Am I a bad neighbour? :/

[GM99]

I have recently bought a top floor flat in a victorian conversion in London. When I moved in, the previous owners left me a lovely note with really useful information including that the original floorboards were still in tact if I wanted to rip the carpet up. There was carpet in the hallway, on the stairs, on the landing and in the study. The carpet was pretty gross so I made the decision to have the floorboards reclaimed and someone came to rip out the carpets.

In the meantime, I met the neighbours downstairs - a couple in their 30s, no kids, he works from home full time and she works in an office full time. I've only had conversations with him. He's taken a couple of parcels in for me while I have been at work. He came across fairly relaxed and relatively friendly but I noticed he kept asking questions about what I was planning to do with the flat...which I did find a bit annoying because I got the feeling he was only talking to me to see, basically, how annoying a neighbour I was going to be rather than genuinely being friendly. He told me that the previous owners were a couple with a son with learning difficulties and the son used to bang and stamp really loudly on the floor which they found very difficult so they liaised with the neighbours who agreed to get carpet and some kind of soundproofing. I only found this out after getting the carpets ripped out. I asked him if I was noisy and he was like 'oh no no, everything is fine'. I said I didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable and that he should let me know if there were any issues.

Anyway, this morning I got a text message from him and his partner asking me to come round for drinks to discuss the flooring as they said they had noticed that it was much more noisy since I ripped the carpet out. I've agreed to go over but I'm not sure how I feel about the whole situation.

Firstly, I'm single, in my late 30s and live by myself and live a quiet lifestyle. I'm not running around having a rave every night so even though I understand they can probably hear me when I'm walking around, is it unreasonable of them to start interfering in how I decide to go my flat up - ie getting the floorboards reclaimed? What is a reasonable amount of noise for them to deal with? Given the nature of the flats and how they have been built, it's highly doubtful that all noise can be eliminated. I'm concerned they are going to try and persuade me into getting soundproofing which I can't afford. I work from home 2-3 days a week. I can understand it may have been a bit noisy recently as I have just moved in and have been getting people over to provide quotes on flooring, painting and decorating etc.

Any thoughts/opinions would be greatly appreciated :)

I'd rather do my best with coffee stain removal, to be brutally honest 😬

Well this thread just took a turn toward aesthetically disturbing. Please tell me that isn’t a home in that photo?!

Brilliant, just about sums it up 😂

That's my bedroom without the furniture in it! The colour theme is white and buttermilk, with Dulux Frosted Dawn and https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322441481365 on the wall. I spent a long time with swatches picking carpet tiles to match the hanging.

But of course. It's not grey or whatever Ideal Homes is pushing right now as the "in" colour.

The bowling balls in that video....I've often wondered what that noise is, in more that one flat....now, I think it must be bowling balls, but how people have the space for them?

But they do have to do it if that is what a lease states.

OP - if there was an ongoing dispute with the neighbours that should have been declared to you during the sale. It is a legal requirement when you sell. I would ask your neighbours for copies of anything put in writing to the previous owner. Also keep the note from previous owner about removing the carpet. If you incur additional costs to redo your flooring because there was a noise dispute that you weren’t made aware of you could seek legal advice to recover the costs from the previous owners. It sounds like you are all reasonable people who are willing to compromise which is far far preferable to angry neighbours who really can make life very difficult.

We have laminate flooring in one bedroom. My teen dc isn't loud but you can hear every footstep, chair move, something dropped on the floor - it's so loud. Iv put carpet in all the other rooms and will with his when flooring needs replaced.

OP - if there was an ongoing dispute with the neighbours that should have been declared to you during the sale

Presumably it wasn’t ongoing because the previous owners had eventually agreed to put carpet down (albeit clearly they were pissed off about doing so)

I friend who is quite laid back, had a couple with a kid in the flat above. And the toddler liked to slam the bed and jump up and down, and hit things every morning. It absolutely ruined him. No carpet.

We had a family move in next door, they stripped the carpets. And had a lad that would wake at 5 am and hit things. It was testing.

And my partner is pretty heavy on feet. Bad enough with carpets!

So totally sympathise with anyone in this situation.

I think prioritising ease of use over appearance is an autistic thing. And I like the buttercup colour.

I'm selling and had to fill in a form including historical disputes.

@VitoCorleoneOfMNMafia I agree about the wool carpet. That actually looks nice, apologies I was thinking about those navy blue obvious tiles you used to get in library's etc!

I like the idea of being able to lift them and wash them as well.

Many tenants have been told they must not install hard flooring / LVT because of the noise factor.

I would consider it inconsiderate if you did this and I lived in the flat below.

ultimately you can do as you please, however keeping your neighbors onside is usually a good idea.

Having lived in a flat below people with hard floors, I'm going to say yabu

I ended up moving because the noise was just awful.
And it wasn't just footsteps. It seemed to exacerbate all the sounds... light switches, toilet flushes, their alarm clock, sex

Honestly it was awful

That’s what I was thinking. There is history here!

YABU....not least because you are not reclaiming the floorboards; they were there before you! It means buying them from another property/salvage co/purpose. But you have downstairs neighbours; try your upmost to be quiet. And considerate.

Yes, your lease probably stipulates carpet, this is normal. We have thick concrete floors with engineered boards on top and even then our neighbour complained she could hear every movement, even though we were padding about in socks.. You can always use rugs, they tend to be thicker than carpet.

I lived in an upstairs flat in a victorian conversion which had hard floors. I never wore shoes in the house, just soft slippers, and had lots and lots of thick rugs. Sound is a really strange thing so it would be helpful to go to theirs and have someone walk around your flat to see where the worse problems are. Where I am now, the only noise I hear from my neighbours is if they plug something in to a particular wall.

I would definitely have my wooden flooring along with nice rugs.

I would find that VERY annoying to hear every step on a wooden floor... especially as a carpet would deaden the noise. Stuff like that winds me up big time...so I totally am on side of your neighbour.
However I would only ever live in a top floor flat because of this.
Be a nice neighbour and put underlay and carpet down.

I also own a top floor Victorian conversion, the flat is freehold but flooring falls under the lease for shared areas as the sound affects them.

As many PP have written, my lease states that everything other than kitchen and bathroom must be carpeted. I HATE carpet so looked into getting a license to alter, but this would've been very expensive (just the admin and legal cost, not including the flooring itself), and there was no guarantee it would even be granted. Adding insulation underneath wood flooring would not have been acceptable.

In the end, I replaced my carpet with natural sisal flooring - closest I could get to the look/feel I would've had with wood. There are some treated versions of sisal that are stain-resistant, and synthetic lookalikes.

It's not ideal but at the end of the day, I don't have to worry about creeping around in my flat... I'd definitely check the lease before your drinks!

This

I once lived in a flat where the upstairs single woman had bare floorboards. It was hell. I could hear every footstep, conversations, tv, radio, everything. She moved and the lovely person that moved in carpeted over it. It’s really selfish to have floorboards in an upper flat imo.

Do you have a friend that could come over and walk around while you're downstairs in their flat? Then you can hear for yourself.

Personally I'd never live in a flat again as I'm a light sleeper and would wake up every time upstairs went to the toilet and could even hear every conversation or TV show they watched. The doors were the worst, as they were fire doors and woke me up as well.