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.

I wear earplugs every night (married to a snorer) and have also used noise cancelling headphones when we had building work. Both work really well.

And at the end of the day, the neighbour is the one with the problem, she needs to compromise too.

Jeez I couldn't live like this, creeping around my own house. Kids deserve to be kids. You need to move, OP!

Can't you see that floorboards and a double rug are just not going to give enough soundproofing? Your poor neighbour has to put up with that noise every weekend! How would you like it if the shoe was on the other foot?!
I live downstairs from somebody who has got wooden flooring - and it's awful. You'd be surprised how sound travels down to the downstairs neighbour. She leaves her flat at 5am some mornings and I hear every sound she makes on that floor.
You sound a little bit like you don't actually care that she's having to listen to the noise YOUR children are making.

I'm just pointing out that many people advocate punishment for bad behaviour saying actions have consequences. Surely good actions should also have good consequences?

Children who hear more negative things about their behaviour than positive things behave more badly as they grow up.

I think it would be a kindness to invest in carpet.!I live in ye olde house and noise does travel. My little one was being disturbed by noise in kitchen (directly below) not a lot of noise just conversation. I put down 12mm ply as floorboards slightly uneven. The thickest underlay available and a deep pile carpet. It definitely made a massive difference in terms of noise softening.

Yes you see this quite a lot on threads like these. Completely unreasonable to expect the downstairs neighbour (usually the OP in the situation) to wear earplugs "in their own home", but absolutely fine and reasonable to expect a mum with young children to constantly wrangle her children so they are never heard playing in their own home.

I remember trying desperately to get my little boy to stay in his room sitting on his bed watching TV or playing a game until gone 9am on a weekend because I thought it would help our situation. Even him walking around would be enough to disturb the neighbour below us and send them into fits of rage. Fucking awful way to live.

I think the neighbours might end up with different sorts of noise complaints if a married couple start sleeping in a bunk bed right above them. Probably the silliest suggestion on this thread, in an extremely crowded field

It's incredibly selfish of you to have hard floors living above a neighbour who is being disturbed.

Yep and the "poor" neighbour knew before moving in that there were young kids upstairs. Efforts need to be made on both sides, and it seems like OP and her family are already doing all they can.

Sorry, I jumped the gun at your comment. I agree with you.

You’re joking right????
They are under FOUR years old

Punishment? For playing?

Has she said what she wants you to do?

Also - ask her if you can go into her flat and listen out for the noise so you know what to target. We have this weird tunnel effect in our houses whereby only on one section of the landing, you can hear everything happening next door. Otherwise we generally don't hear a peep.

I don't really see why she should care since she and her family are just living an ordinary life. I already think that things like not letting the children downstairs until 8 is pretty considerate, and that that's an entirely reasonable time for people to be making noise. The downstairs neighbour might want silence but that doesn't mean they have any right to have it.

Which room of neighbours is directly under the current playroom? If it’s her bedroom then you are being very unreasonable.

You said playroom is a double room. You could put just the bed in there and have your wardrobes upstairs.

Or carpet it - have it as the boys bedroom but move playroom upstairs as joint with the baby.

What a load of nonsense. They should not face punishment for making noise.

How did you come to the conclusion that the neighbours complaints are valid.

It sounds like the OP has already been very considerate of the neighbours by minimising any noise.

Thank you.

They aren't doing all they can. The op is ignoring all comments about putting down a fitted carpet, and then rugs on top. Just putting rugs on top of floorboards won't make a massive difference to the noise.

A fitted carpet with a good quality underlay will make a definite difference op

No - she's not being considerate. If she was, she'd be putting carpet into the room that is affecting the neighbour the most and she'd be making sure that there was soundproofing underlay. It's horrible living in a flat when there are people above you anyway, but living below a flat that has no carpet - that's even worse. I know from experience! It's not like she doesn't know this is the issue, she just can't be bothered to do the right thing and would rather just make the neighbour sound like she's being unreasonable here.

Surely the neighbour should just move her bedroom? Perhaps she could put a bunk bed up in the kitchen?

This!

Honestly, I think it's plain bullying and harassment when someone literally critiques every step you take in your own home.

I had a neighbour like this when I lived in a top floor flat. Every time I walked across my (carpeted) floor, I would get a text about the noise.

You can't appease these people, you just need to tell them at a certain point that "sorry, you're disturbed by the noise but we have done everything we can"

So, you think it's entirely reasonable that the OP doesn't have carpet on her floors? She could easily help solve much of this issue by doing that, but she hasn't. This is the reason why a lot of people in flats are not allowed to have wooden/laminated flooring now. It's inconsiderate at the best of times, but it's even worse when you've got 3 children playing around upstairs.
The sound is horrendous.

I think it's entirely reasonable until she's been downstairs and had a listen herself. The previous family living their didn't have an issue, let's not pretend sometimes people other than the OP are the ones being unreasonable!

I don't think it's reasonable to dictate how other people furnish their homes, and I am also really confident that this neighbour would still complain if there was carpet.

But she hasn't done everything she can, has she? She seems to not want to put carpet down. I get that, for you, your neighbour was still making complaints when you did have carpet down, and that must have been frustrating, but the OP hasn't even tried. She's rather just think her neighbour is being the unreasonable one, here.