Issue with neighbour

[Dimestore]

The neighbour living next-door to a house that I let, has written to me to let me know that since November, she has become aware that she can hear my tenant moving about, taking a shower etc. She believes that there might be a crack in the party wall and is implying that it must be on my side.

As the wall in the bathroom is tiled, I wouldn't be able to see. This is also the case in the kitchen. I'm at a bit of a loss to think of how to resolve this. I could always hear sounds from her house when I lived there and assumed that the ways were very thin. I would consider getting a surveyor in, but am concerned about paying for an investigation when ither may not be a problem or the issue may be on her side. Has anyone had anything similar?

Go and have a look at the property yourself and have a good look at the walls, are there any bulges, hairline cracks along tiles or other cracks? Also, have a look up in the roof space and look at the wall between the properties there, as well as outside for any signs of cracks in walls/brickwork. I think it will be fairly obvious if something is wrong.

If there is one particular thing they can hear more than the other, might be the tenant is particularly heavy footed, or perhaps something in the shower unit itself is going and so it's more noisy.

Explain to the neighbour you are looking into this and ask if the tenant seems to be in the shower any particular time or is particular noisier any time of the day and ask if they would be kind enough to give you access to that room to stand and listen for a while a couple of times - if you could hear the sounds yourself, you would get a feel for whether they really are unacceptable.

Could just be the neighbour is particularly fussy, but at least if you've been in touch you can show you've listened to what she's had to say. If she won't give you access (which she may not) at least you can say you've tried to investigate.

If there is a crack in the party wall she must be able to see it on her side? sounds very odd. I'd write back politely asking her what investigations she has had done/going to have. It's probably likely that the walls are thin.

hard floors are much noisier than carpets.

Funny but we used to have a neighbour like that - she seemed to think that the noise only went the one way! I pointed out to her that the difference between us was that we didn't complain about her noise as we was simply accepted that all neighbours make noise.