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?

You’re fuming ?

God, I would hate to live under you, so entitled and you have the audacity to be ‘fuming’ when your poor neighbour is trying to get some rest, probably after a week working, and then has to get dressed and come and talk to you and get ‘well she’s 3, she can’t help it, tough’. Ugh.

Most don't choose to live where they are, they have to take what they can get. Where I am at so many families are actually living in tents in city designated areas or in the woods because landlords have taken advantage of people and raised the rents so much most can't afford and still nothing is available. I was lucky being involved in a class action lawsuit and won some money to be able to afford three places so my daughter could have a place and one for my brother in law's family but most are struggling to find a place.

It doesn't matter what the cause of the noise is, if the sound your making can be heard in another person's home, it's too loud. As a parent you need to deal with this - either install soundproofing or move somewhere further away. It's not up to the neighbour to fix your noise problem, it's up to you.

Agree.

If children are that rambunctious on a Sunday morning, walk them out to the park.

If a single man were making noise that awakened kids, people would be on his throat. But consideration needs to work both ways.

This was my thought as well. People don't generally reach the point of saying something until after multiple offenses.

Once lived under someone who had a 3 year old who did the same thing with parents using the same excuse. It's not a treat listening and living through the running. Give it a try. Until then, get the kid in line or move to a ground floor unit or expect the same neighbor complaints. Also, managers will not be forthcoming to perspective renters about an upstairs neighbor having a kid.

It’s amazing the number of lazy parents there are! We once lived next to a family, where the two kids used to kick a football against the back garden fence!
It drove us mad!!
There was a park across the road, but the parents were too lazy to take them.

An old neighbour recently told us that a family with four dogs had moved in next to them and they were complaining (the parents) that the kids (now teenagers) were afraid to go out to the garden because of the dogs.
we laughed ourselves silly! Karma baby😃

You live in a multi-family dwelling, so you will always have to be reasonable with the noise your kids make. Normal day time hours are fair game, but early mornings, late evenings, and middle of the night should be kept quiet, and even a 3 year old can learn this lesson.

You can also take some common sense measures since you live above someone. If you don't have carpets, you need to get several rugs and runners, thick ones that will muffle the sound of running kids or other activities. Furniture that scuffs about should also be atop a rug. You should also be actively teaching what is "normal" noise, what is "kind of loud" and what is "too loud."

Kids learn really fast if you put it on a simple scale. "Hey, walking about like that is only a 2 on the noise scale, good job." "When you stomp down the hall, your noise scale hits an 8. Can you try to keep it under a 6?" "Hey, when you scream like that you max out the noise scale, it's really not okay since we have neighbors. Try to be more considerate, okay?" Easy peasy.

Wow really...... the audicity of the responses. Im literally sickened. I work every Sunday so I'm up at 6am and its just normal. Ive had people chew me out to no end I've even had the police called on me because I'm in my apartment taking a shower and the water noise woke them or the creaking of the boards as I'm walking.. the oven noises.

I had some constable yelling at me $600 dollar fine!!! Noise pollution!!! I told him I literally have to make a living. People work for a living some people work every single day and vacation days? HA! your not paid enough to deserve vacation days.

I have 1 younger sister and 4 younger brothers and if they're not screaming at the top of their lungs 5am every morning banging pots and pans together then my mom is having a nervous breakdown because something must be wrong with them. Literally every morning 4am or 5am they're awake with enough energy for a nuclear explosion.

Ok sure you can get them to watch cartoons send them down the road to obesity. But be sure they're going to turn the volume up to ear bleeding levels and no amount of yelling will make them stop. You yell they turn the volume up louder. You cant muffle a child, you do not muffle a child.

Im closing in on 40 now and my sister has 2 of them that I'm constantly babysitting and 5am the 2 and 1 year old are screaming their bloody heads off because your not in their room your not engaging them. So you pick them up take them downstairs and they're running like the flash back and forth back and forth. Yeah sure you can try to muffle them you can insist quiet!! No running!!!.... guess what happens at 7 or 8pm? "AAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!! IM NOT GOING TO BED NO YOU CANT MAKE ME AAAAAAAAA!!"

Its 9pm on a Sunday night and the kids are kicking walls screaming their heads off the neighbors or pulling their hair out they've probably got work early Monday but hey they didn't want noisy kids. Maybe you get them to bed at 7pm but its now midnight or 1am and they're screaming bloody murder because your not in the room your asleep.

Seriously do not feel bad about your kid being noisy. Dont stifle them. Dont make them seditary. Your neighbor should be ashamed for yelling at you. You can't go on an airplane and chew out the parents with a screaming baby. If your living in the city EXPECT NOISE!! lol I had to deal with 20+ years of our house shaking because my dad has a massive nose and when it snores its like a volcano eruption.

I had a roommate in college who salsa danced in his bed every night literally the dude would kick and flip himself over or kick the wall slam his knees against the wall the man couldn't help but flail madly in bed with absolutely no memory of it. Either that or youd hear loud college girls who snuck in the dorms for their boyfriends.

If a neighbor has a problem tell them to move away. You cant silence life. You either learn to sleep through loud noises or people working night shifts or couples newly in love or you seclude yourself to quiet.

Literally myself I cant function without noise. I cant sleep without noises all around me I cannot sit and study if its not in a cafe or noisy dorm room. If I need to renew a license and study for it I pack up for a coffee shop because I literally cannot focus without noises. I hear noises and kids yelling next door and thats my white noise for falling asleep nothing is more comforting because I'm conditioned to it.

I would not have complained to you directly. The next Friday or Saturday night i would have played my music until 1 am; loud enough to make sure it kept your 3 year old from sleeping. That way we would all want to sleep in until 9 or 10 on Saturday/Sunday morning. OF COURSE you are being unreasonable! He didnt ask you to make her quit talking/walking, he asked you to make her quit running and screaming, at 7:30 am on a Sunday. BTW nobody is blaming the 3 year old for being inconsiderate here. Being a good neighbor sometimes takes work. Do your share.

It’s interesting reading these comments. I have been wondering all day about speaking to our upstairs neighbour. He has his grandchildren (3 under 5) staying for the six week summer holiday and they have been running and jumping around since 5.30am! It’s every single bloody morning and it’s just spoilt a weekend with my family here.

Stop hiding behind the fact she is 3.
She is three op
She is capable of knowing what is right and wrong. And if you needto stop her from running: you stop her

Just because your previous neighbours never said anything doesn't mean they weren't annoyed op...

And dont go making up new excuses in a drip feed. Thats not fair.

Yabu. A three year old unless Sen will understand. My DD would as would her friends. If crying from a baby and neighbour complains yanbu. But a three year old running up and down.. Yabu

Totally agree ..

The comment stating that he can't live/move into an apt or shared housing and not expect noise(paraphrasing here).
The other side of that is you can't expect people to not be irritated by noise your family makes when you also live in a shared building. Right?
I raised 2 kids of my own and had a daycare(5 other kids, 2x2's, 2x5's and a 6yr old) and I've never gotten a noise complaint. The kids played but running in the apt is not allowed. Nor was it allowed when we lived in a big home. That's how kids get hurt being the little running ninjas that they are :)
Previously, there was 2 tenants with a 3 year old above me. Yes the parents were HORRIBLE but the girl ran around at insane hours..i actually mean 2,3,4am. My kids, at that time were in elementary and middle school. A few times I had to bang on the ceiling or go up and tell them to stop her as she kept waking up my kids.
They didn't stop and they didn't tell their daughter to. I recorded the audio to show them how loud it actually is when you live below a running child. Its MIND NUMBING. They were trashy people and I figured they wouldn't care. So After 8 months, I sent the original clip and several others(with time stamps from all hours) to the office. They were evicted.
I know with a newborn it's tricky to get out sometimes and let the older child burn some energy off but 3 years old is old enough to explain and teach about respecting that you live in shared housing and YOU can get into trouble(because its the parents that do of course) and That it upsets others living there etc.
Would you want the neighbour to be blasting music or banging during the evening waking up both your kids? Certainly, I presume your kids would be asleep much earlier then the man.
Tbh, I would ask the man to record the noise and send it to you so you can really hear how loud it is. Many people don't understand how loud stomping is to people below. Carpeted floors or not. I'd be willing to bet it's much louder then you think it is.

I used to live in an apartment with a neighbor above and next to me. At night the kids above would be running, jumping, screaming making it impossible to sleep. The neighbors next to me would do it at night in the room right next to my bedroom wall, but during the day they would blast frozen on repeat all day. It got to the point where I couldn't function and my mood declined because of it. I would compare it to torture.. Headphones wouldn't help bc the jumping would shake and rock the walls. I mean for yours and your kids own safety you should look into ways to keep your kid from doing that as much as possible. Make an effort instead of dismissing it. It could save your lives. People are crazy especially when they're trying to rest.

I don't post here ever but I had to comment on this so I'm sure alot of people are going to try to tell you to basically tie your kid up but I'm here to say screw that. I had a very similar experience with a downstairs cat lady. My one year old was learning to walk and would fall down and the neighbor would start walking through the apartment hitting the ceiling, she would complain to the apartment complex all the time (they basically told her she was shit out of luck 😂) but it stressed me out trying to let my child be a kid and to keep from bothering the cat lady. It went on for months and finally we asked the apartment complex to transfer to another apartment. We have several kids upstairs now and after hearing them the last few months I still can't see what the hell she was complaining about. Though we did acquiesce and lost the battle I refuse to lose the war. For the last year on completely random nights a couple times a month I throw dog crap on her patio. Petty I know, but completely satisfying.

Like this person obviously sucks

I'd go downstairs and get the other adult at home to ask child to walk then run up and down the hallway whilst you listen.

You may find that walking sounds much louder than you thought and running even louder. Noise can carry very strangely in some buildings, until you go and experience it for yourself you have NO idea how loud it actually is.

Then check your carpet, can you put down thicker underlay, thicker carpet, rugs on top of carpet.. AND sort out a morning routine so your child is not 'running up and down the hallway'... pre 8am on a Sunday!

Theres lots of noise overspill you can't help, baby crying, the sounds of walking quietly.. but a 3 year old running you CAN stop.. pick her up, take her to another room, sit her down on the sofa.. or take her outside for a walk. It does mean you have to be actively parenting and not telling her from another room whilst you doze or read or do something else though!

For the last year on completely random nights a couple times a month I throw dog crap on her patio. Petty I know, but completely satisfying

There’s something wrong with you, @Sack0potatoes. That’s not petty, it’s disgusting.

Provided you weren't letting her run around and make noise before 9am or after 8pm, YANBU. You can't expect a little kid to never be loud or run about.

Now if it was before 9am or after 8pm where you live, then 100% YABU. People need to rest and sleep, and are entitled to a quiet space to do that, without being woken up early by your toddler running around at unreasonable hours.