Neighbours say they can only 'try' to control their child.

[sleeplessnights24]

I live in a new build. Everything has been ok, but the tenants upstairs have a 5 year old boy who doesn't stop stomping.

Running in the afternoon/normal hours is one thing, but this is in the early hours when people are clearly still asleep! It also happens in the middle of the night too...?! Surely a 5 year old can sleep through the night...? Also, why run if you're up that late?!

I noted the hours it happened. 5:30am, 5:40am, 6:30am - and weirdly 12:30am, 1:20am and 4:20am too. That's just in the last 3 weeks. On weekends it started at 6:50am and 5:40am. We are not just talking about brief periods of noise. It is often intermittent. The worst was 3:50am - which was intermittent until about 4:20am. Then again at 5:20am. Then at 7:30am. That night I didn't sleep at all since 3:50am.

Initially, all communications were fine. I only spoke up once I was at my wits end. I was polite - and so were they. No apology from their side though. They said they'd be mindful of the noise. Phew! I was grateful and hopeful to finally be able to sleep. I do not expect to live in silence (obviously), but stomping on your ceiling - when you're trying to sleep and it is still dark outside, is crazy.

A few months goes by... nothing changes. But because I had already complained once, I felt like I couldn't complain again... until I did.

Again, all polite from both sides. Said they'd be mindful. Ok.
Nothing changed again. Rinse & repeat. The noise - if anything - just got louder... so I spoke up again. Both sides nice and polite. They said it was 'confusing' that it was so loud. I asked multiple times if they'd like to come down and hear it for themselves as they didn't understand how it could be so disruptive. They ignored every invite to come listen.

They would say he 'only walks' on days I would be woken up in the morning - by running. They were/are defensive and looking for excuses. I get it. In many ways, I am not surprised. They kept saying they were 'being mindful' - but nothing ever changed. If the noise had reduced by 20% since I complained; at least that would be something. But there was literally no change.

I was transparent about having Bose headphones, white noise machines, etc... so they could see that I was doing things to drown out the noise from my side.

After 18 months of it happening on an almost daily basis, I complained to my building management Co. I had complained to management before - but their response was 'there's nothing we can do'. They didn't even pass on my sentiments to the owners of the flat.

This time I didn't relent - and asked them to pass/forward my email to the actual owners of the apartment upstairs. (Upstairs are renters). They did indeed forward my email to the owners.

I got a response saying the owners had spoken to their tenants - and the tenants have agreed to buy a rug and will 'try to control the movements of their child when possible'.

I took this as somewhat helpful - and was more angry that I was proven right in that what they'd done for the year prior - was nothing at all - certainly in terms of practical measures when they had told me there was nothing more they could do. Over the 18 months; there was one occasion where I (politely) asked what they had done to mitigate the noise... they didn't respond. (They have hardwood floors throughout).

For 8 weeks, they seemed to promptly stop the running in the middle of the night/early hours (which I only wanted stopped at unreasonable hours anyway) - but now we are back to square one it seems. I'm mindful of it being Winter (dark and awful weather outside) and also Christmas season, but I'm not sure why it keeps happening. They say the best they can do is 'try' to control it.

AIBU for not relenting and to keep complaining to management? The tenants have stopped opening my messages now.

If you have a hyper active child that you can't control during the night why would you live in a rented flat that is above others so that your wayward child is now a nuisance to others?

Let's use some imagination. Perhaps the parents have no choice as they are not loaded and cannot afford a detached house on a mortgage.

Maybe they didn't choose to have a 'wayward' child either.

Empathy bypass Alert

Yeah that's harassment. My neighbour used to do that to my kids room at 11pm at night to wake them - because they were noisy (walking, skipping etc at weekends and after full time nursery...) during the day time (between 7am-7pm). The logic defies me. It stopped after I threatened to record it and pass over to the police.

I'm speaking as someone who has installed actual 4x8ft bouncy castle crash mats and a million rugs over my carpet and thick underlay to dampen the noise.

Only on MN.

Keep complaining, and logging. Have you/can you record the noise? As additional evidence?

My only advice would be that if you can record I wouldn’t say “a child is”, I’d submit as this is the noise I’m dealing with.

Feel for you. Our neighbours have moved but left behind their extremely noise dog - who’s spending 24 hours a day howling. They pop over to feed it once a day, with no regard for the whole street being disturbed, but at least their new neighbours are happy.

you do indeed have to make concessions - and keep reasonably quiet

you have repeatedly been given factual information about the types of noise that are considered “antisocial” and those that are acceptable/
to be expected as part of “living noise”.
Those are the rules, you can try to make up your own if you like, but you aren’t being reasonable and it won’t get you anywhere.

Earlier you said you own the flat. I suggest you soundproof your ceiling. A colleague recently did this and it helped enormously with sounf from upstairs.

Noisy children are 'super helpful' when you just want to sleep in your own place.

How I would love childfree apartment blocks. Nobody is interested in hearing your child stomping around during the night. SEN or not. It's on the parents to manage this, or to at least compromise in some way about floor coverings, sound proofing etc. OP is being quite fair and calm about it, I certainly would not be as patient.

But as per usual parents just get defensive about their little angels as seen on this thread.

Well quite. I do get that sleep deprivation is hard but sometimes in life you can’t ‘control’ the thing that you don’t like and you just have to accept and adapt.

Why haven’t you installed insulation to the ceiling?

Still asleep?
Lazy gits.

Question OP. When you hear the child stomping about at all hours of the night do you hear his parents putting him back to bed? Surely if you hear his footsteps you would hear theirs getting up and dealing with it? Or do they just let him run wild? Do you hear voices or just a lone child stomping around the house and nobody else up?
If they can fix it for 8 weeks, they can fix it. Funny how they could do that when the landlord intervened but now cannot be bothered!

LOL "I get that sleep deprivation is hard... but you just have to accept it/adapt"... (even though something practical could be done about it from the root cause - in this case - foam mats and rugs with underlay). Of course, I have tried to adapt from my side. To do nothing from my side would be unreasonable.

Unfortunately for you, you are totally in the wrong.
sounds like the building has shit sound proofing and that’s actually not their problem.
I wouldn’t want to live my life constantly telling my kids to stop walking, or quieten down, in our own home. So I can imagine they may not want to get into that - bearing in mind it seems like you may not even be satisfied anyway.
normal walking around or child based noise is considered acceptable legally and generally. You may not like it but I think you have to just continue with the white noise machine or consider moving, and not to a flat - maybe a detached house
Dont your upstairs neighbours also have upstairs neighbors aswell? If they are just ignoring and getting on with theirs they may be wondering why you can’t do the same
if you do keep bringing it up all the time then you could be the one actually harrassing them, and in the wrong.

100% agree with this.

So let’s imagine you are the parents of this child. You can’t afford floor coverings or they wouldn’t work for some reason, so the only thing you can do is stop your child from doing this. Please tell us how you would do that.

Middle of the night, you are in a deep sleep, your five year old son has woken up with a bad dream, his brain is still developing so he struggles to know how to unpick dream from reality, he’s run into you, as his main source of safety and you know it’s likely woken your angry downstairs neighbour.

How do you prevent this from happening tomorrow night?…

A noisy dog you can do something about..Report it to the council.
Of course it is howling if basically abandoned. They sound awful neighbours and crap dog owners.

Or developmentally normal for late teens, in the same way 5am wake ups, nightmares and emergency toliet needs are for 5yos. Just a thought.

Good question

@oakleaffy reported to RSPCA and LA.

The poor dog deserves a much better home than the one it has.

This.

Keep complaining to the landlord. Keep a noise diary for january and send it to them. Ask them to go see if they've put a rug down because you don't think they have.

I have been lucky so far and have always had kids who sleep and neighbours who are polite and quiet.

Of course there are many reasons for noise disturbance: antisocial neighbours, poor sound insulation, medical reasons etc.

But what always gets forgotten is that the neighbour being bothered can really have their MH affected by the noise and insomnia. It can make them anxious and depressed. And of course the neighbour being affected may also have kids with SEN being affected by the disruption.

It is always assumed that the noise-maker is ND or has a child with SEN/MH issues and the noise-recipient is an intolerant neighbour who should be more understanding. The neighbour and their child could be vulnerable too and have their sanity affected by the noise issues.

I’ve bought a large rug. It cost £500. Maybe to do with that

Is there a flat above them? If so I'd be tempted to see if you could run up and down there so they get some idea of the noise. Other than that I'd move.

Soundproofing aside, my point is that you CANT control some difficult things in life (especially people) and you do have to accept and adapt or you spend your life battling something you can’t change. Not good for anyone.

He’s 5, he will grow out of it. It’s not forever. it’s normal child behaviour.

Why don’t you put sound proofing on your ceiling?

My youngest 8 (of 3 boys) is autistic and has a learning delay (he’s more akin to a 3 year old in his energy and behaviours). His sleep is very erratic. So I understand from the parents point of view, even if there is no SEN/neurodivergence involved, how hard it can be to keep them quiet during the night as if they need to run etc, then they do it because that’s what there body needs.

The issue here though is as you’ve said countless times, they need to try and put down flooring that absorbs some of the sound, even if it’s something they can roll up during the day. At least make an effort or keep the child in one room. I do that for the sake of the rest of my family sleeping, let alone a neighbour, being woken multiple times in the night. Do you ever hear either of the parents at these times? Do they seem to be with him? May not even be able to tell possibly? I’m concerned the parents can sleep through it and are just letting this small child get on with it. It does happen.

I’m just baffled at the comments that kids will be kids, so just accept no sleep for years on end until when? 🤷🏻‍♀️ There isn’t one person on here that would be ok with being woken multiple times a night by someone else’s noise. I think the main issue is that the parents just don’t seem that bothered. Let’s be honest here, your only complaint is the night time noise. It is not unusual to expect to be able to sleep. I can’t function on so little sleep for a continuous period. If I were told this from a neighbour I would do all I could and apologise if I couldn’t do any more. These tenants don’t seem to be acknowledging the issue let alone trying to work towards a solution.

I lived below a person in a new build flat that I owned, about 20 years ago and he’d laid laminate throughout. We were only meant to have it in Communal areas like hallway and kitchen. He often came in at 1-2am with a high heeled companion playing Coldplay full blast 😩 had many sleepless nights. But that was a full grown adult. I moved out eventually and bought a house.

I can see both sides of this argument, but ultimately feel the parents could be doing more to reduce the noise during the nights.

Plus…boots sell wax earplugs, I swore by them at uni. They block every bit of noise out! 5 ⭐️ 😂🥴🫣

I hope your tenants or their landlord try to come to an amicable solution for your own sanity and soon!