stompy upstairs neighbours......

[miku]

I am finding this situation is driving me nuts....between 2am and 6am.the 20 something son upstairs comes home about 2pm, and stomps around, ocassionally has friends and oh so socially friendly heavy metal music, and the Dad gets up at around 4am to 6am.all above my bed.DD too wakes up.its been going on for the whole time ive been here(3yrs)
they had the carpet removed, and put down a wooden floor(HAHA), that took a week of banging, on the sunday i asked them if they could stop so my then 2yr old could sleep. they didnt.I asked the landlord (same) what they could do about it only to be reprimande"you should have told us while we were putting the floor down".
And then I wrote a polite letter to upstairs saying i realise they are just 'living' but could they wear slippers...only to be told i must be a light sleeper!
the young man is usually quite considerate, and if i bang the ceiling he turns the music down(still horendous tho)....god i sound like a right old bag, but is IS MAKING ME SUFFER!....AIBU???????
i finally rang the noise peops one 3am, only to be told they have to come and stand in my bedroom before they can do anything about it.....hohum.what can i do?

let them come and stand in your bedroom if that is what it is going to take.

would drive me nuts too.

sounds funny but they dont even do their stomping on cue!!!the dad goes away, the son comes out to play, the Dad comes back, and the son just stomps......the officers arent in the office at night its a farce really. I think I have to make an appointment with them....'thurs at 3a.m please'

Most flats have a term in the lease saying the upstairs neighbours must not have bare boards, must have carpet. My old flat did and most flats do. Ask the landlord to check the lease and enforce the terms making nthem put carpet in. If this 20 year old is usually reasonable then why can't you speak to him about it?

lol miku. do something. before sleep deprivation sends you over the edge. this reminds me of the friends episodes where their neighbour downstairs always complained about the noise.

Bollocks to landlord saying could only do something while floor was being put down. If he is your landlord (and you are renting from him) then get him to check lease about this sort of thing; if he is freeholder and you own flat then check the lease and get him to enforce. Even if it doesn't specifically mention wooden flooring, there is usually a clause about causing nuisance etc. If you are renting and landlord is unhelpful, move.

Noise abatement people will usually be quite co-operative about coming for an open-ended appointment - they know these things don't run like clockwork. If you are going to be awake at 2amish, I would invite them along. Keep a log to back it up.

Yeh, thats what Im worried about, that im ALREADY over the edge and being unreasonable!!!!!i mean ive bin sleep deprived for over 4yrs now and maybe they are just mice, and im downstairs neighbour from hellno. i gotta do something cos the 4am grinding of teeth has to stop...thanks for yer encouragement!

Sorry - x-post with peasoup.

We live in a first floor flat and we cant have wooden floors, just carpet and lino for the bathroom and kitchen. Its in our contract so the noise isn't that bad for downstairs.

yes.fight on,back to the landlord then.y'see i dont mind 'noise' its just the stuff that keeps you awake....wish he was into reggae or something!!

aaaaah!have just had a door slamming temper tantrum at being woken up by blardy b* upstairs stomping, shouting and death metal dige. am so tired have been up since 6am, up again at 7 tom, and sick of this!have rung environmental noise people and just feel powerless and frustrated....banged on their door, and they are either ignoring me or just cant hear.....ha.rant over.maybe ill stuff a few pillows in my ears

Are they people that you could properly talk to , rather than report or shout at when you're at the end of your rope? From what you say on here your situation feels desperate, but it's not unfixable. Are they SO unreasonable that they wouldn't understand what you've described on here? Even if you burst into tears and said you can't take any more, it might help them have sympathy, whereas if you are angry and complaining (which you have every right to be), they don't see you as a 'real' person, just as someone hassling them.

It sounds horrible.

We had this problem, except it was a 3 year old running about on a wooden floor at midnight..the landlord put a rug down and it worked wonders..can you ask the same?

They might be walking quite quietly, or at least think they might. Old floors carry, whatever they have on them. We can hear our upstairs neighbours (they have laminate) walking around quite a lot sometimes, but not at unsocial hours so tbh it's OK. We have wooden floors and all wear crocs inside, so I expect our downstairs neighbours (students) hear quite a lot of us too, but live and let live - only once when dh and ds1 were running and jumping arohznd one of them came up to say he was terribly sorry but he was trying to work on his degree dissertation

You should not be hearing voices and music, though, and certainly not at unsocial hours. Polite but firm letter to say your quality of life is being affected and if they don't stop by X date you will be involving police and environmental health with each incident between the hours of midnight and 7am.

I REALLY feel for you. I've just moved out of a rented property with one flat above me which was owned by the most unco-operative tw**s i've ever met. They had laminate flooring (although told me time and time again that the flat was carpeted throughout while scratching their heads in confusion that I could hear their flat-footedness day and night). In the end, I wrote a letter to them, which reaped no reply, my landlady wrote a letter to them, and I basically lived with a family of 3 stomping around, slamming every door and jumping up and down in their living room (not sure what that was about) for about 18 months, then I got out. Matters weren't helped by the fact that I work shifts in a hospital, and after a 24 hour straight through shift, not being able to sleep during the day made me almost lose my mind!

This is a lose-lose situation. You must move house, sorry!

Go back to your environmental health dept and make a formal complaint about your neighbour. They will probably ask you to keep a record of the noise over a period of at least two weeks. Once the record is returned they will write to your enighbour (if not done at the time of your intial complaint) and advise them about the complaint (they should keep your details confidential, but the neighbour will probably guess).

If they believe your complaint is justified they should then offer to install noise monitoring equipment, or programmed visits to your property at a time when the nuisance is likely to arise. If they gather sufficient evidence they can take formal action and serve an abatement notice. The could require carpets to be reinstated if that is found to be a problem. they can also deal with the loud music this way. You may find something in the lease of the building about removing florr coverings.

If you appraoch the council, my advise is to persist with your complaint. They will receive 100's of similar complaints every year, so make sure you return the diary sheets when requested etc and keep in regular contact to ensure they realise you have a genuine problem. You could also explore whether they have a local mediation service. more info here www.environmental-protection.org.uk/

Dear Everyone! thanks for your advice!
actually, I hate confrontation and I realise that they are just living their lives which is just SO opposite to mine.
About 6 months after we moved in they had the carpet taken OUT, and wooden floors put in, and Ive been suffering kinda in silence,
and then I finally wrote a letter to the guy upstairs and then spoke to him, but he said he WAS wearing slippers......
I think I have no alternative but to move out to be honest, and have been looking. Its just an old property.
Im much more forgiving in the day. I turn into an ogre when Ive been woken up and cant get back to sleep.
surprisingly, the environmental people have already written them a letter, after the 3 a.m episode I wrote of originally a month ago.