Worried about raising children in our new home

[lollydolly42]

My partner and I recently bought a beautiful two bedroom Georgian conversion. It has a shared garden and is close to family and amenities. However we've been having issues with our neighbour. They have been complaining of noise (hearing us walking around the flat and muted voices). The flat has original wooden flooring throughout except bedrooms which are carpeted. We intend to do some soundproofing beneath the carpets and will redo the wooden floors with soundproofing eventually too. We have put down rugs and some padding where possible. However this has sent me into a spiral of doubt, as I worry when we have children I will be anxious of upsetting the neighbours with baby/toddler noise. This is our first home and we do intend to move in the future but now I'm worried about raising a small family in my current home. Am I being unreasonable?

No you’re not be unreasonable, it’s not nice to think you’re upsetting the neighbours.

But you have to live in your house, you have to walk around and talk, as long as you are not being unreasonably noisy then your neighbour will just have to put up with it. It’s part of living in an attached house.

Are you on the first or second floor? If so you do need to put carpet over much of the wooden floors, or else it’s a nightmare for anyone below. Hard floors are often officially prohibited in flats above the ground floor for this very reason.

We're intending on pulling up floors and spending quite a lot of money on soundproofing the floors and putting down new wood (maybe engineered) so there's no gaps. Any bedrooms will be carpeted and will have proper underlay beneath them to help with sound.

Wooden floors don't work in a flat. You need nice thick carpet/rugs and underlay

We've got rugs in all wooden areas with foam pads underneath too

All flats need carpets

it is HELL living beneath wooden floors

We will look into doing carpets, but our neighbour did mention that the worst noise in terms of footsteps was coming from the bedroom which is carpeted and underplayed. So not sure carpets will solve the issue?

Agree about the wooden floors. Will be even worse with kids. presumably they had the same issues with whoever was there before?

Who was living there before? Unless it was a mostly immobile single person, this can’t be new for the neighbour. Stripped floorboards are the worst thing to have in a flat, it leaves very little to absorb general sound and footsteps will echo horribly. Getting that replaced should help a lot. Then it’s just down to whether your neighbour is a reasonable person wound up by inconsiderate flooring or an unreasonable person who will pick up on everything.

The previous couple worked from home and had a treadmill in the flat when we viewed it? I love the wooden floors, but we've contacted soundproofers who said we could replace the old planks with new hardwood while adding insulation and cushioning on the joists. It would be a huge job to redo all the floors and very expensive but we will work on it

Conversion flats are notoriously crap for soundproofing. You need thick carpet with the best underlay you can buy in all living areas, not wooden floors. If you have kids, they will make a fair amount of noise just being normal babies and toddlers and it won’t be pleasant for the neighbours underneath you. But then they, and you, chose to live in a conversion so they don’t have a leg to stand on if complaining about the sounds of normal family life. Conversion flats especially lower floors are not for people who appreciate peace and quiet.

Ask if you can come and listen to the noise to see if you can pinpoint a problem?

I like the idea of listening to the noise and seeing what it's like. I want to help and don't want to upset my neighbour but before I go ripping up doors, it might be good to hear

I should also mention our neighbour is thinking of insulating her ceiling to help reduce the noise so we're both making arrangements

As long as it’s not an attempt to make you chip in to her ceiling insulation. They must have had similar noise from the previous occupants

Please don’t rip out the original floorboards in your Georgian home 😭can’t you just carpet over the top or continue to use rugs. They have to put up with a certain amount of noise. Would be such a shame to rip out original features which also add to the value of your home

A first floor flat wouldn't be my first choice for raising a family, for various reasons, but life is what it is. Minimise where you can, as you are, think about if it's actually WALKING or BANGING they can hear in your bedroom, there's not much else to do. They also know the risk living in a flat.

Please don’t do that. Leave the floors as they are and carpet them. It’s criminal to replace lovely old floorboards.

Oh are you going to be the one to negotiate with the neighbours over all the noise then?

Absolutely DO NOT change the floorboards, get some rugs. It was like that when you moved in and so they’ll have to put up with it. The neighbours are just trying their luck because you’ve just moved in and are easy to please, don’t be a pushover

Don’t change the floorboards, look at thickest carpet and soundproof underlay. There’s only so much you can do. Those conversion flags are notoriously badly soundproofed, sorry I know this isn’t helpful but it wouldn’t be my choice if I planned to try for a baby sometime

No. Because the noise will be less with carpeted floors than with replacement floorboards. 🤷‍♀️

And whoever said the neighbours are trying it on is on the money @lollydolly42.

Your neighbours cannot complain about normal household noise. I lived in a conversion and agree with PPs they can be bad for noise between flats, so if you live in one of these flats you have to be able to ignore a lot of the surrounding sounds, or you will just go mad.

You sound as if you are doing everything you can to alleviate the problems, sorry but they will just have to put up with it. You cannot curtail your whole life, tiptoeing around and whispering just to keep them happy!

People buy a ground floor flat, they take the risk that this will happen. Of course as a good neighbour you try and mitigate this as much as possible but I certainly wouldn't be ripping up my floors for anyone. Carpets are a reasonable adjustment, structural work would be a no from. Its like when people buy a house near a school and moan when people park outside their house or about the traffic ( I excude shit parking and driving from this analogy).