Downstairs neighbour complaining about our noise, not sure what to do

[noisyneighbourproblem]

We've lived in our flat for around 6 months. We have one upstairs neighbour with three children and a downstairs neighbour with 2 children. We have 2 children, DD age 4 (with autism and PDA if relevant) and a toddler.

We introduced ourselves to neighbours when we moved in and apologized for any noise on moving day with building furniture etc. Around a month after moving in, the husband told us our toddlers walker was really noisy for them and upset their child with the noise so we apologized and got rid of his walker even though he loved it.

They regularly bang on our ceiling whenever the kids are playing. They bring it up every time they see us. We never play music, keep the TV at a reasonable volume, kids go to bed at a normal hour but they do run around in the day and evening and our toddler does push/pull things over occasionally as toddlers do. I regularly tell DD to stop running but she just doesn't listen, not sure if this is due to her PDA or just being 4. DD will often have meltdowns where she's hammering the floor too which I appreciate must be horrible to listen to and we do pick her up or move her to our bedroom when that happens. We bought thick play mats for the living room and their bedroom to try and reduce the noise.

They've just hammered on our floor again so I've text apologizing if DD was too loud when she was playing with my DH (she was jumping on him) and they've responded saying it's really bad and all they ever hear is running and banging and dropping things all day long and that she doesn't let her children run around at home. (I think they're around 5 and 11)

I'm not sure what to do. I don't want to cause a bad relationship with them, our upstairs neighbour we can hear everything too so I appreciate how horrible it must be. I'm not sure what else to do and i am sympathetic, do I need to ban the children from any kind of running/jumping in their own home? What else can I do?

I work in social housing complaints. Flats above another are generally not supposed to have laminate flooring in them. I wonder if you could raise this with the Housing Association to get some assistance in replacing the flooring. There's likely no obligation on it under the tenancy agreement, but it may consider doing so to avoid an escalating situation. It sounds like a really difficult situation for all. I hope you are able to work something out

It’s unreasonable if the HA has laid laminate in each flat. Ours is a new build and the tenancy states carpet in living room and bedrooms, above ground floor level.I wonder if as the PP above says, bearing in mind your little ones SEN , it’s worth asking your HA to pay for, or significantly contribute to carpeting in living and bedroom areas. Tell them you are doing all you can to minimise the noise, but the laminate is making it virtually impossible to appease your neighbours.

Have you ever been in their flat to experience the noise? A friend was asked, politely, by their downstairs neighbour to leave their music on and come down. It took only a few minutes for them to realise that there really was a problem. The solutions were different in their case because it related to music but some of the same principles apply. Carpets deaden a lot of noise. Soft furnishings absorb noise. Sudden noises are more irritating that low background noise. If your neighbours can see that you are making an effort they might be less inclined to complain.

I live in a downstairs flat and noise from the flat above is very emphasised (which I've noticed in other lower flats before). I do think people living in upper flats maybe don't realise the extent to which sound travels downward. However, you have to expect and accept a degree of noise from others if you're living in such a setup, and the sound of day-to-day normal activity just needs to be sucked up. Very different if people are blasting loud music, screaming at each other or running the spin dryer at 3am!

My upstairs neighbour has his two young kids staying over most weekends. Of course we hear them running around the flat and occasionally shouting and squealing as kids do, but it's hardly ruining our lives! He's a great neighbour and I wouldn't dream of complaining about it (he's intact asked if we're bothered by the kids and we said no).

OP's neighbours need to chill a bit

Try to control noise output and make noise less.