Our downstairs neighbour won't stop complaining.

[TeaDrinkingBumbleeBee]

Firstly hi, this is my first post after joining literally about ten minutes ago!

Secondly sorry, as I know this has been asked before but I'm getting myself in a tizz!

Myself and my partner recently moved into a block of flats (just renting). We have wooden floors throughout. On multiple occasions our downstairs neighbour has come up to complain about noise. He says there's constant banging and scraping on the floor. He even complained on our first day saying we were too noisy moving in.

I keep going from feeling "FFS grumpy old man" to tiptoeing around and feeling guilty. AIBU to feel like this?

We don't make any anti social noise...my partner is currently WFH and was working till 10pm. We got a complaint over what I assume was his desk chair moving!! What on earth are we supposed to do?? I've gone to bed and am now worried that getting up to use the loo will cause another complaint!

What can I do moving forward? We can't afford to get big enough rugs (living in London is a killer right?) but I've just purchased some felt pads for the bottom of our chairs. Is there reasonably anything else I could/should be doing?

Thanks guys, sorry if this shouldn't be in this topic, very new to this!

Hard floors in flats are really anti-social imo.

The council where I live include a clause in the tenancy for all flats except for g/f ones, insisting on carpetin in all rooms except for kitchen and bathroom.

It would drive me demented to have someone clip-clopping above my head on wooden or laminate floors.

I do agree with making as many changes as you can, but ultimately when we were in this position we eventually moved. Our landlord wouldn't entertain changing the floors. It was just depressing to have to creep around all the time and get complaints/shouted at for totally normal things like walking around. We didn't run appliances or water after a certain time at night including flushing the toilet. Never wore shoes in the house. Had soft pads on the bottom of any moveable furniture. There was a particularly alarming night when the lady downstairs apparently had had enough of my DH snoring, and in response started shouting and banging her bed against the wall, we called the police because we thought she needed help!

Just poorly designed and built flats. We live in a flat now, whole building has wooden floors and ours has laminate on top in most of the rooms. Occasionally at about 1am you'll hear the faintest whisper of somebody's washing machine, and if there's an important football game and people have their windows open, you can hear them shouting. Other than that and the occasional waft of cigarette smoke there is no indication that you share the building at all.

Thanks guys some fab suggestions. I haven't figured out the bold quotey thing yet so sorry I'm not replying individually!!!

Wayfair was a great shout - found a runner rug for £13 and IKEA has some good options too. Will chat to dp about buying some of these (he cares more about aesthetics than me haha)

Shoe rack is now next to the front door - we take them off anyway but this will hopefully minimise footsteps.

We only hoover at weekends (I get in at 9pm three nights a week, and 6 pm the other two - so too late to hoover then!) so that's my only concern with rugs - dp is a bit obsessive and can hoover for hours so hopefully it's not too bad

Next time he complains I'll definitely send dp down with him so he can hear the noise I'll make. I think you're all probably right - the pitch perfect example make my teeth hurt so if it's anything like that I really do feel for the man.

Felt pads arriving in next few days - got a pack of 140odd for £4 so I'm gonna be sticking those bad boys everywhere

Thanks everyone!

Hang on - your husband is a chair scraper, works from home a lot and can Hoover for hours???

@donneytrumpgal

Yes! He hasn't hoovered here for hours here yet as I had a go at him because I didn't want the neighbour to be disturbed - used to drive me mad in the old place!!

Just one word of caution, the point about your DH working from home. Imagine this from the landlord's viewpoint. He installed the flooring 3 years ago and the previous tenant basically was out 7 till 11 then in bed, there'd be some noise on a Saturday and they spent Sundays in bed and didn't do much. The neighbour didn't have cause to complain because there were huge chunks of time when it was silent.

Suddenly a new tenant moved in and all day every day there's movement upstairs, chairs shifting, foot steps to the bathroom, doors closing to the kitchen etc. It is relentless on the neighbour so he complains to your landlord. "Your new tenants are a nightmare, never had a problem with the old ones, I just don't know what to do..." So your landlord cuts his losses at the end of your tenancy and you've now got to find new fees and move in 6 months time.

Now that might not seem fair but particularly in the London market (and the fact that you have already indicated even buying rugs might cost too much) it is quite possible if your neighbour becomes a PITA to your landlord.

I'm a downstairs dweller and previous owner had wooden floors. It made me miserable. I could hear every footstep, every time they moved something, every argument, when they were having sex. I hated it and they weren't doing anything wrong. The next owner was very kind and put some noise insulated carpets down. It's so much better now.

I meant previous upstairs owner

@AnnieOH1

That's a very good point. Maybe next time (hopefully there isn't one now!!) We'll ask if he had problems before and what they were doing differently so we can do the same.

Hopefully dp won't be WFH as much in the next few days - he's had a broken foot which has probably made things worse.

I guess my main concern is I feel that we can never have friends round - even telling people to take shoes off and tiptoeing from rug to rug there's going to be some noise and if it reverberates as badly as it seems then I'll be feeling on edge all the time.

When my sister had an apartment in New York the building rules were that 80% of the floor had to be covered with rugs.

I have wooden floors, with people living on floor below, and I'm very conscious of noise. I change into soft-soled slippers immediately I'm home, or socks with thick soles. All my furniture has felt pads on the feet.

Anything you're buying to make this problem go away should at least be partially paid for by your landlord. Speak to the property manager - not fair your you to end up shelling out loads on rugs etc in order to be able to live there.

If your dp has a broken foot chances are he has one of those boot cast things on. Probably making more noise as he walks.

I'd say rugs though out and no shoes indoors, slippers only.

I had this, move into a gf flat in an old building. The sound-proofing was non-existent. The couple who owned the flat above me had wooden floors and used to bring their DCG to stay at weekends and school holidays. It was honestly like having a football match going on overhead; balls bouncing, running, screaming, shouting - and we lived less than five minutes from a bloody beach! No idea why they didn’t just take them there. As the building was a strange design and people had access to different bits of it (was a former children’s home) their washing machine was in a cupboard in the hallway next to my front door. Thankfully, they only used it as a holiday place.

People make a difference too. I used to live in a ground floor flat with one bloke living above. Never heard him walking about at all. When his woman friend came round she sounded like a herd of elephants, just going up the stairs and moving from room to room. The place was carpeted too, goodness knows what it would have been like otherwise. You might be heavy footed.