Mums - please help!! My partner, 3 year old daughter and I live in West London. Until recently we lived in a top floor one bedroom flat in a converted Victorian building which we had lived in as a couple. This was hard... no bedroom for my daughter, too many stairs, limited space.
After making our peace with the fact that we can NO WAY afford to buy what we want, in December we rented out our flat and rented a new one close by (also closer to the school we want her to go to). This is a ground floor flat in a similar converted house with much more space, a bedroom for my daughter and a garden -actually the back half of a garden that is split with our neighbours in the basement flat.
We love it and thought moving would be a real life changer - able to enjoy time at home instead of constantly going to parks... daughter could have playdates, etc.
But within weeks of moving here, the neighbours downstairs complained about noise and have done so twice since. The first time, a Saturday morning, they came up and knocked on the door. Second time it was a conversation by the bins. Each time they said they had contacted the landlord.
Last night, the landlord forwarded me a further complaint that they had written to him and asked me if I would contact them to sort things out. He is lovely and would clearly rather not be involved.
Basically, they say they can hear us moving around from early morning to the early hours and it is unbearable. They say my daughter is up late running the length of the flat squealing and my partner and I talk loudly and move around till the early hours.
In both my conversations with them I've been really apologetic and said we would try to keep noise down. They've also been civil, acknowledging that everyone has to live and it's difficult because there is little insulation in these old houses. They say how sweet my daughter is and how they want to get on with us. But the continuous contacting of the landlord - three times in just over a month - tells a different story . It seems so aggressive and I feel they want us out.
The flat is carpeted and, since the first complaint, I've made everyone take off their shoes. My partner and I both go to work and daughter is at nursery school from 9 to 3 - one of us picks her up and she is back at home by 4 earliest. Normally we try and get her to sleep at 8 but I admit her sleeping is a bit erratic and sometimes she just won't settle till later (normally because she has napped earlier in the afternoon after getting back from school exhausted). She is a normal lively 3 year old who jumps and skips and bounces and fidgets.
I have been trying to keep everyone quiet but am at my wit's end. I don't know what more I can do - I can't chop my daughters legs off. It feels like the neighbours are trying to deny our right to a normal existence.
My partner is furious about the whole situation... says they are trying to bully us and I am being a people pleaser instead of standing up for my family. It is causing stress in our relationship and last night we were up arguing about how to deal with it - no doubt intensifying the problem....
We are paying a fortune in rent but feel we can't have people or round or enjoy the flat in the way we had hoped because we are so paranoid. My daughter has had only one playdate - I was so stressed about having two of them jumping around that it's never been repeated. I don't even feel comfortable in the garden because it puts us in close contact with the downstairs neighbours who have the other half.
They are a couple in their 60s I guess - seem to be retired - living with an adult daughter. Our flat has been rented out for years but last tenant was a single female working full time and probably out in the evenings - so of course they are going to notice the difference.
I can't ignore them as the landlord has asked me to deal with the problem. So what do I say? I don't want to apologise any more for my daughter being herself. But I do love the flat and have to work this out if we are going to stay.
Other info - we can sometimes hear them talking loudly and also hear the single man living above walking around. This does not upset us. My partner has a son who lives with his mum and sometimes comes at weekends but is not noisy. I am not sure the neighbours have even cottoned on to that yet (thank god!)