To think having people live above you is awful

[2025ohdear]

I'm hoping people say IABU and I'm overthinking

I live in London and every place I've lived there have been noisy people living above me. Music, heavy footsteps on wooden floors, parties. I think I'm now tuned into it and overly sensitive.

Here is my dilemma. I have the opportunity to buy a flat. It's beautiful, in a nice area, walk-in condition but it's on the ground floor. It has a main door and access to small private garden. An absolute find. I can't afford a house and only going for top floor flats is limiting.

Any advice? Anyone got people above them and all fine?

Thank you, good to know

We're making a bid with a buffer for soundproofing costs if required

It doesn't help that the government guidance is so unclear, which the self-certified fire door inspection people use to their advantage and mislead people. The whole thing is a shambles. My most recent inspection report says something about gaps in the smoke seals, then refers to intumescent strips and lists them as 20 mm, but the previous report (by the same person) states they are 15 mm. Then there's something about 'unfilled rebate (head-leading)', I have no idea what that means, plus lots of gaps. I feel like some if not all of these things are things that I can do myself, but I don't know where to find guidance in plain English on how to do it. They know the average person doesn't understand these things and play on it. A neighbour was quoted 'at least £600' last year just to adjust the threshold gap!

Time for Panorama/Dispatches to get involved.

@TheFatCatsWhiskers1 Old door which they said wasnt up to spec self closed
New one doesnt

The reason you don’t hear anything is the concrete. Those 1960s buildings are so much better than new builds when it comes to noise transference.

I live with people underneath and next door and the impact noise is a bloody nightmare. As are the kids that shriek, scream and slam doors, and the asbo neighbour who blasts music and has their tv on at a deafening volume.

We live in a 1930s purpose built block wirh people above and below. We have concrete floors and ceilings. Upstairs is a single older lady and we occasionally hear her shutting cupboard doors nd the washing machine going but that is it. We have had one floodin incident in nine years - the pipe feeding her toilet cistetn suddenly failed and water came through our bathroom light fitting. However she was very apologetic and arranged for an electrician to come out immediately and paid for repairs.

We hear nothing from downstairs and they have never complaiend to us, so I assume we aren't noisy!

The flat sounds lovely OP. You can't predict your neighbours wherever you live. I live in a gf flat and it's been fine (apart from the single dad whose daughter came to stay every other weekend and was learning to play the cello, it was clearly early days). Having private outside space is such a rarity in a flat it's got to be worth the trade off. I have a garden and would prefer that any day of the week than a top floor flat without any outside space.

I know it's because they're concrete, that's why I posted it!!

I just wanted to come on here to say I live in a detached home with land and despite this my neighbours on both sides are horrendous. One has a dog that barks and wakes me up at all hours of the day or night. The couple yell to each other and are generally like ASBO neighbours from hell despite this being a lovely area with large detached houses. They annoy the shit out of me.

The bloke on the other side spends his whole life staring at me through the fence. Crime Watch style.

Just wanted to give you an example of being disturbed by neighbours in a property where I shouldn’t really hear them. I still do. It drives me mental. It’s like peaceful country life with beautiful birds and wildlife and then the background din of chavs shouting their heads off at each other.

FML.