To send a text to neighbour about her early morning phone chats

[VaukaPinvhin]

My neighbour in the flat below is chatting on the phone most mornings between 6.30am - 8 am. There is bugger all insulation in the building and I can hear every word . I have mild hearing loss so it’s not like I’m highly sensitive to noise. I’ve been woken up between 6.30 -7.45 every morning this week. Ok a quick call but not a long bloody chat.

AIBU to send her a text and ask if she can go into the other room or wait till after 8 am? She isn’t a bad neighbour - no loud music, visitors gone by 11pm etc. But at the moment when we are all stuck in she is doing my head in.

This is on you to manage, not her.

The fact that you can hear her peeing still means you’ll hear her get up, making tea, rustling her newspaper. If you can that, it makes no difference.

I doubt she is ‘stomping’ or in anyway excessively loud, and I bet you are louder than you think you are. I used to have this problem in my old house. You could hear everything. I used to hear them opening the drawers in the morning. Unless you can sound-proof or get onto the landlord to sort it, you need white noise and earplugs to deal with it.

OP I’ve had this

I repeated a couples’s conversation to them and they miraculously quietened down. And I think bought rugs.

why chat with someone at 6.30 instead of waitIng till a reasonable time
Because that is the time the person she is talking to is available.

Technically I could play the accordion, put up shelves at 5 am because it suits my lifestyle etc.

Actually you couldn’t. These things fall outwith the standards for acceptable noise. Conversations do not.

I am woken by a neighbour's barking dog at around 7 every day sometimes before. I am usually awake anyway but sometimes not. Bugger all I can do about it.

Are you my neighbour too? 😄 Every morning without fail, dog barks. And then every hour on the hour as they let the dog out and it just runs round the garden barking. Bugger all I can do legally, but I will shout at them to shut the bloody dog up.

@ShadowLightning Why is the onus on the OP to put up with it and not on the neighbour to shut up?

This is not a law or even etiquette. It's just something you've decided.

Because if she can literally hear her neighbour pee as she says, then the neighbour isn’t been too noisy. The walls are just far, far too thin. Either the landlord needs to sort the problem, or the OP needs to do what she can to minimise the noise on her end and get the hell out of there when she can.

There’s also no law on making phone calls at 6:30 for that matter. It’s not ‘unreasonable’ noise unless she is actually screaming down the phone - which I doubt if you can hear a neighbour using the toilet!

I would send her a message, but frame it as concern for her privacy rather than irritation at the noise - letting her know you can hear every word of her private conversation.

Even a crying baby can be carried in another room and not left above a neighbour's bedroom at night.

I can't believe people are so rude and entitled. Actually, I can believe it, but it's depressing. Glad I never had to live in the same block of flats as most of the posters on here.

Those times aren't suitable for being loud, if it was in the daytime yabu but this is early morning...

@MamaBearOnLockdown so the are next to another neighbour?

Crying and playing children aren't legal noise nusiances. However one of their parents screaming abuse at them because they have woken up at sunrise and are playing quietly is.

LittleLittleLittle
It doesn't matter if it's "legal", you can show some common sense and a bit of respect for your neighbours when you live in a flat or a terraced.
When everybody shows the same kindness, everyone benefits.

It's the same for people with garden, don't allow "legal" but unnecessary noise.

It must be hell living next to some of the posters on here!

@ShadowLightning How can you possibly say how loud the neighbour is being?

@mamabear the problem with that is that if you live in a block of flats you can be annoying people wherever you go? It doesn't matter which room I'm in, I'll have a neighbour on every side. That's just how it is.

How can you possibly say how loud the neighbour is being?

She can hear her neighbour peeing for goodness sake! If you can hear that, then it’s a clear indication this out poor noise insulation rather than actually noise.

Having lived in a similarly crap house where you could hear everything, I genuinely did think they were loud. Turns out they weren’t when I started picking up on every day normal household noises at a similar level (like opening drawers - it sounded like they were moving furniture around constantly!).

If you can hear her there is a good chance that she can hear you. I would be aware that you complaining about her , that she could do the same about you watching TV at 9.
YABU, and if you want to start something be prepared for the bad feeling that will follow.

I think it's totally reasonable to approach her in a friendly way and ask her about the calls. I would literally be honest and say it's a bit awkward but you wanted to ask about her early morning calls as it's right below your bedroom and it's waking you up. Obviously you understand if it's work and unavoidable, but if not would she mind taking them into another room please.

Just approach it nicely and as if she probably doesn't realise that the sound carries and you can hear her. It might be that she genuinely hasn't realised her voice would carry that far.

Let's face it, the last thing any of us need at this point in time is the day made even longer by being woken up at 6.30.

If you can hear her there is a good chance that she can hear you. I would be aware that you complaining about her , that she could do the same about you watching TV at 9.
YABU, and if you want to start something be prepared for the bad feeling that will follow.

I think watching TV at 9pm is pretty different to having telephone calls at 6.30am directly under your neighbour's bedroom when you know they can hear you. I also live in flats and wouldn't start hoovering or something at that time as it's just antisocial.

BUT the neighbour may just not have realised OP can hear or that her bedroom is directly above, so it's definitely worth a conversation. I would definitely be happy to make changes if my neighbour told me this - all it would take would be for her to move into her living room rather than take the calls right under OP's bedroom.

Mentioning it to her with a suggestion she takes the call in a different room is perfectly reasonable.

Bibidy thanks. Yes I’m going to do that. The other 2 neighbours in our block are so quiet. They guy in the flat opposite I never hear a peep from and our bedrooms are next to each other. He says he doesn’t hear me either. We know how crappy the building is and 3 of us in the block go out of our way not to disturb each other. The neighbour under my flat though is loud, by any standards voice-wise. She has a very carrying voice and I don’t think she realises.

Op this is a difficult one, it depends on your relationship with her and how you word your request. I agree she might not know she can be heard so clearly and may not want to disturb you, or be overheard. If you can't solve it this way, here are some other ideas: I have tried lots of ways to deal with noise and the one that works best for me is a white noise generator app, I like birdsong and sea wave noises. I find that ear defenders (£5.00 from hardware shops) are comforting and the least intrusive. I also like soft plugs,they're for drummers etc, called Pluggerz.

She's chatting. In her own home. It's allowed. Don't like it? Wear earplugs.

@ShadowLightning Yes I have also lived in similar circumstances. Peeing sounds - fine whatever, but I resented them banging around above my bedroom every morning with no thought for me sleeping under them.

You can control the volume of your voice so that others can't hear. At 6.30, I would be basically whispering.

@battlestargalactica
I can see exactly how it would hurt to ask. suddenly her call to (as a possibility) an elderly relative who does that old-people thing of being up from 5, becomes fraught with worry about other people's expectations and "am i resitricting my life in line with everyone around me's random requirements"? leading to self-doubt, unnecessary withdrawal from grounding daily activities and ultimately depression/anxiety even if she didn't already have them
Do you often tell make believe stories when responding to an op?
Op, I'd just have a quiet word with her and hopefully she may be a little bit more considerate

Maybe put it terms of giving her the heads up that her conversations can be heard outwith the privacy of her home . If not, go with the ear plugs.

why chat with someone at 6.30 instead of waitIng till a reasonable time
Because she is in her own home, and can talk to who she likes, when she likes, the same as you can.
It's hardly as if she's hosting loud parties at all hours with dozens of visitors.

You want to be thankful you don’t live above me! I start work at 5 am at the latest, sometimes earlier, because I live in a country with 6 time zones and need to be available for my agents when they are. But I’m in a detached house for that reason (and others). It’s phone calls, FFS, not a chain saw. Maybe she’s an NHS volunteer and making calls to check on vulnerable people?
Get a detached house or a thick rug of you don’t want to hear your neighbor doing something as noisy as talking. 6.30 am is not early. I thought you were going to say she’s on the phone at 3 am.

6.30 am is not early.

Oh come on. It may not be the middle of the night, but to say it's not early is just disingenuous.

The OP is not expecting her neighbour to stop making calls, just to make them in a different room, or at a lower volume, or slightly later in the day.

I start work at 5 am at the latest, sometimes earlier, because I live in a country with 6 time zones and need to be available for my agents when they are. But I’m in a detached house for that reason (and others). It’s phone calls, FFS, not a chain saw.

So why say you live in a detached house "for that reason" and then argue that the reason is invalid?