Living in a Flat

[venusonarockbun]

We have recently sold our house and have gone into rented accommodation (a downstairs flat) until we find somewhere to go. However I am actually enjoying living here except for one thing - the noise from the flat above.
It sounds like theres a herd of elephants loving up there!
Are all blocks of flats like this? Ive never lived in one before. It woud be perfect except for this.

Sorry 'living' up there!

In general, I think purpose built blocks are better for noise than big old houses that have been divided up. But special flooring can be put in that helps tremendously.

What sort of building is it?

I've always lived in flats, but go for top floor to get better light and to minimise noise issues. But that means a garden is not always available/accessible.

Its a purpose built block, three stories high.

Depends on the building. When was yours done? If it's a new build, could be a cheap job. If it's an older building - a lot of upper flats have fitted laminate/wood floors (often breaking lease requirements) when only carpets were envisaged and they haven't put in sufficient underlay/soundproofing.

ho ho when we lived with people above us it really was like loving elephants. all bloody night!

i've never been to a flat where there werent noise issues of some sort, but some are very minor.

Ok wont be looking for a flat as our next (permanent) home then. Sounds like weve got a flat with a very actice noisy child above. Has jump-ed on and off the furniture onto the floor for 2 solid hours tonight. Thank god weve only got to suffer this for six months. Dont their parents realise thats theres someone living under them?

We sound like a herd of elephants I'm sure.

There's not a lot we can do about it.

It's a council/HA flat with bare wood floors and no insulation and we cannot afford carpet, and even if we could I wouldn't carpet it because it's a damp piece of shit and there's always at least one crap neighbour.

We know people are under us. We have an active 22-month-old and no garden. We have a dyspraxic 7-year-old who drops things and trips a lot.

We're trying desperately to get the hell otu of here.

Oh god expat I feel so bad for you - at least we have a choice. Flats are not suitable for children. Hope you get somewhere soon. This has been a learning curve for us.

We have lived in flats for the last 7 years with children. Our previous flat was in a 1930's mansion block. We had people above and below us. However, we were lucky - the people below us only used it as an occasional London holiday flat so it was mostly empty. Good thing really as I have all boys and we had no garden so they were very noisy. We also had laminate flooring throughout (against the lease). The people above us were two male flatmates. No loud music, but we could hear them walking about at odd hours and it did annoy us.

Now we live in the perfect flat. It is the ground floor of a victorian conversion. We have no-one below us so can make as much noise as we want. We have the garden too. Above us is one very elderly man who makes no noise at all. Perfect!

But why dont the people above us not realise that hours of their children jumping off furniture is bound to annoy the residents below? My dds are older but had I lived here when they were younger I would have been aware of this effect on my neighbours below and tried to keep it to a bare minimum.

You need to go and speak to them - they may not realise how loud it is.

Trouble is we have only been here 2 weeks and dont want to get off on the wrong footing with the neighbours but it is bad.

I agree with IlanaK - your neighbours prob won't realise how bad it sounds downstairs.

We lived in flats with neighbours above, below and to each side. It just took one pleasant request and everything quietened down.
We may just have been lucky but it's always been the case.

Now we are the noisy neighbours, so we try and have some consideration.