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 can imagine it is rather noisy if you have floorboards, its there any option to put more rugs or carpet down in the playroom? I know it is not your responsbility to do this neccesarily but if it eases the complaining it will have a postive impact for you too.
We have floorboards in our bedroom and sometimes DH will go upstairs and it sounds like he is dropping weights on the floor, whereas he will come down and claim to have just knocked a book or similar off the bedside table. It doesn't happen often, and its my own house/family and it still makes me think WTF is he doing up there!??

That is fine…when you have done everything you can. At the moment they still have wooden floors so they haven’t.

I would ignore the neighbour.

I had one like this. I recall at the height of her whining she moaned that she could hear my heels as I walked from the lift to my apartment and she wanted me to take my shoes off on exiting the lift.

I ignored her.

As I ignored another neighbour who constantly complained my TV was too loud….even the night I turned off the sound and watched with subtitles

Some people are ultra sensitive to noise and should live in detached homes.

Right in the OP she says we don’t have the money to do any further renovations at this stage.

I do not think the OP owes it to her neighbour to go into debt for carpet.

And she absolutely has tried - her kids don't come downstairs for 1-2 hours after they wake up, this must be a huge pain for her.

And they aren't even home 8-6 Monday to Friday so the neighbour gets loads of quiet, way more than most downstairs flat residents

What compromise is the neighbour making? She can wear earplugs or pay for carpet...

Assume you are being sarcastic but it is really hard living in flats when the layout has different use rooms above one another.

I once lived below someone whose living room was above my bedroom - previous tenant had carpets and I never heard her. New tenant took all up for wood floors and just the noise of her dog walking around at night was almost unbearable. Late night fairly quiet drinks with friends felt as though they were in my bedroom.

I can’t imagine how it would have felt to have two young kids dropping toys etc above me while trying to sleep.

OP - go find out what is directly below your playroom - if it’s a bedroom try to imagine what it’s like to be woken up on a weekend at 8am every week with kids playing above you.

You can't necessarily stop the baby crying but the older ones should face punishment for disturbing the neighbour

Dear god! OP, please don't follow this advice. Awful.

Also it sounds as if the sound is managed before 9am so what is the noise she is worried about.

Sound does travel, especially in houses with wooden floors. Ideally, you need carpet and underlay, and a rug! You could also insulate the space between the ceiling of downstairs and your floorboards. You could also suggest she adds a sound proof layer to her ceiling... but I think the first steps do lie with you.

Well, perhaps she should then. At the moment, she is coming across as not actually giving a damn that her children's noise is affecting her neighbour. We live in a middle floor flat, we've got the added bonus of having noise above and below us and it is awful sometimes. People just don't realise how much noise they make - but when somebody makes a point of complaining about it, they're always the one in the wrong according to MN!
I've never made a complaint because, as is being proven on here, nobody actually gives a stuff as long as they're OK. I appreciate that she's got certain rules in place, but, she could make the effort to get this sorted out - she just chooses not to.

Thick carpet in the playroom. It won't end the noise but it'll lessen it a bit.

No, it's not awful. Too few children are being raised to have situational awareness and consideration for others.

No one is suggesting they be whipped, but they can be made to realize how much sound they are making and how to mitigate it.

This!

I can almost guarantee your family makes more noise than you think.

Thick carpets and rugs on top should help. It's soul destroying never knowing when you can have peace in your own home.

@BettyBardMacDonald yes, it is awful, in my opinion, to which I am fully entitled.

No way. You can't punish your children for being children in their own home. Why does the neighbour take prescient over your family? You've done more than most people to minimise noise. It's just the reality of living in a flat.

Install extra thick underlay & carpet in first floor rooms that aren’t soundproofed. Wear socks indoors at all times (to protect the carpet & reduce noise). Wooden floors & rugs won’t cut it, especially if it’s floor boards!

Ah, so nothing should be a 'huge pain' for the OP? The first thing she should be doing is saving up for that carpet. She's made one concession to her neighbour -she makes her children stay upstairs for 1-2 hours - whoopee! Why should her neighbour have to accept that she can never get a lie in past 8am? Why should she have to wear earplugs? I doubt the neighbour gets complete peace and quiet in the daytime, anymore than the rest of us do - considering outside factors here, like day to day bustle, road noises etc, so please don't think that she is living a life of complete silence. The noise from wooden floors is far worse than I think you know. When you live in a flat, you hear everything!
She hasn't absolutely tried at all, she's made very minimal effort.

And the wording here is key - making children aware of how to mitigate noise is NOT the same as making them "face punishment". There is a very clear difference and that poster did not mean 'raise their awareness and educate them', as well you know.

@BettyBardMacDonald

Modern selfishness in a nutshell

We have hard flooring upstairs (big mistake!). Every time our kids drop something, or knock something over - a hairbrush, a can of hairspray, a water bottle etc - the noise is insane! Even walking from one side of the room to the other, in socks, causes the light fittings to shake. I made videos to show to my kids as they didn’t believe me! It’s likely the noise sounds much louder than you realise.

The neighbour has a one bed flat but she has turned her living room into a bedroom and she has a flatmate. So every room is a bedroom as they don’t have a living room.

It's tough luck, your neighbour shouldn't live in a place like that if she is so noise sensitive.

To this and all similar comments, maybe somebody with three small children shouldn't move into an upstairs flat with wooden floors. Poor neighbour.

So, you didn't think that was worth mentioning before?! That's quite the drip feed. Of course, if she's turned her living room into a bedroom, that's going to be a lot different! Still think you're being unreasonable about not getting carpets, but, also, if she's using her living room as another bedroom, she has to accept that this isn't a normal use for it and, obviously, people aren't going to consider that as somewhere they need to be quiet above at all times (not if it's underneath your living room as well, obviously).

That was to @karpouzi - forgot to quote your last post about the neighbour's living room being used as a bedroom.