Kids noise vs neighbours: AIBU to think that there is so much you can do when you have young children?

[karpouzi]

We have three kids, all under the age of four, and live in a period maisonette spread over the first and loft floor. Currently, our entire family sleeps in the loft. The eldest two share a bedroom, while the baby is still in our room. On the first floor, we have the kitchen and living area, as well as a double room, which is currently set up as a playroom. We’ve always had a strict rule that our kids are not allowed on the first floor before 8 a.m., unless they’re having breakfast in the kitchen.
However, our downstairs neighbor has been repeatedly complaining about the noise, especially on weekends, saying that it’s disturbing her sleep. She sends us long messages almost every week. We’ve explained that we have a double rug in the playroom, and that the kids are not allowed in that room before 8 a.m., even though they wake up around 6:30 a.m. We also arrange swimming lessons to be at 9am in the weekend so the kids are out of the house. Unfortunately, this is all we can do to minimize the noise. Now, we face a new challenge: the baby will soon need his own room. Our plan is to move him into the boys' room in the loft, which is fairly small. We also plan to get new beds for the eldest two and convert the playroom into a bedroom where the boys will also have space for their toys. The boys typically wake up between 6:30 and 7 a.m., and with this new setup, they will need to stay in their bedroom in the mornings. I’m really concerned that the complaints from our neighbor will escalate. What do other people do in situations like this? I feel I m getting fed and I will start ignoring her messages.

Note: When we renovated our kitchen we did add floor noise insulation but we don’t have the money to do any further renovations at this stage.

It could be a combination of everything, OP not bothering with carpet and the additional noise with the pipes. I can see both sides, the neighbour not being used to living in a flat and then ending up with an inconsiderate neighbour upstairs.

Thing is, you need to declare disputes that are handled by the council. You can add that the outcome was in your favour but I don’t think the question is written in a way that specifies outcome. If the neighbour persistently complains then that in itself shows an issue whether or not the outcome is in your favour. What you will be relying on is that the neighbour won’t do it formally even if you are in the ‘right’, but they can equally make your life difficult.

Sorry but the neighbour sounds like a nightmare. Your kids can't even use their own playroom for 1.5h in the morning, and she's complaining about you using your tap?!?! Even if you did put carpet down she'd complain about something else. It sounds like she'd be the type to bully you on your every move in your own house and will make your life hell. You're already doing what you can. She shouldn't have changed the living room into a bedroom, it is a 1 bed flat (is she even allowed to do that).
I'd tell her that you're already doing all you can to keep the noise down during requited hours. That her bedroom is a living room and that she'd have to use ear plugs and white noise and look into sound proofing her "bedroom" if that doesn't work.
Don't become a door mat in your own house excuse the pun).

No one is being overly unreasonable. The noise doubtless is annoying them; some people are more sensitive to noise than others & having only bedrooms/sharing a small space may make it harder for your neighbours. You aren’t being deliberately loud; you are trying to limit the times you are making noise to reasonable hours and you don’t have spare funds to do any additional sound proofing right now. It’s just life really isn’t it. Not an ideal situation by any means but having to deal with both noise from neighbours and complaints from neighbours are probably to be expected when living in flats.

In the short term I think neighbour could have a look at earplugs for a lie in & you could keep youngest in with you a bit longer to put off moving kids downstairs when they are up at 6:30 to avoid making things any worse.
In the longer term when you, or they come to decorate you can look at what soundproofing options exist and both of you can put some in to try and minimise sound carrying between the flats. Mumsnet AIBU can be quite polarising but most people will fall in the middle ground where they would sympathise with the situation both you and your neighbours are currently in.

This story about the stove sounding like someone crashing into a wall is very significant. In old buildings, sometimes the sound gets amplified. What sounds like normal daily noise at the source can sound much different in another apartment.

It would probably be helpful if you ask to visit her apartment when she hears the noise - when your partner is upstairs to look after the kids so they are not alone - and find out how loud it is.

As for why someone would move into a flat with a large family above - same as why a large family would live in a flat: maybe the price and location are good, maybe she didn't expected it to be that loud, maybe the rental market doesn't offer much in the right budget.

But everyone affected could contact the institutions which are responsible for building standards, so that it won't be allowed to rent out apartments and houses where you can hear every sneeze of your neighbour. There needs to be better insulation.

Why can't you move into the living room?

The clue is in the title of the thread - there’s no point suggesting things as OP doesn’t want to do anything about the issue, she just wants her neighbour to stop having the issue.

Yes I'd agree. Floorboards and a rug in a period house conversion - what could possibly go wrong?! 😑

A pp upthread mentioned using large foam shapes that fit together- they are probably cheaper than a thick carpet

Your neighbour lives below a family-sized property, what do they expect..!

I'm in the same position as you OP. Neighbour complained that we don't have carpeting in some areas and the rugs we have aren't thick enough (even though we have thick yoga mats under them). We ended up doing a test where we piled multiple rugs on top of rubber carpet underlay and jumped up and down / dropped stuff, and there was no real difference in noise compared to our normal rug setup. Since then I haven't heard any complaining. There's nothing we can do, it's just an old poorly insulated property.

Rubbish. Carpet and underlay isn’t just about footfall, it’s about absorbing all kinds of noise. You probably haven’t heard anything because they know you’re inconsiderate and what’s the point, you’ve made it clear you won’t do the right thing.

The neighbour has a flatmate by choice as she wants to live with her friend not because of finances as she bought cash a £700k 1 bed property. I wouldn’t say we do nothing by making sure we wont disturb at all until 8am on the weekends. Like what is reasonable to start living in out house after 10-11am cause she wants to sleep in??

Putting carpets down on a hardwood, floorboard upstairs floor is reasonable.

I'm not sure anyone mentioned sleeping in an outhouse?

by making sure we wont disturb at all until 8am on the weekends

But you are planning to put a 2 and 4 year old who wake at 6.30 in a shared bedroom with no carpet right above her.

you think she’ll be undisturbed till 8am then??

not sure how we ll handle it. That’s my main question mark! Now they wake up at 6:30am and come to our bed till 7:00-7:30am that we get them for breakfast. If they still wake up at 6:30am and come upstairs it will be fine. But i know kids timings and patterns change.

Well what everyone is telling you is that carpet will help a lot.

Honestly I strongly suspect that 2 kids of that age getting up at 6.30 am and walking upstairs will be so noisy that she’ll be awake within seconds.

At the very very least you need to to carpet that one room. Either that or have all the kids sleeping upstairs at the weekends.

You know the answer: put carpet down.

Lol you have no idea the lengths we've gone to work with our neighbour on the noise. This is just a snippet.
We actually installed carpeting in the rooms above their bedroom. They still kept complaining about our kid crying at night (in his fully carpeted room), to the point where we gave up sleep training and have to co-sleep instead. I'm not paying for any more carpeting. I've been down to their flat and it's not even that loud - the place we were before had much worse insulation and our downstairs neighbours were lovely and understanding.
If you're going to choose to live in a downstairs flat then you better be prepared for the risk of normal everyday noise, sorry.

You need to fit carpet to the playroom. Put it on a credit card or use a big company that let you pay in installments. It doesn't matter that the previous owner had hard flooring, it's not working now.
Also keep the baby in with you longer so your neighbour won't be woken at 6 30am by your children.

I agree. We did installed sound insulation in our kitchen and bathroom before this neighbour moved in as we completely renovated the rooms but it doesn’t seem to make any difference cause sometimes I get complaints and I know that the kids have only been in the kitchen.

There's just not much you can do here. Besides carpeting the room.
But end of the day you own the maisonette and you have kids. The hours they make noise are not unreasonable and the noise levels aren't either.. at least there's no way they would be considered unreasonable by the police.
So your neighbour can complain all she likes, there's nothing she can do. The police won't do anything about the noise of children playing normally in their own home during the day.
She needs to get soundproofing if it's such a big issue for her.

You are just going to have to put up with her messages for the next few years until you move or she does!
Hopefully she will realise she's getting nowhere and stop.

The noise could (would I expect) have been much worse without the sound insulation.

You’re using this as an excuse not to put down carpet.

She willingly gave up a living room and having anywhere to socialise in her apartment?

I mean it’s none of my business what people decide to do in their flats but yes she told me that.

I think you’re doing enough already. Yes you could get carpets but you can’t afford it so it’s not happening. I wouldn’t spend that much money to appease these neighbours or halt my family life for 4 hours in the morning.

They really should have thought it through when they decided to buy the property - who lives above this property? “Oh a family with young children. I’m sure we won’t hear a peep!” 🙄They have unrealistic expectations and you don’t owe them anything.

They should try living next to my neighbours who can’t communicate without shouting and have multiple dogs that bark literally all day long.