Hi MN,
I’m in a bit of a pickle with some noisy neighbours and would really appreciate your advice. We bought our first flat 2 years ago. It is a ground floor flat and really spacious. We have slowly decorated the flat over the two years and it’s now lovely and modern. It’s spacious enough for the two of us and we love everything about the flat - except the noise from upstairs.
A year after we moved in, our quiet upstairs neighbour moved and we had a couple with a newborn move in. The noise from the baby did keep us up every night but we know this is just a fact of life and something you have to deal with in flats. It was nothing compared to the noise from the parents - constant shouting, arguments right above our bedroom at 6am, and the man running around in circles above our living room to entertain the baby (which made the ceiling sound like it was going to cave in!). They also had wooden floors at the time and it was just incredibly noisy. The landlady has since put in carpets which has helped with impact noise.
That family have now moved out, and a new family with a newborn have moved in. They are up late, understandably, and they shout across the flat until past 1am in the morning every night. We can hear every word of this - it’s worth noting that although the soundproofing isn’t great, we can’t hear normal conversation from our flat. The shouting is louder than our TV in the evenings, and louder than mine and my partner’s own voices when we talk to each other in the same room! In addition to this, they seem fond of dance music and have been blasting this incredibly loudly (but this is during the daytime so we feel we can’t say anything). They also had a loud gathering inside the flat, with music, at the weekend which was really noisy.
I really love my home and I’m constantly stressed and tired from lack of sleep. We have tried various coping methods, including sleeping with white noise playing (which helps) and wearing noise cancelling headphones, but you can’t always have these on!
We are looking into soundproofing, which is expensive and I’m not sure if it would even work. We could also move - but this is even more expensive and we could only afford a terraced house, which could have similar issues. It would also mean a larger mortgage which would make things tricky financially. Has anyone had any experience of this, who can share some advice? Does soundproofing a ceiling even work?