Neighbours complaining about baby crying in my rental flat

[Luncharmstrong]

Need to be brief and can give more detail later. I rent a flat on Airbnb.
The upstairs neighbours often complain about noise from guests.

They complain about noise when I am there with my grandkids.

I try very hard to keep the noise down. I stress to all guests that it's a shared space and to stay quiet as poss.

It's ALWAYS children the neighbours complain about.

I really like my neighbours by the way. They are retired. They only live there half the year as they have a house abroad.

So much so I agreed not to have children as guests any more but have to honour current bookings.

Last night the neighbour knocked on the door of the flat because there was a baby that had been crying for 45 min. He asked the guest to get the baby not to cry. It was 11 pm. I am sure he asked very nicely as he is honestly a lovely man.

However I'm scratching my head at this . Isn't that a bit OTT ?

I know we are mothers and probably biased but is it normal to complain about a baby crying ?

Sorry but that is ridiculous. Babies cry.
What are the parents supposed to do, smother their child to pacify that miserable old twat?

I think he should count himself very fortunate that you are turning away future business to satisfy his anti baby / intolerance to any form of mobile human life. Particularly when he's not even there half the year.

Outrageous entitled behaviour.

Hibu to live in a flat and not expect normal living noises from neighbours

I could understand him complaining about Air BnB guests if they were coming back late at night and being loud and disruptive. But families staying and having a normal level of noise is not something he can legitimately object to. If you sold the flat tomorrow a family with small children might buy it.

Your neighbours are horrible.

I hope the next lot play music really loud all night and tell him to F off when he knocks.

Assuming you are allowed in your lease / flat freehold agreement to rent on Airbnb, YANBU especially if you have stipulated no children in the future.

BUT, if I lived in the other flat I would hate the disruption of constantly changing neighbours. Short term lets are likely more noisy and intrusive than residential neighbours.

So I certainly see his PoV although asking someone to stop their baby crying is pretty silly.

I'd tell them you've spoken to the parents and they are going to ask the baby not to cry as much.

No, lottie - say you've spoken to the baby directly and asked him / her to not cry after 11pm at night.

Ah the babyboomers such a lovely bunch. Live half the year here to get access to the NHS, half the year abroad, live in a flat but expect the noise to be zero. You're very forgiving I'd be telling them to move to a detached house in the middle of nowhere if they can't bear 45 mins of a baby crying. Entitled twunts.

They will just have to suck it up, it goes with living next door to people I'm afraid especially in flats.

Babies cry, it's just what they do. Babies don't understand about neighbours and so on. One would assume you don't leave your baby to cry and I'm sure you do all you can to offer comfort etc so what else are you meant to do

It depends. Guests on short term let like airBnB tend to be a lot less considerate because they don't care about neighbours relationships so the neighbours might be a lot more on hedge and feel they have to say something if they don't want to be disturbed all night long.

I had 2 babies in a flat, and always move them away from neighbours bedrooms when they were little, to minimise the noise. It would drive me nuts to hear a crying baby for 45mn. I have dealt with colic, silent reflux, teething so I think it's unreasonable to let a baby cry for that long.

I'm not sure about this one.

I would hate to live next door to an airBnB rental. Too much coming and going, and people who, as a PP said, are not invested in being considerate neighbours.

I suspect there's more to this than just the baby noise.

Dear neighbours I will stop renting to families. This will exclude parents and grandparents.
As a result my preferred customers for letting last will now be limited to young people with no children or families with older children or teenagers.

If the baby really had been crying for 46 minutes then it's a bit much. My neighbours used to leave their baby crying for that sort of length and it drove me spare.

I'm not sure on this one either.

As other people have said it's unlikely people renting an Airbnb flat would show a lot of consideration to the neighbours - why would they?

How often to people come and go in the flat? Do people tend to book for months at a time or is it a new set of people every week or so?

I don't think the crying baby is their actual issue here.

Are you allowed to rent your flat out on AirBNB without breaching the head lease for your flat?

the sound of a child crying makes me want to rip my eardrums out

however, he was mad to do that. They cant stop the baby crying, they might be able to move to a different room (depends on the flat) and you've agreed no more kids, so I think that was crazy.

last time I stayed in a hotel there was a baby crying a lot in the room next door, it was such a cheap hotel the wall was like cardboard. I would never dream of saying anything. It's not like a child running around screeching while playing.

so yes your neighbour was OTT. I too wonder if this is more about air B&B and constant different people but he's picked his biggest stressor as a way to vent or something weird like that.

On a recent thread the general consensus was that the OP would BU by taking a non sleeping baby camping. What difference does it make if it's a holiday let with thin walls?

really annoyed me when our neighbours banged on the wall when my 3 year old DD was having a screaming fit, she's in the process of being assessed for ASD, so I can't always control it. Especially when they play music till 3 in the morning and our bedroom is filled with the smell of their weed. I think it would maybe be acceptable if a neighbour was concerned about a child consistently crying that they felt they had to check, but knocking to tell them to keep the noise down is unacceptable.

Babies cry. People make noise. Life is not silent. Sure, you can take steps to minimise the effect of the noises of normal life on others, but it's silly for people to think that just because they want it so, they have a right not to be affected by other's noises at all. There's a difference between all night parties and the crying of a baby.

You rent flat that you don't live in on airbnb so you obviously don't give a dam about your neighbours.

Random people coming and going all the time.

I used to live in a terraced house and next door's baby cried for over an hour around 3am every night. Her cot was just the other side of the wall from our bed. I never said a word to the neighbours, as I know there's not much can be done (and they bought me chocolates to apologise) but it was absolutely infuriating at the time.

I have now moved to a detached house.

You can stop babies crying for 45 minutes usually - I think they only cry for that long if in pain or if the parents are deliberately leaving them to cry to "sleep train".

My babies pretty much always stopped crying if picked up and stuck on the breast.

However the only reason to knock on the door of a flat where a baby is crying is to ask if there's anything you can do to help (run to the shop for a dummy/ formula / baby calpol because they can't find the item they thought they packed perhaps, or at a stretch hold the baby so the parent can sleep for two hours and then manage the rest of the night, if they are alone - but probably only if you know the family!)

If a baby is crying for 45 minutes the parents might be selfish thick headed idiots who think that everyone else should suck up the side effects of their hard arse Gina Fording. However it's vastly more likely that the baby is in pain from trapped wind or reflux or actually ill, in which case anyone knocking on the door to tell the parents to get the baby to be quiet is lucky not to get the door slammed in their face or to be ranted at by a frazzled parent!

He complains because you humour him when the tenants tell you. Next time tell him to fuck off - he'll soon learn to live with the noise.

Oh dear! Do the neighbours think the parents like the baby crying at night! My second child could cry for England and there was nothing we could do would stop it. The reason I stopped at 2! Couldn't go through that again and yes I tried everything believe me.

45 minutes of crying is unusual surely? Or have I been incredibly lucky with my wee one?

I often wonder if its a natural reaction to a babe's cry that we have an inbuilt thing to respond to what I think we perceive is a distress call from a babe?.

I certainly still do, despite the last babe here being some 18 years ago it still puts me on edge that the poor mite needs attention, and it probably appears crying longer that what it actually is too?.