To downsize from a house to a flat because of neighbour noise?

[iheartheirbodilyfunctions]

I currently rent a two bed mid terraced house from a housing association. The walls are very very thin and the neighbours bathroom is next to my bedroom. I hear everything. Every wee, every fart, every shit, every bum sliding across the bath, every toilet seat slam, every 2am bathroom cleaning. Everything. They wake me up throughout the night banging about, every night. I’d say it’s half them being very inconsiderate (ie slamming doors so loud my floor vibrates and windows rattle) and half the thin walls making me hear regular household noise plus they seem to work shifts so the bathroom is in constant use (baths and showers throughout the night). I haven’t slept through in months despite trying white noise etc. I’ve also tried sleeping with the TV on which works well for me but bothers the neighbours in the house on the other side so I’ve stopped (because we never hear anything from them in the night so I don’t want to cause them sleepless nights!).

I have the chance to move to a two bed flat with the same HA. I wouldn’t have a garden anymore and the floor space is smaller. I was so happy when we got this house too after years of horrible renting situations. I feel stupid giving it up but I’m just so desperate to sleep again and the layout of the flat means the bedrooms won’t be near the bathrooms and I’d only have one neighbour underneath for one of the bedrooms, and the other would be with a neighbour underneath and one next door. But then I could move from the frying pan into the fire! I’m so tired from months of no proper sleep that I’m worried I’ll make the wrong decision. Private renting again is not an option financially and neither is buying.

AIBU to move to the flat? What would you do?

My worst experiences of neighbour noise have been in flats so I would never live in one again. With flats you have more neighbours, so more chance of noise.

I'd be wary about taking a flat as, in my experience at least, they're usually poorly soundproofed and even worse for noise/neighbour hassle. Would exchanging with someone be an option?

Have you tried ear plugs? Repositioning your bedroom? Personally I wouldn't want to move from a house to a flat after the year we've had with covid I really value my garden.

I've lived in a flat and trust me, you'll hear a lot more noise then you do now if you lived in one

Noise issues are worse in flats ime. If there's only one flat per floor and you're top floor then that's about the about best you can hope for.

Living in a flat and dealing with neighbour noise (and their cooking smells - even harder to block out than noise!) is what made me move to a house in a worse area. Would never live in a flat again and wouldn't recommend it to anyone who is sensitive to neighbour noise (as I am, too).

A flat would be much worse for noise!

Stay in the house and invest in some ear plugs or noise cancelling headphones.

I had one flat with awful noise and one concrete new build that was solid and silent. You need to be careful.

I would never live in a flat by choice and especially not one with no outside space. The pandemic has shown how important it is to have outside space.
Good headphones are what you need, and a hope they will move on before you.

I have lived in four or five flats in my life, noise insulation varies, some you can hardly hear anything whereas some you hear everything.

The one I am living in right now is a new built, built 5 years ago by a very prestigious developer, I live on the top floor and I can even hear my neighbour noise two floors below me, this is how bad it can be however I can only hear certain types of noise though, impact noise such as footsteps, children running, door slamming, I can’t hear their TV, music or them talking.

Oh dear, it does seem like there’s no hope with this one then! Repositioning the room hasn’t worked because of the volume of the banging about. It literally sounds like they’re moving furniture about sometimes it’s that loud. It shakes the floor. Honestly the houses are ridiculous for noise carrying. The walls are some sort of concrete and straw thing apparently. There is not a single place in the house where I can get away from the noise. Even the regular noises carry (you can hear the toilet flush even when you’re downstairs or two rooms away... I dread to think what the other side hear from our bathroom!). I’ve never lived in a house as bad as this before for sound carrying. I can hear them bashing about in the bathroom as I type this.

Exchanging isn’t an option as people round here don’t want to live in these houses. Apparently they are known for being shit. Wish someone had told me! You live and learn I suppose.

The garden isn’t a massive deal for me because we can’t use it at the moment anyway. Their cats poo in it daily and I can’t clean it up because of medical issues. It’s literally a giant litter box. It all makes me quite sad tbh because I was so happy to get this house. I was hoping the flat would be a way out but it does sound like noise would be an issue there too.

Look into soundproofing

For me it would depend on how newly built the flats were. I live in a 8 year old HA flat and we get hardly any noise unless the wee boy upstairs is doing football drills inside! We have 2 flats to a floor and none of walls are shared. Our issue is shared bins and lack of outdoor space.

Really tricky one.

I lived in a modern flat before and the sound proofing was excellent. But in my current terraced house, I can hear a lot (but nothing like as bad as yours).

Can you find out when the flat was built? Our flat was built in something like 2005, after the building regulations were changed which made soundproofing better, or so I told at the time when I was viewing the flat. I'm no expert though.

Definitely look into soundproofing and earplugs. I suppose it's not possible to use the bedroom as a (small) lounge and the lounge as a bedroom?

Ah, one other idea. You say you've tried white noise, but have you tried white noise or soft music, rain, etc. played through bluetooth headphones? I have a pair that's built into a soft fabric headband/eyemask. They're really helpful against the noise of a snoring partner, so they might work for neighbour noise, and they don't cost that much to try.

Depends on the flat. I live in a flat (actually I have lived in flats my whole life) and I never hear my neighbors.

We rented a top floor apartment in an old Victorian terraced house. We could hear every word the woman below us said when she was on the phone and she used to work split shifts and would come home late at night and start dragging furniture around. Very odd. We mentioned it once and she said she could hear us walking around upstairs, maybe we should have hovered around instead?

I'd keep looking op but not for a flat

I have lived in flats where the sound proofing was so good we couldn’t hear neighbour’s parties unless we were at their front door and I have lived in flats where the sound of the baby 3 floors down is loud enough to wake me from dead sleep.

The nice quiet one was a modern flat. Sleep is necessary for your health. If it is a modern flat then I would take it for that reason alone. You could always swap for a house and garden in a few years time.

I'd invest in good earplugs and DIY soundproofing. Buy cheap egg-crate foam (sold as a mattress-topper) & fix to the wall between the rooms. Then put a nice fabric over the foam for decoration & you'll have a fabric feature wall that also has sound-proofing.

Because you experience nuisance here doesn't mean you will elsewhere

However I would ask for a sub wall to built

It's tricky because flats can be really variable - I remember my grandparents lived in a 1960s built maisonette where you could hear the upstairs neighbours 2 floors up walking around, to the extent it sounded like they were about to come through the floor. Conversely, I have been in tower block flats where you don't hear a peep. Can you go have a look at the flat? See what you can gauge in terms of noise?

Also if you did take the flat, would you have a better chance of a swap for a (more soundproof) house in future?

I do sympathise, noise nuisance is a nightmare. Our noisy neighbours are separated from us by an alleyway and the noise is irritating as it is; if we had an adjoining wall I don't know how I would cope!

Definitely go and look around the flats. As pps said some new builds you really don't hear anything. I've been in flats where there wasn't any noise at all, and in houses where we could hear people putting plugs in sockets (as well as everything else that you've mentioned!) I'd never live in a single brick Victorian house or conversion again for this reason, but would quite happily live in a flat built during the last twenty years if it was anything like the others that age I've been in.

Flats are very noisy, I live in a 3 storey block on the ground floor, I can hear someone unlock a door 2 storeys up, everyone in the block using the toilet, the door intercom getting used. Complain to the landlord & ask for some soundproofing, don't give up your house if you can. Once you are in a flat it is difficult to get out because nobody wants a flat.