Living in a first floor flat with kids

[Hdiw747]

Follow up from a previous thread.. Moving into a first floor flat with a five year old. Feeling nervous and concerned about downstairs neighbour's.

We currently live on the ground floor and no one has ever complained. However, I know the downstairs neighbors have complained about previous tenants making noise. The flat is already carpeted.

It's by far our best option at this point. It's close to schools, great transport links and is cheap but am concerned about living on the first floor with a kid. Any tips of how best to manage it?

I would only say if your kid gets up early get them to play in the living room or kitchen, rather than feet above the head of your sleeping neighbours.

At the end of the day, if it's just normal household noise they can complain all that they want.

How are your routines? Is your son likely to be really noisy early mornings or late at night?

Ds goes to bed at 8 and up at 7.30 so nothing too horrendous and is obviously too old to be up at night. But he's still little and obviously makes more noise than an average adult

We live in a 1st floor flat with a 1 year old.

The couple above us arguing/ shouting/ crying constantly is far worse than our baby!

Unless you live in a remote detached house you have to put up with neighbour noise.

Unless you're completely inconsiderate it should be fine

Shoes off and slippers on
No jumping off the bed onto the floor repeatedly
Try and limit very noisy toys or play with them.on the bed rather than on the floor.

Raised 3 kids in a first floor flat.

All great tips. We already don't have many loud toys. But for example, do you ever play music outloud?

I previously lived in flats for years, albeit not with children. Yes, it’s fine to play music aloud but just check the volume and the hours you’re playing at (there’s also a difference between regular music playing in the background and some irritating electronic kiddie toy blasting out a tinny yet volume-tastic rendition of Old MacDonald Had A Farm on repeat!) I never complained about the kids upstairs being heavy footed kids. I did complain when they were clearly throwing a football around in the house or having literal screaming competitions with each other. It’s just about being sensible.

Yes of course! And TV of course.

No ball games in the house, or just a very soft IKEA football that's more like a soft toy.

Walk or cycle the school run, go via a playground on the way home if you can, get out for a runaround at the weekend. But most people with 5 year olds take them out daily anyway, for everyone's sanity!

Lots of people live in flats with kids, I lived in a 3rd floor flat with kids now in a gf maisonette my old upstairs neighbours use to allow their 3 kids to ride up and down with cars or scooters all day long, just don’t let them do that and you will be fine!

I think what spooked it is the notice that the downstairs owners have already complained to the council about the upstairs tenants. However, it is such a great opportunity for us that I really want to give it a go.

We've got lots of experience of living in flats. But the last time we did it with a kid, it was a proper apartment block with concrete floors and decent insulation. This is a flat in a converted house

Do you know the previous tenants?
Or what the complaints were about?

They could've very well been justified to complain,but still be reasonable people .

@ldontWanna they complained about the noise but I dont know anymore than that. I also dont know anything about the tenants

The good news is they have already complained so it's more likely it'll be thought of as them not you.

Washing machine not on late or early, music fine at normal volume reasonable hours. (Can hear my neighbours TV) presume they hear my radio.

I'm in a ground floor maisonette and have had at least 4 different sets of people living above me over the last 12 years.

You can never tell who would be the noisy ones! A very petite woman was so loud going up and down the stairs and walking around, whereas her flat mate who was very tall you could barely hear. It was a shoes off household!

I've never complained of noise but I can hear people so it may be worth having a conversation with the neighbours of what they can and can't hear.

Things to be mindful of

• washing machine
• the man upstairs seems to have v loud phone calls in the bedroom upstairs at 9pm at night when I'm going to bed
• tv noise, only one set of tenants upstairs I have heard the tv
• slamming of the front door travels

One family were lovely and she asked me what I could hear and asked if I could hear their loo flush. I couldn't. She said she'd stopped flushing the loo at night incase I could hear it!

Previous upstairs neighbours had 2 children. Would hear them run around. (no earlier than 9am or later than 6pm) I did mention (because I was asked about noise) that I could hear this. But it was never too early or late .

Much more preferable than the constant loud music and banging the other upstairs neighbour made

I think by 5 you are a bit more out of the “danger” zone for upsetting downstairs neighbours. It’s not like a running all day preschooler and they’ll be at school a big proportion of the day. Toys tend to me more like focused Brio track than clabky baby walkers and heavy plastic baby toys that are always getting dropped.

It's a two floor maisonette i.e. the bedrooms are on the 2nd floor so some of the noise can probably be mediated by keeping DC in the bedroom till 9. We already dont wear shoes indoors, never have. Hadnt even thought about the toilet thing, I never go to the loo in the middle of the night but DH does. Great to have other people's tips. Keep them coming.

@Duplocrocs yes, for the large part of the day/year, Dc is out of the house. He is only in for one hour in the morning and two hours in the evening so not much really. There are obviously the holidays but we tend to be out of the house then anyway

do not stop making reasonable household noise at reasonable hours it is not fair to be expected to tiptoe, never have a party or playdate for your son or for him to practice his recorder, or you can't listen to radio while ironing ,that you can't put washing on at 6pm or 7.30am if you give in too much on very normal noise it will make them think they can make further demands just because you or they can hear a noise doesn't make it unreasonable
everyone is entitled to be a bit noisy occasionally but generally after 10pm and before 7 in the week is a no-no and before 9am at weekends
loud DIY ( except very occasionally with notice) shouting screaming jumping on the floor trumpet practising for hours a day quite selfish

I've lived in both upstairs and downstairs flats and beleive me, noise travels up just as much as it travels down. It'll be fine!

In fact, you'll probably be quite surprised at how much noise comes up.

I'm currently in a ground floor flat & have recently got new upstairs neighbour after the last drug dealing anti social one did a runner without telling anyone. Middle aged man alone thought great! In reality he is noisier than the last one 😣.
Leaves his dog alone a lot even on a nightshift & it howls from the minute he leaves till he comes back.
His small granddaughter visits on a Friday & that's fine apart from she runs up and down constantly while there to the point my pictures shake on the walls. So I would say please don't allow them to run around, other than that noise from upstairs in a flat is to be expected

It's always a roll of the dice with neighbours and anyone can get unlucky, but you're clearly going to be a very considerate neighbour so you're giving yourself every chance. Crack on with it, cross your fingers and enjoy your new home!

Wishing you much happiness there.

I've been involved with this from both sides of the equation You and your can't, and shouldn't, help making certain noises but you can try to minimise ones you can help so that you can live in harmony, such as:

• wear slippers or bare feet
• discourage unnecessary banging of cupboards, doors, toy boxes by everyone in the house - lead your child by example so they become considerate (not cowed though)
• no jumping off sofas and beds
• work out / find out where they sleep and what their approximate rising and retiring times are so you can arrange where you mostly play and talk animatedly, at different times of day
• ditto homeworking and shifts, although if they do these things it is not on you to be silent but just to be considerate, they can get headphones and earplugs too
• try to have certain reasonable times of day for loud toys such as loud plastic toys that play tunes or beep, toy drum kits, peg bashers, and later on, musical instruments and then put them away, if your child gets in a routine early for this it will help a lot
• try to give your child a lot of outdoor exercise, rain or shine, or soft play if it's dreadful, so that they are not feeling the need to get all their galumphing out within the flat
• you can further muffle sound with rugs, yoga mats and those playmats made of foam pieces that jigsaw together

Toilet sounds barely carry in our block, but in some previous ones they have. Ditto showers and baths. Buildings are very idiosyncratic and it depends when the conversion or new build was done as to what the building regs were, too. Some noises travel up more than down and vice versa, stomping on floorboards and the spin cycle on the washing machine obviously travel down more than up, because that's directly on the ceiling below. These same noises won't go up to the same extent. I can only hear my neighbours talking when they stand in 2 specific places and it is muffled.