To think that my neighbour is batshit

[soooomuchroomforactivities]

Recently moved into new flat (6 weeks). yesterday a get a very rude, heavily underlined note in my mailbox from flat downstairs, saying Im a nuisance, a noisy neighbour, she 'owns her property' and is quiet and I am ruining it for her and she will be reporting me (no mention of to whom).
My crime? Putting on my tv at 7.45am in the morning on saturday morning.

After getting over the shock of this and the rudeness of the message i decided i would go and see her to keep the peace. However, in the interim, i had two visitors come to see me at 2pm. They passed her in the stairwell and they said good afternoon. She shushed them, told them to 'shut up', 'be quiet' and to stop being so loud in the hallway? When they said but they were just walking up the stairs, she yelled at them that they were 'disgusting'.

Soooo living here is clearly going to be interesting!!!!

Some go up to 11 ...

😆😆

If you want to watch tv early or late, just sort out the sub titles option.
You shouldn’t have to but at least you will know for sure she can’t hear the telly because you’ve taken care of that complaint.
Out of devilment I’d also be saccharine sweet to her on the landing or stairs. Wind her up , reel her in.
She sounds like a nut case.

It's good that it panned out with you not doing the conciliatory "what up, how can I compromise with you here?" visit, as your batshit diagnosis seems sound.

I'd probably not even bother with the firm but polite note, as you can now be pretty certain that she'll either deliberately misinterpret it - OR view it as 'proof' that you will kowtow if she bullies you.
I might take a photo of the offending note, then post it back to her though.

Meantime, chum up to all the sane neighbours you can schmooze, get the low-down on her, & ensure you have confirmation from other neighbours that you are NOT noisy. Keep copies of any further notes from Batshit, & make contemporaneous notes of any negative verbal interactions. You may need the evidence, down the line ....

I'd ssh her back. Rude cow.

What is it with downstairs neighbours and being so strange!? I have been putting off deep cleaning (thoroughly dusting/decobwebbing etc) my small 2 bed flat (top floor of 3 floors) for ages and finally felt able to do it the other day, the dusting and everything took me quite a lot of time due to having some display cabinets and the like and I had to rest in-between (due to my long COVID fatigue), so I finally got round to the hoovering at about 7:30pm (I had gotten up late that day too, about lunchtime) and finally finished at 8:30pm and as I did the doormat outside my flat (for all of a few seconds) my downstairs neighbour yelled up asking how much longer I was going to be.

On a separate occasion earlier in the year I was defrosting my freezer, which took ALL day regardless of the various methods I used and had loads of soaking wet towels that I needed to spin dry the water out of, I grant you this was a bit late, about 9pm, but it couldn't be helped and my neighbour responded with slamming doors shut and banging on walls downstairs with a hammer until my washing machine stopped.

Housework or the like aside, something running later by accident that couldn't be helped, I am usually quite as a mouse but now they seem to be making noticeably more regular noise than usual as if to make a point of it. They themselves don't actually have a track record of being the quietest people at times so I am finding the whole situation quite bizarre. No advice, but lots of sympathy!

Please log every note she puts through your door and every interaction. I say this because I deal with noise nuisance all the time and neighbours like this will complain constantly to the agency and it can be relentless. At least if you have your own records you can counter any allegations.

Tell the agent that one more instance of her affecting your quiet enjoyment of the property and you'll move out. You've only just moved in, you have a limited time to play this card. Let the landlord and agent be responsible for fixing the issue, or move, rather than get frustrated for months and months.

If you wanted to, there are decibel meter apps for mobile phones. You could download one and measure the actual dB level of your preferred volume. Then there are a multitude of charts that will give you a comparison to various 'noisemakers'.

Comparing your TV volume to 'normal' low level sounds will let you know for sure if you're TV is 'too loud' and will also provide you with 'evidence' should your neighbour decide to raise the issue with TPTB.

For example normal speech is 60-70 dB, loud speech is 75-84, and shouting is about 85 dB.

The formula for dB at a distance is; whenever the distance from the sound source doubles, the sound drops by 6 dB.

noise laws here are that the quiet time is 11pm till 7am

I thought you meant your TV was in the living room! No wonder she's complaining, TV noise from your bedroom (which is presumably directly above hers) early morning is antisocial! And yes, 7:45 is early.

Solicitor. Nip it in the bud, she’s being intolerant.

She should’ve bought a detached home!

745 is not early, I've already left for work by that point! I like to have my morning cuppa with breakfast news on in bed so my telly is on at 6 🤣.

Like others say, log everything. I do think maybe knocking and chatting may be a good thing if you can be calm enough!

7.45 is really not early and TV in the bedroom is pretty common, to have it on the news while having breakfast/getting dressed. Crikey, are you not allowed an alarm clock to wake you before 7 in case it disturbs her?

I like the polite but firm "I live here now, I know I am not a nuisance neighbour and you will have to get used to me. I will have friends to visit and I will watch TV/listen to music at an appropriate level. If you can't tolerate living with other people close by, you will have to look into moving to somewhere more suitable".

7.45 is not unusually early. A lot of people will be out the door to work or school by then. I wouldn't write a note back but be polite and don't entertain any of her nonsense.

If she shushes your guests, I’d be very tempted to respond ‘Don’t tell my guests to be quiet, that’s rude’. It’s not like they’re stomping up the stairs with nails in their boots (are they?!)

Flat mentality, on top of each other,
hopefully it’s only short term for you,
I’ve found you get this type of person in flats,
hope all goes well

7.45 is fine. I own an apartment and we have quiet times in our lease of 11pm - 7am

It also depends on the programme.

On some Amazon films I need to go up to 50. Note I can hear a mouse fart normally.

Then we change channels and we've got our hand's clamped until the remote ticks down.

Been on your shoes OP. I had rented a flat on 1st floor for 20 YEARS without any problems or complaints.

Young couple then moved in to flat below (same LL, converted house). Immediately started knocking on our door complaining about the TV. We apologised and turned it down (but it wasn't on loud at all).

Went on endlessly. The only sound they could tolerate was none at all. Our TV was so low we could barely hear it.

They then complained they could hear us getting out of bed in the morning (around 7am). I said at that point WTF- I can't hover!

Then finally the LL rang one Sunday afternoon. Her downstairs had just phoned him in Floods of tears over our "unbearable racket". She had apparently been ringing him incessantly. 😳 he was totally pissed off with them and pointed out that in the 20
Years I had rented the flat there had never been a single complaint until now.

We had been watching a film when she complained. Scott of the Antarctic. No shooting or bombing. When LL rang I didn't even need to turn the TV volume down, and LL couldn't hear my TV in the background.

He told them flat living probably wasn't suitable for them and perhaps they should move elsewhere, which they did shortly afterwards. Nutters.

“If you are sure your noise levels are reasonable then you need to stand up to her. She's trying to bully you and will only get worse”

^This all day long. Arseholes like this are a complete pain in the arse if you let them get away with it even once.

I would recommend on a weekend not watching until at least 8am or use headphones. Even if it's not loud, she was able to hear it so clearly the noise travels.
She'll probably moan about it being in at 8am but at least you've tried a bit of a compromise.

Some people are very noise sensitive but they generally have to accept it's their issue rather than go about demanding everyone elseavoid making any noise. She sounds a bit batshit/ bullying so agree to keep record in case need to report for harassment.

I have to laugh at people saying you shouldn't have TV on low at 7.45am in bedroom as my old partially deaf neighbor would leave TV on all night to sleep.

I think I'd be ready to report her for harassment and see it though if you get any more aggressive notes or behaviour. I just wouldn't put up with it. Owning doesn't give her free reign to bully new tenants. Perhaps ask the local authority if her behaviour constitutes antisocial behaviour and see if they can have words with her about harassing her neighbours.

Get a video doorbell so that you can record any activity outside your flat's door. Do put up signs about it to warn people. It may help you if things deteriorate.

I think you can confidently conclude if people aren't allowed to say hello on the stairs without her thinking they're too loud then there is nothing you can reasonably do to keep her happy (you could have no visitors and watch TV in headphones but that is not reasonable).

And when you know there's nothing you can do, you just do what you would do as the reasonable, good neighbour you are and don't worry about the impact on her.

I think of it as the 'brush off' technique. Literally everything she moans about metaphorically imagine yourself brushing off that complaint. I find it easy to shrug off unreasonable behaviour and create an imaginary forcefield where the words can't affect me. When I know nothing I can do would make that person happy I treat all interactions in the same way.