hello everyone!
I moved into a ground floor flat about 1 week ago. Met the neighbour who lives upstairs (lady by herself) and she seems like a very anxious person but lovely. She told me that her and the previous tenants were essentially at war (she claimed they were noisy, shouted abuse at her, did some strange things like move her things etc). at first I seemed worried as you never know who was really the one in the “wrong” but she seems so nice I assumed the previous tenants were the ones who had some problems and seemed like a nasty bunch! (We also had some issues with them when trying to purchase so we could easily believe they were difficult)
anyway, I’ve seen her everyday since ive been here Either just outside or because she knocks and she says constantly “please let me know if my alarm is too loud” and has said a few times how she never wears shoes in her house to keep the noise down and today she even apologised because she didn’t realise it was so windy that something in her garden was rattling and she was going to take it down ASAP. I literally hadnt noticed nor do I care about a bit of noise - and her constantly apologising over the tiniest bit of noise or constantly asking me to let her know if I hear anything is starting to concern me. I have replied saying “same with us, let us know if we are ever being too loud” but She seems VERY sensitive and anxious about it all and I’ve said multiple times to her that I haven’t heard anything and that I really don’t mind but obviously because of all this - it’s now made me very anxious about the noise I’m creating.
the other night our lock snapped off completely and we couldn’t even shut our door so we had to change the locks. We were changing them at 9pm and at 10pm we were going to have to use a circular saw for literally 30seconds to cut a tiny bit of wood. bearing in mind this was all a bit of an emergency as we weren’t going to sleep with the front door wide open, the moment the saw went off she was at the door knocking and told us that she couldn’t sleep. i COMPLETELY understand that any DIY at 10pm is unacceptable but it was a sort of moment where it was an emergency and it was going to be 2 minutes maximum of noise and I would honestly never knock at someone’s door to tell them I couldn’t sleep unless it was a sort of ongoing issue or it lasted for over 15mins or something. I have lived all my life in my previous house and have never ever knocked on a neighbours door and vice versa No one has ever knocked on mine, even having parties until 1am my old neighbours understand it’s maybe once every few months that it happens for a birthday or something and it’s not malicious/something that happens all the time.
I am now completely terrified to do anything. It’s daytime and I feel scared to turn my cake mixer on because I’m almost waiting for her to show up at the door. I feel scared to watch TV at night or cook at night as she clearly goes to bed early and I am having really bad anxiety in this new place as I feel like I have no idea what she can/can’t hear. she says the sound proofing is terrible yet when I bought this place I felt like there was actual concrete in the ceiling/her floor and thought it would be good.
Now knocking on the door for the DIY is justified (I did send her a message to apologise again the next day and I let her know it was an emergency and I would never usually do DIY that late and she was thankful and seemed to appreciate me sending her that message). but obviously her apologising for something rattling in the garden, or talking about her alarm has now made me tiptoe in my own house looking at the door while I’m doing anything expecting her to show up.
could anyone give me any advice on what to do? I’m not sure how to get over the anxiety and feel like I can do what I want in my own place whilst also not fearing her showing up. There’s no hostility between me and the neighbour- she seems lovely but she also seems very stressed/anxious and clearly has no problem coming to the door to let you know if she’s being kept awake even if whatever the noise is has been on for 30 seconds. I want to (post COVID) have garden bbqs with friends. My job is a home baker and I need to use a noisy mixer during the days, I want to play music while I’m baking at a medium level and not constantly have anxiety/fear that she will message me or come to the door about it. I now think this may be why there were issues with the previous neighbours??
I am definitely not a “noisy” neighbour. I just want to go about and do daily things without fear of the door knocking :( she has only knocked that one time with the DIY but bearing in mind I’ve been here 1 week and every single day she’s either knocked to tell me about something and everyday has either apologised for her alarm or something ridiculous which is barely loud at all or tells me to let her know if I hear anything.
thanks for any advice!