Letter from neighbour

[christinarossetti19]

More of a wwyd - not sure whether to respond or not.

A letter was pushed through our letter box on Sunday from next door (terraced). It complained about the noise coming from our house and specifically our dd's bedroom. The noise identified was scraping of chairs and banging of doors, which the letter said was preventing next door from working or resting.

Next door has a number of adults living there, all 40s, in a 'rent a room' not a voluntary house share situation. At the moment, there seems to be a single woman who has lived there for a few years, a couple who are newer and a single man who knows the couple has just moved in. The letter came from the single woman (as she mentioned which room she has) but was signed as 'from all of your neighbours'. She has English as an additional language, which is probably may be why she wrote rather than knock on the door? We haven't seen her for months, so possibly shielding.

The problem (sort of) is that our house is very, very quiet. The complaints were all about the noise coming from dd's bedroom. She's 13, obvs not been at school, only ever plays music through headphones. She does open and close her door a few times a day, and moves her desk chair to her desk but you're allowed to do that in your own home! We have carpet upstairs btw, so no scraping. the loudest noise from her room is screeching with laughter when she's on Facetime with her friend, and we do ask her to tone it down.

The houses are solid 1920s so very little sound carry through. Dd rarely has her window open, as she hates flies etc.

We talked it through and decided to ask the children to be as quiet as they can, to be mindful of noise ourselves but decided against sending a letter back. We're not sure of the dynamics there, and didn't want to put through a letter that someone other than the occupant of the back room read.

The same letter - with a heading of letter 2 - was put through our door again this evening. The house has been super quiet today - dd has been downstairs most of the time.

So it looks like she is expecting a response. My instinct is to knock on the door and have a conversation, but I worry that that might be intrusive. So maybe a letter, but saying what? I don't feel inclined to agree that we've been noisy (as we honestly haven't) and I honestly can't promise that we'll try to be quieter - the only way to do that would be if we all stopped moving or went on holiday!

Suggestions as to what to do please, with a view to ensuring that neighbour feels heard, but not 'admitting' to making an unacceptable level of noise.

TIA.

[TW2013]

Could it be birds nesting in the roof? They make lots of scratching noises when nesting and then the chirping starts...

All you can do is live your life and try not to worry too much.

[christinarossetti19]

Amicompletelyinsane that's interesting about the hangers. I do think there must be something (not very loud and for about 3 seconds twice a day) coming through from dd's wardrobe.

She never hangs anything up but she has one of those Ikea mesh draw units in there. I've just pulled out and pushed in the drawers and there's definitely no scraping. It doesn't touch the wall at the back of the wardrobe, so it can be carrying through.

Re: the HMO. I have no idea and while I fully understand and agree with the principle that HMOs should be registered, with the correct smoke alarms, fire doors etc, I'm not going to be phoning the council.

If the landlord gets hassle and decides to sell, she and the other people there will had the additional hassle of needing to look for somewhere else to live.

[Mrsmadevans]

I bet it's the new couple that have moved in and the sound seems like it's coming from your Dd room.

[christinarossetti19]

Justaboy the acoustics aren't shite, that's the point!

They're very solid 1920 houses.

[DisobedientHamster]

If the landlord gets hassle and decides to sell, she and the other people there will had the additional hassle of needing to look for somewhere else to live.

And? Honestly, why on EARTH are you tiptoeing round this unreasonable cow must less making this your problem and trying to sort it? She's ridiculous! Not.your.problem. DON'T go making it your daughter's, either, she's not doing a thing wrong.

[Enough4me]

Note through the door:
"Thanks for your letter, we have investigated this side but do not have anything against that wall that would be making the noises you have reported. Happy to chat in person to get to the bottom of this."

[RedToothBrush]

Just be wary of this turning into an issue where you are the victim of harassment.

[CorianderLord]

Just send them a letter back saying - our apologies for the noise, but a 13 year old not at school is bound to make a small amount of noise during the day. This does not break any social requirements or laws.

Thanks

[saltycat]

Wonder if the shoe was on the other foot, and OP was disturbed by noise from next door what the response would be.

[DisobedientHamster]

@saltycat

Wonder if the shoe was on the other foot, and OP was disturbed by noise from next door what the response would be.

Over something as trivial as this? She'd be handed her arse on a plate. Normal living sounds are just that, you have to live with them.

[Namechangecringe]

Scraping and banging could be mice

[DamnYankee]

@Vodkacranberryplease is correct. People are so on edge right now. So anxious that "their" rights are not trampled.
Document. Tape.
And it could be mice! Great idea, PP! We are in the US and do not share walls, but we had no idea until our DD reported that "scrambling" in her ceiling kept her awake

[DamnYankee]

And our house was built in 1990.
Don't count out calling your local ghostbusters. (Kidding).
Maybe I missed it, but it would be helpful to know what kind of noise. Your DD sounds blameless.
Like I said, rodents are so loud. We had an extermination service out and it's taken a good seven days for our "visitors" to quiet down, if you know what I mean. We do have a cat - she is a big baby, unfortunately.

I do like animals, but we've tried everything else - traps and a supersonic system that only rodents can hear, which is totally wild. If you turn it up to the frequency that humans can hear, you can hear owls screeching!

However, sorry, not sorry at this point. DC was melting down because a lack of sleep. Pretty penny spent. Worth it.

[Jenasaurus]

@alwaystired234

I agree with pp about potentially being mice if it's scratching

I thought this when I read the scratching noises in the OP, but then again I havent heard a mouse slamming a door

[Jenasaurus]

I used to hear noises from the flat next to us, always late at night, not really loud but, thud thud sort of repetitive noise, it turned out it was the neighbour walking round and round to get their steps up for their fitness tracker watch. They wanted to do 10000 steps a day and rarely did so did the remaining ones before going to bed at about midnight!

[GameChange123]

Maybe contact your local community support for advice? For all you know they may have written similar letters to others. Also you can make your point about noise to them & demonstrate your reasonable 'enjoyment' of your family home during lockdown. Second council hmo enquiry too!

[Maduixa]

christinarossetti19 - for what it's worth, I think you've handled this really well.

I've been working from home for years, and have moved a few times, so have heard an assortment of strange neighbour noises. I'm probably more sensitive to noise that a lot of people, just because of being home so much and having to get work done there. (As you noted - now we're all oversensitive, thanks to COVID life!)

I've found that noise genuinely sounds quite different to the person hearing it from the other side of the wall/ceiling/floor, and it's easy to misinterpret or to misjudge the source - also possible to BE the source and not know it. (Just for example - a mysterious humming/rumbling sound that would go on for a day or two and then stop turned out to be neighbour's 10yo running a rock tumbler - he'd put it in a corner to keep it out of the way, not realising that being flush againt a shared wall on a hardwood floor caused noise/vibration on our side - problem easily solved!) Good noise-cancelling headphones are fantastic to block most noise, but shaking/vibration is more difficult.

Anyway, if she's putting letters through your door, I think it's fine to put a responding letter back through hers. If she's signed it "from all your neighbours", the others probably know about it (although they may not be as invested as she is). You could say in the letter she's welcome to stop by if she'd like, or meet you outside - or perhaps a telephone conversation would be possible? Could she record the noise, if she doesn't want someone in the flat/room?

Since you don't know the people in that flat at all it's really hard to tell if it's a legitimate problem that is best solved by working together (even if that's to eliminate your household as a source of the noise), or sheer unreasonableness/unrealistic expectations, or anything in between. The fact that she's been living there a while and hasn't complained but is now saying the noise has worsened would make me think she may have a legitimate concern, although likely your DD's room is not the source. Her letters seem civil and coherent, from your description. Just be wary of being sucked in to something that's not your issue and that you can't help with no matter how cooperative you are.

[therealkittyfane]

Scraping and banging could be mice

Birds here.
Has she checked the roof outside her room for a nest? The ones here have only just started to quieten down as the baby birds have flown their nest. 3/4 months of noise.

[SunRa1nSummer2]

You don't need to visit into her property
She doesn't need to visit your property

It sounds like normal household noise

Some sound travels in terraced properties

[zingally]

You are perfectly entitled to make normal living noises in your own home!

A couple of weeks ago, we also had a letter through the door from the neighbours in the adjoining block of flats to ours, complaining about noise from the tv. We've lived here nearly 9 years, and have never had a complaint before. As a token gesture, we turned the volume down one notch.
Haven't heard from them since, fortunately!

We have quite a bit of neighbour noise, especially from the family that live above us. Wouldn't ever complain, unless it was genuinely antisocial. But it's general living noise. Footsteps, the odd thump, the occasional shout. It's par for the course when you live in close proximity.

[mummmy2017]

I'd send her a letter.
Hi lady in room.
We checked the levels of noise.
Feel free to call the council, as we feel there are no unecessary levels beyond normal day to day kind.
If you feel you can't accept the levels then I feel your only option is to move .

[christinarossetti19]

Thanks all.

Maduixa yes, I am keen to do what we can (if anything) to reduce annoyance to her. Her letters are civil, if a bit strange. They actually say 'periodically pulling and pushing the chair on the floor beside the wall'. Dd's desk chair isn't beside the wall, is on carpet and sensibly how else could she sit at her desk without pulling her chair out?

Although the letters are signed 'neighbours at 34 Walpole Road' they repeatedly mention the bedroom at the back which is she is, so I'm not sure that the other people she lives with do know that she's sent them. That's why I didn't either write back or knock on the front door after the first letter - I don't know what her name is.

Ho, hum. I'll put a note back saying that we're all being as quiet as we can, we have carpets upstairs and we're not sure where the noise is coming from. But she's welcome to knock as soon as the noise starts bothering her, so that we can address it immediately.

Does that sound okay?

[therealkittyfane]

Yes!!

[NotEverythingIsBlackandWhite]

@Mummyoflittledragon

"You don’t know the neighbour and how mentally stable they are. You don’t want to end up being assaulted."
Wtf? Is that the first thought you would have on how to respond to a polite letter from a neighbour?

No wonder the stigma attached to MH issues is thriving with attitudes like this.

[userabcname]

That sounds fine. We had similar in our old place - neighbour knocked on the door and asked if we would mind not running our washing machine late at night because it disturbed her. We had no idea what she was on about - it was only dh and I at the time so we only did laundry once a week (Saturday mornings) and we didn't have a dishwasher or any other noisy appliances. I don't think she really believed us but we moved out shortly afterwards and the place stood empty for a while so hopefully she realised whatever it was didn't come from next door!