Flat-dwellers - would I have been the same?

[beetlejuice73]

We live in a conversion flat in a building full of DINKIES. We ourselves were young, free and single when we moved in, then shortly afterwards found ourselves about to become parents. We've lived abroad for most of DD's life so far, but moved back before Christmas, and it's not easy. The downstairs neighbour complains constantly about crying in the night, and about our footsteps when we get up to deal with the baby.
Usually the prams live in the car, but one day a week, and on other rare occasions, a pram will stay in the communal hallway for a short while. There have now been complaints about this too, though I don't know who from.
I wonder if we would have been just as indignant a couple of years ago, before parenthood, or whether we really are living in the midst of a bunch of selfish, NIMBY idiots. My DD will be funding their pensions!

how very tedious

but a stinky nappy under each of their doormats and really give them something to gripe about.

Sound like a right bunch of whinging ponces IMO.

I used to be able to hear the single bloke upstairs w*nking, but I never complained.

i have had this problem but it was me moaning about my neighbours upstairs who are childlee. they have no idea how hard it is to get a bay back to sleep when they have been woken up by loud noise . in the end we had a meeting with them and now we are friends.

they are now expecting a baby in june and i will see how they cope and expect a few appologies when they realise how hard being parents is!!!

you sure he wasnt just clening the sink drain with a plunger!

Well SuzyWong, you've put it into perspective for me!
I can really sympathise with the girl downstairs. It must be very frustrating for her. But that's a chance you take when you live in a flat. It really drives me mad when she talks about my DD as a baby who cries a lot. She's not! She's just a normal baby who has good nights and bad nights, good days and bad days.

ahem...no

yes it is a problem getting the kids back to sleep, this is one of the main reasons neither of ours slept through.... it is too stressful to do CC or just letting them settle themselves when there is plasterboard ( wadded with horsehair in our case - Victorian converted house) between you and the neighbours

we're lucky we share our hall with one flat, and they have a six month old so they never complain about anything related to our 8 week old tot.
one annoying thing is though, we have a split level flat with a redundant bedroom on the first floor near our entrance doorway and the living room, kitchen, bathroom, our room and nursery upstairs on second floor.
as dp smokes i have been letting him do it in the spare room with door closed as its hardly going to come all the way upstairs, yet somehow through three doors and a long stretch of hallway our neighbours have apparantly been getting smoke into their flat and have complained loads...they must be ultrasensitive!

I can tell when someone walks past my house smoking a cigarette - honestly, I really can.

We most certainly complained when the fugly DINKY couple upstairs broke their dining room table one lunch time by rutting on it ferociously for HOURS, suzy. The resounding crash after all the porn-star racket was the final straw. I just felt it was soooo sad that they moved out (illegal subletters) before ds and his eyesore pushchair and inconsiderate baby noises moved in.
Who are these people complaining to anyway beetlejuice? Is there something in your lease that says you must use contraception?
I know we were clueless about the reality of parenthood before we had children but I've always liked children and babies enough to understand that they CRY and their parents can hardly gag them. So might have been a bit fed up with squawking, but never complained.
I will say one thing though - what is your flooring like? Our problems with upstairs escalated when the owners dispensed with fitted carpets and laid booming laminate. I do think boards or hard floors throughout conversion flats is not nice for the people below unless you have gone to some expense to do other soundproofing...our flats were dreadul for this so we did buy some cheap rugs from IKEA to go on top of the fitted carpet to muffle the worst of ds' trotting about...

i ant understand as he opens the sash window fully, smokes in a chair beneath it, we have the door closed and a draught excluder and he waits for a while after he puts it out to open the door and come back upstairs.
though i used to smoke so maybe i cant smell it.
i dont see how it could get through at least two internal doors and two bulky front doors though!?

SPRAY@ rutting ferouciously!

we used to live downstairs from two gay guys in Sydney years ago who would have furniture throwing sessions to Whitney Houston music... and then make up..loudly. And in between us and them was a tiny tiny woman who always sounded like she was walking very angrily on stilts

Anyway I digress

i can understand how you feel with the pram issue though beetlejuice, i stupidly bought a very bulky one, and cant get it back upstairs without dp here so if i couldnt leave it in the hall for a while for fear of complaints i'd feel well and truly trapped in our flat..not nice!

sounds like you are living amongst some real jerk offs, are you in london by any chance!?

why, why, why do women wear high heels indoors? Before the onanist we had a woman who wore stilettos the moment she woke up and she once made 17 trips between her bedroom and the kitchen in the space of 10 minutes.

LOL Marina.
No there's nothing in our lease that requires contraception, and it's the managing agent they're complaining to. I have put a rug down on top of the carpet, but the floorboards are still pretty squeaky. I think girl downstairs was also put out by the incident a couple of summers ago when she was outside our bedroom window on her mobile talking long and tediously about a recent row with her boyfriend. I think she probably heard when my DP said loudly and pointedly, 'I don't blame him'.

We're in a flat (top two floors) in a gentrifying area - luckily that means gradually increasing numbers of children (parents are much like you, cosmopolitan mobile types - nice ). We are lucky with our neighbours, I think, but have always been quite careful about not bothering them - eg we chose to use a room as the children's bedroom because it's the only one that's got only a bathroom on the other side of the wall; I don't let the children rampage on our lower floor at any time when childfree people are likely to be asleep; always consulted the neighbours about where we stored prams etc. It is a bit restricting, I guess, but I like a bit of communal life & am happy to make the compromises.

Sounds as if your downstairs neighbour isn't - I guess the choice is either to tell her you sympathise but this stage won't last for ever, or to try to adapt things - special felt slippers for the small hours? Even move dd's bed, if not impractical?

he he..i attempted heels on xmas day at home, just for the occasion, for the first time since becoming pregnant, then realised kitchen tiles, carpet and wooden floor do not mate well with a stilleto.
i swiftly changed to totes toasties with my lovely new dress..very glam! hehehe

Yes it's London. I guess what strikes me is that it's so easy to live a self-contained, blameless, invisible life when you're childless. That just can't be done with children.

Whats a dinky?

Dual Income, No Kids Yet