Neighbour complaining that we're noisy

[MrBobLobLaw]

So we're having a bit of an ongoing issue with our neighbours below us. We only moved in 7 weeks ago. When we moved in I was 4 days overdue DC2, who arrived 5 days after that. We also have a 2yo who is very... two. So it's been a busy time and pretty full on.

We're on the ground floor and the neighbours are below us in the basement flat of a Victorian conversion. Obviously the floors are thin, such is the nature of the building, we hear the people above us walking about too but we have a rug down and try to be mindful as their bedroom is below our front room/kitchen.

They've complained twice before- once face to face when they knocked on the door in the evening when the baby was 2weeks old. I was obviously pretty flustered but said we'd do something. The second time was by text. Thing is the time they're complaining about (9-11pm ish) is when DC1 is in bed anyway and we have to do some degree of tidying during that time.

Anyway we got another text this morning saying can we be quieter in the morning, that 6:45 is early and can we be mindful of them. Obviously I sympathise, the couple who lived here before didn't have kids and were away a lot I think so it must have been quieter for them all round. They also don't have kids so wouldn't really understand that you can just shush a 2 year old or tell them that 6:45 is a bit early. As soon as we're up i put on the TV and I make DC1s breakfast so that he's sitting as much as possible.. but he's two! He wants to play and walk around. I feel like he's taking the brunt of it as I'm always having to tell him to be quiet, walk softer etc when really he's not doing anything wrong he's just being two.

Anyway we've been polite and apologetic thus far and tried to satiate them but we live here too and I can't make the building not Victorian. I'm knackered from looking after both DCs (not their problem i know) and feel like I'm doing all we can do be quiet for them.

WIBU to send the following text? :

Morning Neighbour, I’m doing the best I can with a 2 year old and a newborn to contend with now DPs back at work. If I could keep them both asleep and in bed for longer I would. Perhaps some earplugs might help.

Is that too rude?

I can understand how your neighbours must feel. Hearing your noise up to 11pm and being woken at 6.45am is pretty anti-social.

Definitely think you should put down carpet and consider headphones for your DC when watching telly.

I think a part of living in a flat is being considerate to your neighbours.

I'm also shocked that there are so many posters saying that the OP is being U. She's already doing all she can to keep noise disturbance to a minimum. They don't wear shoes inside the house, and there isn't much they can do to reduce the noise further.

I do agree, though, that any of her draft texts would be seen as rude. And anyway, if the neighbours are smoking weed, that puts a completely different spin on things and means that the OP has more right to complain about them, so she doesn't have to engage with them at all.

We're not talking about anti-social noise, come off it. She doesn't hoover the floor in the evening or the early morning, we're just talking about a little tidying up. And 6:45am isn't early at all for a toddler; our DD2 used to wake up at 5am constantly at that age. People are mostly getting ready for work at that time.

I think some posters automatically assume a neighbour's complaint about the OP must always be justified.

Your updates about the neighbours smoking habits clarify why they think 6.45 on a Wednesday is early to rise?!

I would disengage if there is nothing else you can do. So acknowledge them but ignore what the complaint afterwards. Say if you bump in to them and they say something, respond in a minimal way, 'ok, yes, thanks for letting us know etc.' then walk away, same with text or if they come to the door. They are being unreasonable and unrealistic. I don't think they would want to meet you for a coffee even if you offered but I wouldn't bother anyway as you are then the one justifying your behaviour.

Personally I think unless it is loud music, parties, construction noise or a continuously barking dog most people exaggerate the noise coming from neighbours. People expecting to live in silence and not accommodate the day to day noise of normal living should get themselves a detached house in the middle of nowhere. And I say this as someone who really values quiet and has had a particularly noisy ongoing extension next door for the past 8 months but knows how to accommodate people. The complaints are ridiculous considering you are not only living in a flat but a Victorian conversion.

I get where your neighbours are coming from to a point. The ‘moving furniture’ will just be you moving your dining chairs, the clumping about is just the effect of the vibration and noise transfer on a wood floor. You can’t be on the rugs all the time, and it’s probably the activity off the rugs that bother them, even though you think the rugs should help, they probably don’t as much as you think.

Wall to wall carpeting with good insulating underlay would sort it out. It did when we were the upstairs neighbour in almost the exact scenario (we didn’t have kids then, but the downstairs neighbour was still going insane). Carpet fitted, never another peep from them. I guess it depends how much the tiptoeing and complaints are effecting your life.

I’m going to go against the grain here and say YANBU. Unfortunately when you decide to buy a flat, particularly a conversion, you have to accept you’ll hear regular noise. They have no right expecting you to change your life to suit them or keep a baby and toddler mute. Unreasonable noise would be loud tv and music at unsociable hours, banging unnecessarily etc, playing, walking around and cleaning are normal noises. If it bothered me so much I’d sound proof my flat not expect my neighbours to tip toe around and whisper in their own home.
I’d speak to them face to face and inform them you are as quiet as you can be, however with two small children it isn’t easy, agree to keep the noise down once toddler is bed and leave it at that. If you pander to their requests they will push more and more. I get noise is annoying and when you expect it at a certain time you listen for it which makes it worse (I live next door to elderly people who are awake all night watching tv and banging around and let their dog bark 24/7 I can predict time it will begin)

I think the key here is that the previous residents of your flat didn't have children, and were away a lot - so the downstairs neighbours got used to relative silence from above. Now you are just doing perfectly normal, household activities, with two normal children, they suddenly have to deal with normal neighbours.

You're not doing anything wrong. You're trying your best to minimise noise. But, you simply can't eliminate normal noise, nor should you be expected to. 6.45am is certainly not excessively early to wake up. You don't need to spend money on carpeting or soundproofing, nor wear headphones - your downstairs neighbours could do these things in their flat if they continue to object to normal household noises.

Not sure how best to convey this to your neighbours in a way to keep on friendly terms - I'm sure there are good suggestions above. Good luck OP

Some people here have clearly never lived in a flat. I could hear my neighbour washing up in my old flat.
I would just sent them a polite message but maybe speak to landlord regarding carpets

The OP owns her flat.

FWIW..

A lot of people complain about the noise inflicted on them BUT they never realise that they make noise that the other people hear!..

Soundproofing.

Is not that easy to do as a retrofit, good sound isolation needs dense walls and floors and mass, and isolation that to say they arent coupled to each other we see this is radio and recording studios were a room within a room is the norm.

Sound is a vibration and thats energy you need to keep that energy contained and or absorbed here some deep pile carpets and underlay can help a bit as can wall drapes and the like they absorb Your sound and converstly will help absorb the interfering sound from next door or up or down wherever.

Achiving total isolation is very difficult and expensive and in most buildings cannot be done. But this can be a case of every little helps it might, just might, make it so that their perception of your noise may then not be quite as annoying as it once was, but they as all must relaise that each entity will make their "noise" course then whats reasonable?

How long is that bit of string again???

I sympathise with both sides. We are in a ground floor flat in a Victorian building and the sound insulation is terrible. When the guy above has his children over, it sounds like a herd of elephants. Equally he is woken up by my husband's work alarm at 4.20am. We also have a weird configuration here where his living room is above our bedroom - we can't swap as the bedroom is small and you couldn't fit a sofa etc in here really.

I think it sounds like you are doing what you can really and you have confirmed you aren't hoovering etc late at night. Equally their bonfires and weed are not very neighborly and perhaps they should be reminded of that. I do think letting children run and jump around all the time above someone else is unreasonable though or scream and shriek constantly, which we have had in other properties.

I would try to stop all noise from 10pm- tidying 9-11pm is so late and totally infringing on your own evening too! Can't you get your own bedtime routine bought forward slightly so you are in bed/reading/getting rest as baby sleeps or feeds but you are not walking around or making added noise they could complain about?

While DH puts kids to bed at 7 that's when I do the mad dash of cleaning up/stacking dishwasher/tidying toys/hoovering so we can enjoy being downstairs while eating our dinner/ watching telly on sofas without it looking like a creche.

Could you not tidy up then too?

Other than working to bring your own bedtimes forward/more relaxed down time rather than frantic late night tidying up- not much you can do. But I'd definitely suggest trying the earlier winding up at night as some form of compromise to them.

Sorry OP- somehow missed your post about their weed smoking/fire pit habits, in that case I don't think you need to change a thing. They are far from perfect.

I don't understand why you have to let your DC into the living room if their bedroom is underneath it?

Can't they play in their room or in your room?

I think it's mostly the unfortunate side effect of living in a Victorian conversion. I would never, ever live in one again after five years in one... I actually lived in the top floor flat and still heard the neighbours all the time.

As long as you're trying to be mindful, for example not hoovering, blasting music/TV or letting your DC run around the flat at top speed very early or very late, then there's not much more you can do. The normal sounds of living are just that.

The basement floor flat neighbours could look into soundproofing their ceiling, other than that, living in a conversion is like sharing a house with all your neighbours as far as sound is concerned.

Your neighbours are being unrealistic, maybe not unreasonable given that noises can drive you crazy but definitely unrealistic as they live in a basement Victorian flat! I have lived in a ground floor Victorian with bare floorboards above (noisy) carpet (couldn’t hear anything) and then wooden flooring (damn noisy)
I would say don’t apologise too much, you can’t really change the fact that these houses weren’t built as self contained dwellings or the fact that these days most people don’t have heavy furnishings to absorb the noise. How come they are not up and getting ready for work at 6:45 or are there in the day to moan about the toddler? Are they in all day? That’ll make their perception of the noise worse than it is because once you’re aware of it you can’t escape it IME

I'd say sorry but there's not a lot you can do. You can't not walk around your flat.

I live in the basement of a similar conversion and the noise is horrific. They've been lucky to have nobody above them and unfortunately you're just making normal noise.

I've got earplugs, and I suggest they buy some too.

Been there op. Old Neighbour, neighbours daughter and husband all appeared at my door every single fucking week with a log book of what noise they had heard from us.

She said my son was walking about at night, he was too noisy during the day and he laughed loudly, played with toys too loudly, tv too loud, He was 1 at the time and had slept through the night from a young age.

We had carpets and a rug on top of that but she still complained every single week. We were accused of having loud parties each week (with a 1 year old 😂)

Final straw was when she came up with the family in tow with the book and complained about the noise we had made that week and the week before that but we were on holiday. She was told to fuck right off and never come back to my door and that it couldn't have been from us because we were only back and had been away for 2 weeks.

We moved.

She complained about new neighbour making noise. New neighbour is very unwell and has carers and nurses in. She has complained that the carers are too noisy going in and out and that she can hear them buzzing up.

I think she expects silence.

Don't mention the earplugs. But the rest is fine. They live in a flat they can't expect silence. If they want silence they should live in a detached house away from other people.
It doesn't sound as your noise is anything other than normal living.

21anon2000000000 oh my goodness that is shocking to read. Hope you're happy and relaxed in your new home.

I think I'd put the flat up for sale and look for somewhere more suitable to live.

@ohprettybaby put the flat up for sale? They only moved in seven weeks ago!

*I don't understand why you have to let your DC into the living room if their bedroom is underneath it?

Can't they play in their room or in your room?*

Are you joking?! They are 2 and a baby. They deserve to be close to their caregiver, not in a room on their own.

I'm surprised that you've given your neighbours your mobile number. I cannot imagine sharing mine with any neighbours! It sounds as though your are just making normal family noise so personally I would block their number if you can, and ignore, while doing what you can to minimise noise. There is not much point engaging with them because realistically there is always going to be some noise and if they were used to silence they are never going to be happy. They can choose to either tolerate it or move (the same as everyone who lives next door to barking dogs has to).