I've namechanged as details are 'outing'. Sorry it's long but I've tried to include all relevant details.
My DD2 is collected by our CM at 7.55 Mon- Fri. We live in a block of flats, with stairs to access it, so CM rings our buzzer, we take DD down to her. Short interchange and she is off. This takes between 5-10 minutes maximum. It involves some small discussion with CM, kisses and waves bye bye. It is short and we try to keep our voices down - but it is 8am in the morning.
CM can't come to our flat door as its up several flights of stairs and she has a buggy.
My neighbour works shifts. She has written to me claiming I am interfering with her right to peaceful enjoyment of her property, and the above interchange is excessively loud and long and wakes her around 8am, which is the "equivalent of 5am" for her. The noise is so incredibly loud (allegedly) that ear plugs don't work for her.
She claims that the above handover takes 30 minutes or even longer every morning between 7.30 am and 8.20 am and is very loud. This is completely inaccurate. It is 5 minutes most mornings, sometimes 10 maximum if I have forgotten something and have to run back upstairs, and it is ALWAYS at 7.55/8am. It is talking voices only. There are many children in the neighbourhood and a school a short distance away. It seems she is attributing any noise she hears to me & my DD.
She claims sound echos "as I will know from the days when my DP used to go downstairs and shout at the kids"!! Seriously WTF? This has never happened - There was a family with a garden backing onto our flats (right under her window) who had small children and she must be thinking of them. Nothing to do with us.
She claims a right "to peaceful enjoyment" of her property - HR Act language. The HR is re peaceful enjoyment from govt interference is it not? It is not a right to have complete quiet in your flat at all times. I should also add here, for context, that the flats are on a main road & bus route in central London - well used by emergency services vehicles at all times with sirens etc. Its a noisy place day & night.
Even if my children were excessively loud (which they aren't), according to the CAB it is pretty much unactionable.
Surely I am allowed to converse with another person, in a normal voice, outside a block of flats between 7.55 & 8.05 am? The shift patterns of my neighbour really aren't my concern - what if I had 5 neighbours working different shifts? Would it be unreasonable to talk to another person outside my flat at any time of the day lest it's "5am" in someone else's world?
This neighbour and I have history from many years ago before she lived in this flat. I think she is a nasty person and do not want to have anything to do with her at all.
I will of course further attempt to keep our voices down during the handover, and will tell CM that we must talk about anything we need to on the phone later, rather than at collection time, but I really don't think that we are doing anything wrong at all. However I do not want to engage with her on any level or reply to her ridiculous & wildly inaccurate email.
Apparently she is also complaining to all the other residents in the flats about us - I get on really well with the neighbours I know (several) and no one has ever said anything to me about noise. I apologised to our immediate neighbour re noise one day recently when DD1 was having the mightiest tantrum & he knocked on our door (about another matter) - he hadn't heard a thing!
Clearly I think her complaint is inaccurate and unjustified. She should invest in some of those wax ear plugs if she has an issue with noise and needs to sleep during the day, as shift workers the world over do (my parents were shift workers so I am well aware of the stresses they are re sleep under having grown up with it).
Do you think I have a legal duty to reply to her email?