To think neighbours seem to be worse when you live in a flat?

[mondayfeels]

Hear me (and my rant) out.

I live in a building with 20-30 flats, so it's not particularly big. But oh my god why does all common sense go out of the window? I know whether you have neighbours in a house or a flat, people are people, and you won't get on with everyone and some people are just a bit self centred, but I'm convinced that there's something about living in a flat that makes lots of people extra a-holey.

Just today:

• Someone new has moved in and taken it upon their-self to fill ALL of the recycling bins with their non-broken-down ikea furniture boxes. They also filled the bottle bin with what looks like a plastic mattress cover. Not content with only making sure we have nowhere to put our rubbish, they have also streamed white packaging foam down all the hallways.
• Someone prior to this dumped a mattress in our bin store and has just LEFT IT THERE. it's been there 6 weeks. Now it's damp and it smells and nobody will own up to it. I suppose it will just live there now
• People stealing each others parking spaces because they don't like their own or have a visitor.
• People not even just leaving normal handprints, but smeary disgusting ones that look like they licked their hand first, on every single bit of glass they seem to be able to find
• The person who lives next to the smoking area screams at everyone who tries to smoke there because it's near her windows.
• The same woman just generally screams anyways, screams at neighbours, screams whilst she does 'fitness instructor videos' over skype, just screams about everything and anything. All the time.
• People smoking weed and hot boxing other peoples flats.
• People letting their kids run up and down the hallways late at night.
• Someone pulling into the car park in the middle of the night consistently blasting something that sounds like the Frozen soundtrack (think they are a shift worker).
• People throwing all their junk mail all over the floor by the letterboxes instead of putting it in the paper recycle bin with is about... half a foot to the left of the letterbox

I could go on.... but I think you get it . Being classically British we tend to sit there with gritted teeth and not say anything, and just watch the drama explode around us between the other neighbours!

And yes - whilst I am frustrated this is still lighthearted at the root, I do love some of my neighbours and hope to stay in touch with them after we leave.

My friends live in a flat (only 4 in the building) with their toddler. He wakes up at around 5.30-6am. He toddles around the flat. The neighbours underneath have recently asked my friends if they could stop him toddling around as it's making too much noise and it's always at 5.30am.

Is there a resident association or management committee to sort out these issues.

@ClamDango

Is there a resident association or management committee to sort out these issues.

No residents association - we were actually in the process of getting our first meeting of this type setup in March but then along came COVID...

We have nearly have a management company, same situation as above - we lost the old company in Feb this year and have had no replacement during COVID knocking the process back. Hopefully the new company will start and remove that damn mattress ASAP!

I think it depends! My block is tiny (4 apartments) and everyone is fine, we have individual parking spaces, own bins and it's quiet. I don't even hear anyone's TV/washing machine. However the house opposite is another story...

Yes!
My old building had 121 flats. Pretty much encountered everything you said plus more. There were parking wars, ASB, cultural differences & racism, noise issues, drug dealers and addicts. That's without people having parties in the flats and communal gardens. Literally couldn't get away from noise or smells. It sounds horrid, and towards the end it was although once upon a time it was a decent place to live.
No longer live there, but still in touch and visit my old neighbours who I'm good friends with. I feel lucky to have escaped

Good fences make good neighbours. The trouble with flats is that there are reduced versions of fences between you and your neighbours.

e.g. you often share waste bins, hallways, ceilings/floors etc. Things you don't tend to share so much with a neighbour in houses.

We have a block of 8 and I can tolerate the odd clunk on the floor above or plumbing noises but shared bins and excessive noise are irritating.
Someone who shares my recycling bin puts everything in, in plastic bags and also wooden shelves, lamps etc.
On the other side, there's a couple who frequently chop up their furniture into small pieces and fill up the bin with it.
An older resident insists we keep a space free in the lay-by for an ambulance! Obviously, if an ambulance was needed, they don't worry too much about neatly parking in a space!
Originally it was an over 55s block but most of the residents are in their 70s or 80s but the last 3 tenants who have moved in have been single mothers and there has been some seriously bad behaviour!
Loud music, drugs, shouting, swearing, overcrowding, animal neglect, domestic abuse, stomping around. It's not the children, it's the parent!

Basically we are pretty much in a culture of everyone can do what they want. It isn't going to change any time soon. Flats make everything worse as others have said because there is a culture of "It's not my problem". If you try to complain you get shouted down. If you try to impose rules you get attacked for being something-ist. It's a shame because living in flats is pretty efficient.

My old flat was great. Secure because the block was secure, huge (communal) gardens that we all enjoyed. Warm. Low council tax. Big bins outside instead of hiddeous dustbins in every garden. Everyone was great.

Twenty five years later and the culture has changed. All the problems you mention are present. (I am no longer there but know the building well). And no-one gives a shit.

I must have had exceptionally lovely neighbours. They could be a bit raucous but genuinely helpful. I lived with toddler ds in a flat in EastHampstead, Bracknell for a year.
My neighbours helped me carry shopping, lent me bin store keys, Lugged pushchairs up & down stairs for me. They were great.

When we lived in a flat the people above us used to Chuck the dregs of their tea/coffee cups off the balcony. It used to splatter our balcony.
I’m pretty ashamed to say I bollocked them like a fishwife, but at least they stopped doing it.
Yanbu.

@Potionqueen

When we lived in a flat the people above us used to Chuck the dregs of their tea/coffee cups off the balcony. It used to splatter our balcony. I’m pretty ashamed to say I bollocked them like a fishwife, but at least they stopped doing it. Yanbu.

this has really tickled me good for you!

Tell me about it, I live in a block of 18 flats, split in to 2 blocks of 9, i'm on the ground floor, I've had a working prostitute on the floor above & an alcoholic on the top floor, my next door neighbour for all that he is lovely is a drug dealer & regularly gets raided by the police, has domestics with his partner most weekends. The whole block stinks of weed, the council don't give a shit about it.

Isn't it just that you tend to have more, close neighbours if you live in a flat? I live in a terrace, so there's only one house either side of me. If you live in a flat you can have neighbours upstairs, down below AND either side, so that's twice as much noise as the average terrace, within very close proximity.

I found it better living in my flat but they were above shops and I had my own private entrance so it wasn't the same as living in a block.

I'm in a Victorian semi now and my god my neighbours are loud!

😂😂It must be apartments!! If you don’t have a lock on your bins the mattress could be a “man with van” doing a free dump of rubbish we used to get this all the time!
I was on the top floor but my ground floor neighbours patio doors opened onto my parking space, I offered to swap many times but she didn’t want to... she just wanted to keep her clothes washing in my parking space.

The recycling stuff would drive me mad. I hate when people just shove huge amounts of stuff in communal bins without any thought for others who use them.

I have a friend who lives in a small block of flats with a communal garden. Somehow a mini tip has accumulated on in the garden - a resident started by dumping an old sofa there and now it’s been joined by various broken chairs and furniture - and even an old hob! Obviously nobody has organised a collection or disposal, so they just sit there. Some people just don’t give a shit.

We could have cheerfully murdered our upstairs neighbours when we lived in a flat.

They were doormen at a local club and would come in up the stairs (noisily), and proceed to make phone calls at 3am (also noisily). The worst time was the weekend they went away and left their alarm blaring...

Oh I hear you on this one!!

Many moons ago I was in a block of six flats. My upstairs neighbours used to play Wagner’s, Ride of the Valkyries every time they shagged.... I still can’t listen to that piece of music without cringing.

Flats just mean you need to be nearer the dickheads next door 😂.

Less personal space so little things boil over.. ie if the mattress was half way up the road in Bobbys garden you probably wouldn’t have given a feck. Same with Susan just chucking her leaflets at her feet two doors up... not your space not your problem.

Lived in some lovely flats, lived in some bloody dives. Personal best was someone burning rubbish in the communal hallway.. next to the fire door.. closed.. by choice.. utter insanity.

We live in a lovely block of 5 flats. We are the top floor, I wouldn't want to be a middle or ground floor I don't think. We are definitely the loudest with a toddler and I sometimes feel for the neighbours but what can you do. We take ds out as soon as we can a lot of the time if he's been up early.
We are very lucky that we don't have many issues. We are next to another block and the only issue is the crazy woman who's flat joins to ours plays loud music sometimes but we complained to the housing association who told her to stop. Now it's not very often.
I think it depends where you live and how many flats are in your block

It depends massively on the flats.

The last flat I lived in was a converted terrace, we were in the basement so we had a garden and our own entrance at the front. Upstairs were quiet and we rarely heard them. Nextdoor however were really noisy, regular parties until 3am etc. I moan, but a few years ago I would have been the noisy neighbour.

The block I live in now is really nice, its a fairly small block with a central courtyard, I have my own private entrance, two parking spots and a nice balcony. Everyone in the block is really nice, during lockdown there were sometimes performances in the courtyard, my neighbour is an actor and he performed part of a play he was meant to be doing. The sound proofing is really good, so you rarely hear the neighbours unless you both have windows open etc.

They're just everywhere when you live in a flat. Even with the best intentions it can get noisy here, especially in the evenings. We live in the middle and we know when we buy a house it will most probably have neighbours, but not above and below too.

I live in a large terraced house and the neighbours we have on one side now are the worst we've ever had.

We've endured a whole year of major building works and now they have converted their garden into a playground. The children are outside all the time shouting and screaming and the parents are extremely loud performance parents. I don't get a minutes peace in my garden until after 8pm.

I live in a block of 6 flats (housing association). I’m on the first floor, which means I have a neighbour above and a neighbour below. Flat upstairs is a bought flat, rest of us rent through the HA.

Neighbour upstairs is lovely. Talks very loud for such a dainty person, so I can always hear when she’s on the phone, but essentially is a lovely lady, similar age to me (40’s) and a good, considerate neighbour.

Every neighbour I’ve ever had below me in the 23.5 years I’ve been here, has been awful.

First I had the noisy sex neighbours. I heard all their moans a groans . Although when they argued it could be quite comical. During one of their rows, I once heard the woman shout “Fuck off Steve I’m on the toilet!”

Then we had noisy barking dog man. Nice guy really, but kept leaving the dog alone and the poor thing would bark and whimper for hours on end.

Then we had noisy music man. Who liked playing his stereo full blast. After beating the crap out of his door in sheer frustration early one Sunday morning in nothing but a dressing gown, I eventually got my own back by putting my speaker on the floor and blasting Smack My Bitch Up through his ceiling. He stopped after that and thankfully moved out shortly after.

Then we had dodgy dealings couple. Who were constantly throwing late night mid week parties and having the police turn up for whatever reason. One night they were involved in some kerfuffle with another annoying neighbour upstairs and I opened my front door to find a young black guy standing outside my door like a rabbit in headlights, wearing a balaclava and a hat and holding a hammer

Then we finally had a little ratbag that moved in and made everyone’s life a living hell with her constant racket. People turning up at all hours, entering through windows. smoking weed, loud music, shouting and swearing. She eventually had a child, which she constantly screamed all kinds of profanities at. And culminated in her calling me a black c**t (I’m mixed race) when I yet again asked her to keep it down. Thankfully she moved out last year and nobody has moved in and it’s been BLISS.

We had some issues with one other flat opposite my neighbour on the top floor with a couple of nightmare neighbours that lived there over the years, but thankfully a lovely lady has moved in now.

People ask me why I don’t rent privately. Thing is the HA rent is cheaper (£388 pcm), but the main reason is that I have an assured tenancy - meaning as long as I pay my rent I have a home for life. Unlike private rental where you can be turfed out at any time. So that’s the only reason I’ve put up with it for so long!