Are we the noisy neighbours?

[Stigo]

Trying to work out if my downstairs neighbour is out of line or whether we are indeed a nuisance.

For context, we live in a 70s concrete block, our floors are lino, so not carpeted but equally not hardwood and there’s a fair bit of padding.

Our downstairs neighbour has been up this evening shouting the odds about our 2yo running around (calling him an animal and saying he should go back to the jungle(?) / this isn’t a playground etc. - we’re white so I’m not reading too much into that). This is the second time she’s been up in two months, the first time was banging on our door at 10pm because our toddler was crying hysterically (he had a bug and had been sick all over himself, so understandably
upset - otherwise he essentially never cries during the night).

Our toddler goes to bed at 7.30 pm and stays there until about 6am, during which time the only noise would be two adults doing usual evening stuff (we don’t play loud music or television / rarely entertain etc. and we try to be conscientious). When he wakes at 6am, we are extremely careful to make sure there are no noisy toys, we limit running etc. At 8am, he goes to his CM (she lives in the flat above ours so I am well aware that children are noisy!). He is there till 3pm, then out with me in the afternoon until about 5.30pm. We come home, eat dinner etc. all usually low key (he does run when he moves from room to room but he’s not constantly running around iyswm). DP comes home at 6.15pm. This is the bone of contention - DS is very happy to see DP and they do horseplay and DS runs up and down the hall / runs around / shrieks a little etc. Bathtime is 7pm, bed at 7.30. So essentially the neighbour is complaining about the 45 minutes a day our 2yo plays with his dad.

When she came to the door this evening, I did try to explain that the noise would not continue past 7pm etc. etc. but she was too busy shouting over me about how she pays to live here(?), she works nights (nothing we can do about that), animals, playground as above etc.

I am quite sensitive to noise myself but accept that I live in a flat and there is a certain amount of daytime noise that can’t be avoided.

YABU - the neighbour has a point
YANBU - we are in the right here.

Thanks for all the responses! Just to address some things.

After the initial complaint about the one-time crying at night, I did go downstairs and knock on her door a couple of times to see if we could have a chat about what was bothering her and what we could do together to mitigate it. She has never answered the door to me. Last time I bumped into her in the lift (pregnant and with a buggy), she wouldn’t let me into the lift. I don’t think she’s really up for talking / at this point I probably wouldn’t risk going into her flat 😂. The CM above has Lino so I’m assuming I have decent idea of the noise levels (though I know I may be wrong). We used to live in a conversion flat with actual wood floors. That really was loud, lino is much better compared.

DP wears slippers, DS wears socks (albeit not particularly thick ones). I am generally barefoot. I would never ever let him round around in shoes.

@Copperoliverbear , yes, my DP also pointed out that, for someone who works nights, she seems awfully bothered by evening and nighttime noise. It’s just me in the flat 8-3 (wfh - chained to desk) and then DS from 5.30, so I would think pretty quiet most of the day.

@Scalottia . I too would love to live in a detached house. Pretty unaffordable for a young-ish family in London though…

@berksandbeyond , my thinking too! We’ll be able to be out and about a bit more soon.

Thanks again for all the responses, it’s given us food for thought. Definitely going to have a look at a padded non-slip runner type thing for the hallway and ask DP to not be so encouraging of the noisy play in the early evening.

It doesn’t matter that the noise is early in the evening. Your neighbour doesn’t have to live by your timetable - that might be the time she likes to meditate, or watch tv, or anything at all in her own home.

This is the problem with flats though. If they’re not adequately built/soundproofed, we do have to accept other peoples timetables to some extent . We don’t have to accept avoidable noise between 10pm - 6am but a kid having a bit of horseplay which is over by 7.30pm is normal. A child crying in the night when unwell or a crying baby, are both unpleasant and disturbing for neighbours but beyond OPs control.

Those saying OP should move or the neighbour should move as they are unsuited to flat living - it’s a housing association they’re with. Very few people in social housing have much choice where they live. If I could choose I’d be out my flat but I can’t afford to rent privately and will never have enough to buy a home.

Getting some carpet will help I think .TBH while its nice for your hubby ,its not so good for the NDN! Must be a nightmare for her . Flooring is no good without a layer of carpet!

@Stigo I wasn't suggesting that you move, I was simply stating that the kid noise above me irritated me so much that I resolved it by moving. To be fair though it was three kids and they were loud for much longer than 45mins!

It's not wrong for kids to be loud, but it's also not wrong to be annoyed by the noise.

Jeez. I live in a terrace house with a 4 and 6 year old next door. Pretty good soundproofing but in the summer especially with our back doors all open I can hear them. Certainly much more than the childless couple on the other side. But they are a family and the 'pay to live there' too. It's just life!

I get that, and think that a crying baby definitely comes into the 'can't be helped' category whatever time it happens, but saying that noise is ok because it isn't late at night assumes that everyone works 9-5 and sleeps through the night - they don't.

As I said, my neighbours are noisy, and they are worst at weekends in bad weather when the children are cooped up and bored. They are screamers, and the older ones (there are two teens and two little ones) play music so loudly that I can identify it on Spotify from my kitchen. I have work on Saturdays, and it's really annoying to have to search the house for a corner that isn't polluted by screaming or loud music, when I have a desk and everything I need already set up, but can't use it because they are making so much noise. Yes, they have a right to live there, but so do I.

Flats, especially of this vintage, should be carpeted with good underlay, apart from in kitchens and bathrooms. OP, your child shouldn't be allowed to run about excessively and certainly not in shoes. If you can't get new flooring, you need to get some of those rubber playmats that jigsaw together and encourage active play and noisy toys to only be on them, and supervise the noisiest toys at certain times of day.

And we (growing up in a detached house) were taught from a young age that running and jumping were for outside or in other suitable premises. There's nothing wrong with that, it's not damaging to children to have these boundaries.

OP you can't help some of the noise, but you can help more of it than you seem to think. For those that say people should choose not to live in flats if they can't stand this noise, many people don't have a choice to live in a flat, possibly a ground floor one if they have access issues, and constant banging noises can be very damaging to mental health.

I also agreed with my parents which was helpful as we lived in flats and terraces with paper thin walls with children, at times, and not with very good flooring. So I've had your situation OP, and the only noise complaint we had was for a crying small baby who had colic. Now that wasn't a reasonable complaint, although I understand the neighbours' anguish, because you really cannot do anything about a crying baby you have done everything to soothe already.

I am an acoustician by training and can tell you that lino even with rugs will offer little to no sound attenuation no matter how thick it is. If you have a young child who is running around then really you need thick carpet with thick underlay.

Is she also hearing the CM noise from the CM above? If so she got almost all day noise all be it not from you which may explain the extreme reaction to what is not a lot of family noise. We lived in a flat once where you could hear near enough the whole block.

Try and get dh to do something other than horseplay at hometime. Maybe save horse play for outside. Thick underlay and carpets. If you are keeping the hall and kitchen lino, maybe a stairgate to discourage the running. Pray for nice weather so you can get out and about more.