Fear of being the noisy neighbour - please help!

[Bettyboo234]

hello everyone!

I moved into a ground floor flat about 1 week ago. Met the neighbour who lives upstairs (lady by herself) and she seems like a very anxious person but lovely. She told me that her and the previous tenants were essentially at war (she claimed they were noisy, shouted abuse at her, did some strange things like move her things etc). at first I seemed worried as you never know who was really the one in the “wrong” but she seems so nice I assumed the previous tenants were the ones who had some problems and seemed like a nasty bunch! (We also had some issues with them when trying to purchase so we could easily believe they were difficult)

anyway, I’ve seen her everyday since ive been here Either just outside or because she knocks and she says constantly “please let me know if my alarm is too loud” and has said a few times how she never wears shoes in her house to keep the noise down and today she even apologised because she didn’t realise it was so windy that something in her garden was rattling and she was going to take it down ASAP. I literally hadnt noticed nor do I care about a bit of noise - and her constantly apologising over the tiniest bit of noise or constantly asking me to let her know if I hear anything is starting to concern me. I have replied saying “same with us, let us know if we are ever being too loud” but She seems VERY sensitive and anxious about it all and I’ve said multiple times to her that I haven’t heard anything and that I really don’t mind but obviously because of all this - it’s now made me very anxious about the noise I’m creating.

the other night our lock snapped off completely and we couldn’t even shut our door so we had to change the locks. We were changing them at 9pm and at 10pm we were going to have to use a circular saw for literally 30seconds to cut a tiny bit of wood. bearing in mind this was all a bit of an emergency as we weren’t going to sleep with the front door wide open, the moment the saw went off she was at the door knocking and told us that she couldn’t sleep. i COMPLETELY understand that any DIY at 10pm is unacceptable but it was a sort of moment where it was an emergency and it was going to be 2 minutes maximum of noise and I would honestly never knock at someone’s door to tell them I couldn’t sleep unless it was a sort of ongoing issue or it lasted for over 15mins or something. I have lived all my life in my previous house and have never ever knocked on a neighbours door and vice versa No one has ever knocked on mine, even having parties until 1am my old neighbours understand it’s maybe once every few months that it happens for a birthday or something and it’s not malicious/something that happens all the time.

I am now completely terrified to do anything. It’s daytime and I feel scared to turn my cake mixer on because I’m almost waiting for her to show up at the door. I feel scared to watch TV at night or cook at night as she clearly goes to bed early and I am having really bad anxiety in this new place as I feel like I have no idea what she can/can’t hear. she says the sound proofing is terrible yet when I bought this place I felt like there was actual concrete in the ceiling/her floor and thought it would be good.

Now knocking on the door for the DIY is justified (I did send her a message to apologise again the next day and I let her know it was an emergency and I would never usually do DIY that late and she was thankful and seemed to appreciate me sending her that message). but obviously her apologising for something rattling in the garden, or talking about her alarm has now made me tiptoe in my own house looking at the door while I’m doing anything expecting her to show up.

could anyone give me any advice on what to do? I’m not sure how to get over the anxiety and feel like I can do what I want in my own place whilst also not fearing her showing up. There’s no hostility between me and the neighbour- she seems lovely but she also seems very stressed/anxious and clearly has no problem coming to the door to let you know if she’s being kept awake even if whatever the noise is has been on for 30 seconds. I want to (post COVID) have garden bbqs with friends. My job is a home baker and I need to use a noisy mixer during the days, I want to play music while I’m baking at a medium level and not constantly have anxiety/fear that she will message me or come to the door about it. I now think this may be why there were issues with the previous neighbours??

I am definitely not a “noisy” neighbour. I just want to go about and do daily things without fear of the door knocking :(

thanks for any advice!

@DebbieGetsTheJobDone aw I was being . facetious I’m not surprised it’s gone over your head.

This is definitely noise anxiety, I have this too and although I’d never knock at someone’s door at all never mind this excessively, I completely understand how she’s feeling right now.
She had noisy neighbours that upset her, she now wants to be on good terms with you to avoid that happening again. By apologising she is showing you she means no harm and doesn’t want to get into a noise war, also dropping hints that she hopes you won’t either. Once you have settled in and got used to the sounds etc you will respect each others’ routines in a sense and she will calm down. Just be polite but don’t pander to her as it will make things worse. If you’re silent in your home to avoid upsetting her then later on if you have parties/long term diy/get a puppy etc etc, resentment will brew as she’ll feel it’s on purpose.
I know it feels a pain to think you have to live your life to another neighbours standards, but trust me it is far better to be respectful of each other as good neighbours are hard to come by. My neighbours know my issues and make noise for fun to upset me. I definitely wouldn’t expect silence or people to amend their life to suit mine, but I think life is better with kind respectful neighbours as it’s hell living next door to selfish noisy people. You haven’t done anything wrong OP, remember her problems aren’t your problem to carry.

No-one has a right to never hear their neighbours OP and you have a right to a normal family life.

I’m not sure you need to be worrying at this point. She does sound a bit noise sensitive. But on the other hand she hasn’t actually complained about you using the cake mixer, or anything normal in normal hours yet.

Am I the only one struggling with how cooking eggs makes noise?

I think she was perfectly within her rights to talk to you at 10pm as you said you started at 9pm - you'd been going for an hour at that point.

It doesn't sound like she has said anything to you about regular daily noise. You're the one making that an issue for yourself.

Youllbeoldertoo
yes dear, whatever makes you feel better

I agree with pretty much everyone - there’s clearly a fine line between enjoying life and being a respectful neighbour.

I am also completely aware that it is now me who is being overly anxious about noise (as she is yet to actually complain about normal noises like the mixer, talking or cooking etc) however, in my previous address (where I lived for years) I have had respectable relationships with the neighbours (talk about issues, say hello in the garden/front porch etc) but have never necessarily felt so involved with them. I had one of the neighbours number after a couple years - again a one-off text maybe but otherwise no real communication, I certainly wouldn’t receive a text to apologise for very minor things and honestly wouldn’t expect them to. Me and my family would make noise sometimes and same with the neighbours and as long as it’s not consistent or done to be malicious, I think that’s part of life. That’s why I was comfortable living in a ground floor flat because I honestly would not have a problem if she listened to music every now and again or had friends round chatting etc. Instead I’m now worried to do those things myself and wish she would make some noise!

She also has never explicitly explained what was so terrible about the last neighbours. I tried to ask to get a better idea of what sort of noise she had a problem with (I know they had a dog but other than that it was just a young couple) but again, that’s where my anxiety has kicked in because it wasn’t like she said “they had really loud parties everyday” it seemed like it was more everyday problems which has also added to the anxiety of me doing normal things might be some form of issue.

I think if I had a few weeks of making all the normal noises daily (cooking, using the mixer, listening to a bit of radio during the day etc) and she doesn’t complain or mention anything then maybe my anxiety would calm down and I would realise that she knocked on the door that one time because that was actually something acceptable to knock on the door for but otherwise she’s not bothered type thing. But honestly even last night, it goes 9pm and I’m just terrified to do anything in case she comes knocking or says something (which is now my problem as there’s no evidence to back this up). I was thinking like can I run a bath??? At 9:30 if she’s asleep? And I think I’ve just got in my head a bit and I would definitely say I am a pushover in the sense that I just can’t deal with the thought of someone coming over to my door and saying something (whether it’s right or not) probably because it’s just something I’ve never experienced!

I actually moved out of my family home because I struggled with my dads partner as she was terrible and made me feel awful and I moved out here with my partner, was so excited as I could finally be “free” to eat what I want, when I want etc and now I’m just filled with dread like I can’t do a single thing without thinking about my neighbour. Using the mixer - thinking she will knock, running a bath - thinking she’ll complain, cooking late - thinking she’ll complain. So I’m doing all these things that are meant to be fun (cooking, making cakes etc) but actually feeling overwhelmed with anxiety that she’ll have something to say about it.

Hopefully that is something that will subside over time if I just do those normal things and she doesn’t say anything then maybe I will feel more comfortable. But I guess it’s just a big worry at the moment as I’ve never experienced so much from a neighbour before - I’m used to just saying hello passing by but otherwise we respect each others privacy and maybe only ever complain in a real out of the blue experience.

Also just for clarification, the lease says no loud noises between 11pm-7am, so I am yet to do anything against the lease at all. I’m usually in bed 11:30-12 and the most I do around those times is brush my teeth and watch an episode on the laptop on low volume. The other night with changing the locks we started at 9pm just fiddling with the door and removing the lock with a screwdriver (there were no loud noises, just me talking with my partner and unscrewing things) so again, even though I completely think the saw at 10pm was unacceptable, I still think it’s very excessive to come and knock when it was my 3rd night being there - if I wanted to make a good impression I’d probably have let that one slide or waited a bit to see what was going on. If anything, I’d probably have messaged saying “I can hear some building works - is everything ok?” Where I would have explained the emergency. I think her reaction is what has set off this anxious cycle in my own mind.

ANYWAY, Thanks for everyone commenting!

I feel like you're making a lot of assumptions here- the previous neighbours were an unreasonable nightmare for all you know. Yes she sounds a bit anxious but so do you.

She's only actually complained during the emergency DIY work- I'm not sure why you didn't tell her you were going to do use a noisy drill beforehand as that could have avoided the whole issue? I had to have a locksmith out recently and I messaged my block of flats group chat to warn them of the noise. In any event she didn't realise till she came round, you explained, she was reasonable, it's a non issue.

Worrying about what issues there might be for scenarios that haven't happened yet seems like a waste of time.

I am sensitive to noise. But normal household noise, kids playing outside etc is fine. The things that would concern me in your post is music that needs to be louder than your mixer. I wouldn’t want neighbours music blaring at me all day even if it is in acceptable hours. The other things is the parties. A one off for a special event, fine. Every week until the early hours, not so fine. You say you’d turn it down at 11. Would you still be in the garden, talking, laughing? I like a drink as much as anyone, but once people have had a couple they can become loud. What seems a normal conversation level to an intoxicated person is shouting to a sober one! So be mindful of that.

But as for cooking, running a bath etc. Crack on. No reasonable person would complain about these things even if they could hear them, which I doubt. I also live in a converted house so I do have some idea of which sounds travel etc.

I know this post is old, but I wonder if you've sorted it...
My boyfriend and I moved to a house in November 2021. The couple next door fitted the description of "weirdos", who smoke marijuana all the times and had 5 dogs. Never seen them going out to work...
Anyway, we moved in that night. The day after, a Thursday at 11am, I was putting a picture on the bedroom and, of course, I was banging the wall with the hammer. What happened? They started banging the wall in response.
Okay... I felt sick to my stomach already. It was a Thursday morning and they saw that we just moved in, so normal people know that, when someone moves in, they'll do a bit of noise whilst sorting the new house out.
Anyway, apparently they then texted my bf to apologise for banging the wall, saying they thought it was the middle of night (?). But the damage was done and I started to be anxious, literally walking on eggshells because of the fear of making any noise.
To make things worse, those weirdos sometimes were shouting at their dogs at 1am, making a lot of noise. The hypocrisy...
Our minimum length of stay was 6 months and, as soon as they passed by, we moved to a different house. I couldn't live like that anymore, being scared of making any noise...
The lady was also quite ugly and unkempt, she seemed rude and she was calling anyone a "twat" if they parked on "her" car spot (the parking wasn't assigned, so people could park anywhere they liked).
Since we moved out, I felt much better. Unfortunately sometimes we come across hypocrite weirdos, and if they disappeared it would be a better world.

I would sit down with her and speak to her as an adult, ask her.how her previous issue started - was it them accusing her of being loud or the other way round.

For example - if she was abused by the previous downstairs Tennant she may have anxiety from that and developed some sensitivity around noise. This would be the easier scenario to overcome as over time her issues may subside as you know you are considerate and not noisy. It would just take some communication so you become comfortable living next.to each other.

If she says they were noisy and that was the cause of the "war" perhaps she is the overly sensitive tenant and a flat is the wrong place for her to live. In which case be prepared for.a war or move imo.

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