Downstairs neighbour complaining about child making noise

[TheseAreMyGoodPants]

Hi all. Wondering if I'm BU to be hacked off?

We've literally just had a knock on the door from our downstairs neighbour. We live in a maisonette, we're in the top flat he's on the bottom. He said 'listen, can you tell your kid to be quiet and stop running around?'.

I am honestly speechless. We have a three year old and a newborn. Yes, she was running up and down the hallway and laughing, but she's 3 and doesn't understand she needs to be quiet at certain times of day. We've lived her for four years, never had any issues or complaints from other neighbours or the ones who lived below previously.

I am absolutely fuming but I don't know if I have a right to be. To me, if you live in a shared building you run the risk of hearing noise. And it's not as if we're playing music or running the washing machine. You know, noise you can prevent or limit. Does he expect us to gag and tie up our child?

Am I BU or is he?

And the neighbour and their family? Do they not need to relax too?

Your neighbour is an arse. If he wanted absolute peace and quiet, he should not have bought a downstairs flat.

Do we know these are not council or HA flats? For all those saying the neighbour should have bought.

Too early on a Sunday morning to have a kid running up and down on your ceiling and shouting. YABU. Had it been after 9 it would have been different.

I don’t think you are being unreasonable at all tbh

I can't help but wonder how posters who think all the noise their kids make should be tolerated when they themselves will be older, with medical conditions that make noise much much less tolerable than when you have young kids and will have to cope not only with noise of you g kids themselves but their parents too because they will have been brought up that ignoring their neighbours and how disturbing they are is absutely fine.

Because incredibly, your own tolerance of noise is much more acute when you are used to it than after your kids have grown up and enjoy a quieter life.

Yes but the child is 3! They're hardly being naughty. They're not having parties or using tools or anything. The child is being a child.

The child is being naughty. They're doing something they (should have) been told not to do.

But it was 7.30am! Not everyone wants to be up at that time on a Sunday

I would have told the guy to get fucked. If you live in a flat you just need to accept a level of noise. His choice. If he doesn’t like it he can go and live somewhere else.

I reckon ‘it only happened twice’ is just referring to today. What about all the other times it’s happened?

@TheseAreMyGoodPants posted at 7.48. By then their neighbour had already been disturbed, got themselves decent (dressed or whatever) to go up to talk to them and then op had stewed on it and posted here so who knows just how early it all started.

Everyone has a limit of what they can put up with and it sounds as if your neighbour has reached theirs.

A 3 year old is definitely old enough to understand this. Firm and consistent parenting about not running indoors is what’s needed. No being flaky on this one. It won’t be long and there’ll be 2 pairs of feet doing it so you really need to get on top of it now.

Ok I had kids in a top floor flat. They were “allowed” to be kids obviously and throughout the day were pretty much left to their own devices so they would have created some noise. Having said that they weren’t wild by any stretch of the imagination but I wasn’t prepared to keep them quiet for all hours, they did need to be kids and play.

After 7pm they all had to be quiet in consideration for my lovely neighbours downstairs. It’s a bit of both isn’t it really.

They have chosen to live in a downstairs flat. If they can’t handle noise from people above using the floor in their own home they should GTF.

I agree with @DancingBeanstalk
I imagine this latest episode was the straw that broke the camels back, and your downstairs neighbour has had enough.

I was raised not to run in the home, that’s what the park/backyard was for.

I feel sorry for the downstairs neighbour, some noise is okay, but it sounds like he has to put up with a lot. Noisy neighbours just ruin the peace and refugee of your home. I’ve sadly had many inconsiderate neighbours in the U.K., and oddly none in my country of birth. But I think that is because my home country has a think of others type of society, rather than the I’m alright Jack mentality here.

As it’s Sunday morning I’ve gone for YABU.

They suck it up the rest of the time but perhaps give them a break & go to the park. Before it’s too hot too.

I'd bet my bottom dollar this happens every single weekend and the poor sod below you finally cracked. I work with kids this age. If there is a rule in the house that you don't run around before a certain time they are definitely capable of adhering to it.

@StreetwiseHercules I would have thought that a family that wants to be noisy all hours shouldn’t have chosen to live in an upstairs flat, rather than a ground floor/downstairs flat being subjected to constant noise.

It’s a bit of both if you want complete silence no one is forcing you to live in a downstairs flat. Move into a bungalow. Additionally it would be totally unreasonable for noise from the upstairs flat very early and in the evening.

God I don’t miss living in a flat. Totally unreasonable expectations from a lot of people who reside within them. I absolutely kept my kids quiet after 7pm but they were allowed to live before that time without feeling like they were walking on eggshells in their own home.

Lay carpets.
Have a no shoe rule(shoes are noisier)

Spent many years living in flats with my 4dc. Enforced from a very young age that running is done outside not inside, same as I enforced no jumping on the sofa. Now they are teenagers, that the neighbours don't want to hear their music. Clear boundaries and expectations.

You would like your neighbour to understand that it's difficult for your 3 year old to not run around on a Sunday morning. Your neighbour would like you to understand that the noise your 3 year old is making is bothering them and affecting their sleep. Try to see it from that perspective, OP, rather than being fuming and thinking your neighbour is being unreasonable.

Of course we have no idea what's going on for your neighbour, but there have been points in life where my MH hasn't been great and I've struggled with getting to sleep. Being woken up a couple of hours after I finally dropped off by a neighbour's 3 year old scooting up and down the adjoining corridor (terrace) at 7am on a Sunday morning has nearly tipped me over the edge.

FFS half of these mumsnetters 🤦🏻‍♀️ it's your home u pay the rent/mortgage u can do as u please. I have a 3 year old and she's active, she doesn't understand when I tell her to do certain things too. To the person who commented about 3 year old should be able to understand well not all 3 year olds are the same!

@StreetwiseHercules why doesn't the op get berated for choosing to live in an upstairs flat? Why can't they move?

@openthecurtain I agree. Having worked in hospitality at university, the bane of my life were mothers that let their little darlings (little shits) run around the restaurant, climb all over the furniture and make a general nuisance of themselves.

Rarely I’d have a child that was raised how I was, sat nicely, didn’t make an enormous mess or scream and had good manners. I always used to comp part of their meal or give them a free desert for being good and tell them what a lovely child they had raised, raising children to be thoughtful produces children that everyone else enjoys too.

YABU and I think considering you've altered your story a bit that you've probably realised this now.

There is no need for a child to be running up and down a hallway and if you really don't want to work on stopping her then you're probably not suited to living in a flat.

You do have to accept some additional noise when you live in a flat, that's quite true. But you also need to be more considerate of neighbours.