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.

Yes but that’s not a short term fix unless someone has the funds available to do it right now

But there is an ability to sit back and think is the place to have young children running about, is it the ideal place to have four very young children running about that may result in constant neighbour issues! It's like moving into a flat with a dog that likes to bark a lot and quickly adding another 3 and being surprised that it causes problems.

The neighbour clearly wasn't expecting the noise to be so bad or perhaps all the kids to be so young in age or another kid to be quickly added to the equation. They could move but any other neighbour moving in will likely also come to resent upstairs sounding like a kindergarten in the early morning. It just isn't the ideal place to live with 4 kids under the age of 4 and not expect problems.

She had enough funds to renovate the whole house so it's hard to believe she can't find a few hundred quid now.

Indeed. It doesn’t have to be fancy carpet.

To be fair @FlyMeSomewhere I think it’s only 3 kids. Although 3 kids under 5 in a flat with no carpets is noisy enough!!

I feel the neighbour doesn't have a leg to stand on. You are making ordinary family noise within daylight hours, and only on weekends it seems. She shouldn't be contacting you constantly. I don't agree you should have to shell out for carpet. The neighbour bought her place knowing there was a family above. She could have checked that the upstairs flat was carpeted before she bought if she wanted that. She should pay for soundproofing her flat if she wants further soundproofing. Do not be overly apologetic in your responses. I would be politely but firmly injecting a note of finality into my next response: "As previously mentioned, any noise is from ordinary use of the house during the hours of 8am and 7pm at the weekend and is at a low level (albeit that the house's lack of soundproofing evidently means some sounds are audible in your flat). We have attempted to accommodate your concerns out of courtesy but do not feel that there is anything further we can do. There is little more to be said and we would like to note that your repeated messages on the subject of low level noise from the ordinary use of our property during the daytime are unreasonable and are causing us stress."

Well, don’t you sound a peach.

There is a reason why plenty of leaseholds and tenancy insist on carpeted floors above the ground floor. The noise, both footfall and general noise, in uncarpeted rooms is hell for those below, as has been pointed out many times on this thread.

Now, this neighbour may be a pain in others ways but my sympathy will always be with the person living below the inconsiderate sods with hard flooring above another dwelling.

Actually what the OP said was “we installed sound insulation in our kitchen and bathroom before this neighbour moved in as we completely renovated the rooms”
So it was only those rooms not the house, they installed sound insulation there so its a reasonable assumption they will do so with other rooms as they renovate them & it was all done prior to the current neighbour buying the property so they likely had no idea there was any significant issue with hard floors at that point in time. At this point in time they have 2 nursery age kids and 1 in wraparound and they’ve said they don’t have enough money to carpet so short term that’s not an option. Continually saying they must have the money as they had money at an earlier point to do the kitchen/bathroom” doesn’t make it true.

Actually it won’t be. I’ve been in exactly this situation and the council reminded the constantly complaining neighbour that the child had a right to a family life, right to play, right not to be constantly tip-toeing around, and that their constant little whiney notes amounted to harassment. The council recommended that we contacted the police to give the neighbour a warning.

Normal family noises in normal family hours is on of the right of a child and protected in law. The neighbour needs to get a grip. Families live in flats these days. It’s normal.

What won’t be? None of what you said relates to my post.

But that’s shite parenting! There’s no way you should ask your kids not to run around due to the unreasonable demands of the moaner below! The neighbour is in the wrong, not the children. A half decent parent would stick up for their children.

Yeah okay, funds to fully renovate a kitchen and bathroom and for a move in three years but no way to fund carpeting one room. You believe what you like and I'll do the same.

We moved house almost a year ago and one of the reasons we moved from our semi was because the neighbours that moved in 5 years earlier decided to have all hard floors and liked frequently banging internal doors from as early as 5am onwards. It was a nightmare how much every sound travelled through the walls! Hard floors and 1960 builds definitely didn't mix well!

It doesn't matter what you 'believe' though, does it?
When someone tells you they don't have available funds you just have to accept that as an answer. You can imagine whatever you please but it has no bearing on their budget or income. You can't even hope to know better.
Silly thing to say.

Underlay of high quality and good quality carpets mean my neighbours below have to deal with significantly less noise. Rugs aren't enough.

I think rules about noise are fair. I do the same with my own. It's not easy with younger kids.

Intrusive noise from other kids is like torture. I'm also a mum.

Oh god, we're dealing with this atm. Only the child is about 8, runs up and down for hours, jumps so hard that our lights and doors shake and playing on a skateboard and rollerblades inside the house with hard flooring!! I do not understand what is wrong with people.

Blindly believing what something with an agenda says is sillier.

It's also shite parenting to not teach your kids to be mindful of others or refer to the person living beneath as an unreasonable moaner. You have obviously never experienced the torture of living beneath someone with uncarpeted floorboards. Read some of the responses here of those who have. They are not making it up. I agree children should be able to play and run around in their own home, but the obvious solution is fitted carpet and underlay which will remove the misery of constantly receiving complaints and alleviate the suffering of the person below.

We live in a maisonette and we always tell our 2 year old to be mindful of the neighbour below. In fact if he starts stomping I will move him to a carpeted room and remind him we have neighbours. This is why we will be moving before having another child, I’m quite a worrier and would feel awful if I had 2 kids running around making lots of noise.

Your haven't commented on carpets (apologies if I've missed that), but thick carpets with good underlay can cut out a lot of noise. In my last flat, hard floors were not allowed under the lease - it had to be carpets, and noise wasn't much of an issue.

It sounds difficult for your neighbour but if she bought it knowing you were a family of 5 above her I don’t think there is much she can do. I guess she may not have realised how noisy it would be. I have three kids and know what it’s like. I think you’ve already gone out of your way telling your kids not to go downstairs until 8 etc. that’s already tiptoeing around and being stressed in your own home. She knows you had three children, the rooms are yours to use as you see fit and you can’t afford carpet or more insulation work at the moment. There isn’t much you can do as it doesn’t sound like they’re being unreasonably noisy at all. But from her pov I’m afraid it will only get worse as the baby gets older!

The only reasonable response to this is to tell your neighbour to do one.

You are already going over and above to minimise noise. I’m sorry but anyone who buys a ground floor flat has to expect noise, it is not as if you are blasting music or having loud noisy sex at 2am, you have young children and they are allowed to be kids in their own house fgs.

They wouldn’t have a leg to stand on with council noise complaint as what you are doing is just family living!

As an aside we lived in a set up exactly like this before our twins were born and moving to a house was the best option as all 4 kids can run around to their hearts content however I appreciate buying a house isint easy these days.