to your tenants.

I live in a terrace house and my ex next-door-neighbours had hard floors everywhere; the woman used to clomp around in hard-soled slippers all the time. It was mostly a minor irritation, but I once stood on her doorstep and completely lost it with her when I had a migraine and every sodding step she took was like a dagger shooting down my head. It was possibly not my best moment; but I don't really get why people don't just think about the effect they are having on other people and take their shoes off, its not like it's any great hardship.

I agree with the person who says that you should go listen while your partner walks around upstairs, because I think (based on the timings you're giving) she might be wrong about the source of the noise. This happened to me: I had a (bonkers) downstairs neighbour who would constantly complain to us about how much noise we made. We tried hard to be considerate, never put on shoes in the flat, etc. etc. But then he came storming up and knocked on the door and screamed at me about the noise one day. The thing is, I was alone in the flat that weekend and had a dreadful cold: his coming up to complain had woken me up from a four hour sleep. There had been absolutely no movement in our flat. He refused to accept this and continued constantly moaning and banging on our ceiling (at what seemed to us to be at random). I don't know what he could hear, but it wasn't us!

I don't think Yabu but laminate flooring is the devils own invention. The cracking noises when someone walks over it can sound like gunshots. You could suggest she pays for the laminate to be taken up and some really nice vinyl with a good quality underlay be put down instead which would probably fix the problem. Much cheaper too. If you want to push the boat out then something like karndean would be lovely and quite cost effective if it's a small space.

Don't agree to work being done in your home without a compensation for the disturbance (meals out while the kitchen is un-usable for ex), paid for professional clean afterwards, have it in writing that they will repair/replace anything damaged during the work...

Thanks all for more comments. I think we probably are guilty of wearing shoes there during the weekend days - and we can of course change this - but breakfast time would usually be padding around in socks or bare feet - but we will absolutely make sure not to wear outdoor shoes there at all as that's easy enough, and hopefully our tenants can be understanding on this point too. I didn't know laminate made cracking noises! so is that the bomb noise she says she can hear? I would assume the noise would be at least a bit audible from our side (and the floor never makes a sound when we walk on it). I don't exactly want to expose myself to further conversations but yes it would be a good idea to hear exactly what it sounds like for her.

Ha manyathingyouknow I really don't want to start a proper battle!

wigglybeezer thanks for the rug tip, I'll look into it. Just in my head a rug on the kitchen floor would look strange but if it does cushion the impact then we are very willing to try.