Problem With Upstairs Neighbours Young Child

fez said:
There is a big difference between parents who let their kids do whatever the **** they like and those who actually put the effort in to be good parents who have some consideration for those around them. Yes you get problem children who despite the parents best efforts are a nightmare but most kids you see who are out of control have **** parents who either ignore them or shout and generally reinforce the idea that shouting is how you communicate.

Its like the shows about parents who have "tried everything" to make them behave. They haven't, they are just **** at it. They threaten to take away the childs phone or tv and never do etc.

Either way, you can't expect people with young children to control them and not make noise but there are limits to what should be acceptable. From a reasonably young age my parents taught me to respect other people and that you own enjoyment does not trump other peoples. If we lived in a flat my mum would have told me off if we stomped about unnecessarily. As with all things there is no clear single rule about whats acceptable. It depends on the age of the child and how poor the sound proofing is.

I was at a tkmaxx the other day while a child of about 5 or 6 was actively trying to stomp as loudly as they could on the second floor. They were jumping up and down trying to create the loudest bang they could. What was the mother doing as the whole place was reverberating? Ignoring them entirely because who gives a ****. Doesn't bother her so **** everyone else.
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Reviving an old Post (awaiting disapproval)

My issue is similar but very different circumstances. I'm in temporary accomendation and have been since December, I guess you could say...it's been hell. You would think people would stick to their tenancy agreement and be cautious about making noise as complaints go back to the council but they don't care either. I got moved from one temporary accommodation to another because I complained about noise... In a way it felt like I was being punished for complaining. It's in the past now with that noisy neighbour but the woman thought her kids screams right outside my door were just
happy screams
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and she thought me asking to not hear her kids screams ALL day were me wanting to
Suppress them
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. She would let them scream, cry, run, go into other people's rooms and bathroom without permision... They were so loud you could hear them down the road. I did once ask her politely at 6am to turned down the volume as it was out in the hallway right outside my door, she was just letting her son who is 4 years old, have a massive tantrum. Sorry but if it's your child, your responsibility. That may sound harsh but the amount of times I saw her chat away on her phone without a care in the world while her kids ran riot making everyone else's day a misery. Any way, I'm glad I got moved from that place. I think she thinks she won as I got moved but I got moved to play where there's shops near by and is more convenient for me, that place was in the middle of nowhere.
Getting to my point slowely. .
To the original poster or anyone in a similar situation...as I'm guessing the op has sorted the problem as this post was ages ago now... Is to just move. Yes it's inconvenient but in the short term for your own health, just bite the bullet and be done with it. I'm glad I don't have to see that woman anymore and hear those screams all day or the banging on my door yes they banged on my door and the mother didn't try to stop that either. That's the downside to confronting the parent and politely asking for the noise to get lowered, it could get worse. In that place I was on the first floor and when someone moved in below me, I actually went down and introduced myself and apologized if she could hear me walking around as the ceilings were thin. I'm polite like that, I hate to make noise...that's just the way I am. She was said it's fine but I still went out for most of the day, yes to get away from the house I was having to put up with but also so I could give my neighbour downstairs a break from hearing me walk around.
Anyway back to my currrent problem, I'm on the ground floor now...it's relatively quiet in the day with the occasional door slamming...for some reason everyone loves slamming their doors even though the doors don't need to be slammed to be shut. My upstairs neighbour comes in between 6-7pm most days and she let's her child scream and jump up and down like a kangaroo until about half 10. Now for some people this is reason but I've got a 6 month old sleeping below and it would be nice if I could have an earlier night for a change. Don't get me wrong, this place is like heaven to the other place but as someone who's lived in a house my whole adult life, having a kid bounce up and down above me for hours, gives me one massive headache. Doesn't help I've still got anxiety from the last place, I get nervous with lots of noise and it seems to trigger me..I feel this anger in me when I know people could be quieter but they chose not to be. Don't get me wrong, I know everyone has different schedules but I don't get why my upstairs neighbour felt the need to Hoover at 8am... I was still asleep, lovely thing to wake up too. :(

I know some people are going to think your baby must make noise ;). The last place we was in, one of my neighbours didn't realised I had a baby until she saw her at over a month old... So yes I've been blessed with a quieter crier and I'm one of those mums that rushes around to make sure the crying doesn't go on for too long so I don't disturb others. So considering I have a baby, I think I'm a quiet neighbour. If my baby is too loud then I try teething gel or the dummy, also take her outside in the communal garden.
I will remain this considerate when my daughter is a toddler. Having children does not give them the right to be rude and ruin other people's peace and quiet in their own homes, if someone in the future moaned at me for the noise levels of my child, I would apologize profusely and found a solution. I feel soft parenting has made parenting so relaxed that if you ask a parent to discipline, it's like talking another language to them :confused: . It's not that hard, if you want your children to be respectful adults, teach them while they're young. I treat others how I want to be treated but unfortunately I havent had the best of luck with considerate neighbours...hopefully I will one day.

Felt I needed to comment after reading replies from angry parents who obviously don't consider others. :o
 
I've just been hit with this.

I own the sole ground floor in a 3 apartment block, one per floor. Built 2015. We acquired freehold a few years ago, each flat has 1/3 share and 1 director.

Flat directly above me was sold to a BTL investor. He is in process of buying flat 3 on top floor.

His tenants went in above me on Friday 26 June. On Sunday evening I went up to ask "are you still moving furniture around" because it was non-stop all day banging and that's what it sounded like.

"No, I have two twin toddlers. They don't understand they can't run around"


Was woken up by them at 645am on Monday. Went to speak to them again Tuesday as it was non stop morning until 9pm. None of the family ever seem to leave the apartment and I work from home. He repeated again "They're too young to understand, do you want me to punish them"

Visited the letting agent as it's only down the road, they're just responsible for letting it, not managing but relayed concerns to the landlord. I need to speak with anyway to discuss how the block will be managed when he owns two flats and has 2 votes to my 1......

Started playing my music on a 7.1.4 system to drown out the banging, but can still hear the banging even when music in my room is 60db at the listening position! Had to turn off HOTD in Dolby Atmos because of the constant bangings.

Monday saw they'd put a rack of laundry in communal patio area to dry. Not allowed as per lease. Went up to explain and showed them lease. The father looked exasperated and said "how is it affecting you"

Tuesday, constant banging as soon as I woke up. Went up there to ask if they're even trying to keep it down. The wife answered as husband was out, not very talkative. I told her "there's a park 5 minutes away, go there and tire them out"

Spoke to their landlord about the block, the noise and the laundry. He mistakenly assumed the communal patio area belongs to the flats hes buying/bought even though the path from my parking space joins that area and I have right of access along the path behind the adjoining properties. Whilst I have my own enclosed private patio area, I still pay my share to have that part gardened, have use of the communal bike shed. The previous owner(s) also agreed it was communal.

He asked me if they could put their laundry outside. I said the other two original owners have never done that in 11 years. The owner of their flat hung her laundry next to the open french doors, so why can't they? It's a bit much to start bending the rules/obligations of the lease after a week - and ask me for flexibility when I'm dealing with the noise issue

As soon as he left it was non-stop banging again. I went up there, rang doorbell, they didn't come to door, I rang again, the father half opened it then shut it on me. I banged on it once with side of my fist in hammer motion and he came out raging, threatening to call police, crying about harassment. His wife came out to calm him down, he was complaining about my music which is only put on when they're banging to drown them out, complaining about my BBQ and comparing that to the laundry lol, said he was too scared to ask me about the communal bin store access, complained that the first thing I said wasn't "hi how are you" but "are you guys still moving furniture around" lol


He seems to want me to be the perfect neighbour whilst letting his kids run around all day and telling me "they don't understand"

Ultimately we've both rubbed each other the wrong way, although this was 100% provoked by their reluctance to address the root cause. I am also annoyed at their decision to move into a flat, especially as they said they lived in a house before and knew how loud it could be underneath, at the landlord and letting agent for renting to them when the impact on the block would have been obvious. My bedroom is directly beneath theirs.

I understand you can't discriminate against families but with high demand for flats, surely there would have been better options.


The ******* landlord was already mentioning "if you ever come to sell, let me know first". Worst case scenario, he wants the second flat so he can assume control of all mgmt decisions, turn a blind eye to enforcing the lease and his tenants whittle me down so I end up selling to him.

He's picked the wrong person if he wants to try that lol
 
Worst "I have a 7.1.4 system" post ever!

I joke. If the kids go to bed at 9.00pm, the music goes on loud at 9.01pm.

I'm sure the parents are also desperate for some peace and quite, but if they don't have the courtesy to give you some, then why should you return the favour?

Some death metal with lots of screaming and swearing should do nicely
 
famasfilms said:
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Not being rude here and perhaps most people don't share this view but you come across as rather unreasonable. New people moved in and it sounds like the first interaction with them was to passive aggressively ask them "are you still moving furniture around". I'm pretty sure you knew they weren't because little feet running around don't sound anything like furniture being moved around or adults moving about. The rest of your post reads somewhat like someone who is looking for issues to try and get them kicked out....because of the noise rather than for any of the other issues.

You live in a flat. Some flats have good sound proofing, others don't. They have young kids. Young kids have the attention span of a gnat and don't understand that they can't run about all the time because its noisy for others. You can tell them this until you are blue in the face and they will still do it. How old are the kids? Are they 2? 5? older?

As a parent you can try to encourage different sorts of play and behaviour but at a young age there are limits and those limits are not very big. If they have twins then its worse. I have twins and they wind each other up and want to play together. It would be a nightmare to try and stop them from making noise.

I'm not sure you are going to get any joy with noise complaints from children running about above you. Its not antisocial and its not something that can be easily remedied. You might simply have to look to move or look to put sound insulation on your ceiling to help with it.

It sucks but in any accommodation where you share walls/ceilings etc with others you might have noisy neighbours. We had neighbours in our last house who had 2 spaniels and three cats. The spaniel would nearly give me a heart attack regularly because he would wait quietly until I was walking past the fence and then bark at me like a nutter. One of their cats sat in our front garden 80% of the time and people would just walk up to our house to pet the cat. Another one was nasty and would hiss at and attack our cat in our garden and the third came in and ate our cats food whenever he could. They were great neighbours and in the grand scheme of things, these were minor issues but we could easily have fallen out with them about it.

Constant noise is horrible so I understand that it makes you a bit irrational but you need to try and work to resolve this rather than just making enemies. Can they put rugs or carpet down if they have cheap ****** wood floors. Can you sound proof your ceiling. If your neighbours like you they are far more willing to try and keep noise down rather than just thinking "**** him".
 
famasfilms said:
I've just been hit with this.

I own the sole ground floor in a 3 apartment block, one per floor. Built 2015. We acquired freehold a few years ago, each flat has 1/3 share and 1 director.

Flat directly above me was sold to a BTL investor. He is in process of buying flat 3 on top floor.

His tenants went in above me on Friday 26 June. On Sunday evening I went up to ask "are you still moving furniture around" because it was non-stop all day banging and that's what it sounded like.

"No, I have two twin toddlers. They don't understand they can't run around"
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The only answer that is realistic in the short-term is to start using earplugs. I spent 7 years in student accommodation (BSc, MSc and PhD) so I got used to using earplugs at night! On some nights I had to use ear defenders in addition to earplugs. But make sure you clean your ears out regularly because ear wax can be compacted against your ear drum (painful) if you use ear plugs frequently.

Adding sound-proofing to your ceilings will be expensive and will probably only cut the noise by 50%. You could try collecting evidence so you can approach their landlord with a claim that their noise constitutes "antisocial behaviour" which is ruining the quality of life for their neighbours, but even if he agrees (unlikely), he cannot use Section 21 now so he will have to go to the County Court to evict them and Judges are generally biased in favour of tenants (especially after the government's latest rather naive intervention).
 
Maple Leaf said:
The only answer that is realistic in the short-term is to start using earplugs. I spent 7 years in student accommodation (BSc, MSc and PhD) so I got used to using earplugs at night! On some nights I had to use ear defenders in addition to earplugs. But make sure you clean your ears out regularly because ear wax can be compacted against your ear drum (painful) if you use ear plugs frequently.
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Personally I just can't get on with ear plugs for sleeping at all, also I actually struggle a bit sleeping if there is a complete absence of background noise possibly due to living by a busy main road when I was ~2 to 11 years old.
 
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fez said:
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Be interesting to compare their perspective of it vs what is going on - when I've lived in flats you'd often get 1-2 people complaining of constant banging, etc. yet the people they were complaining about really weren't bad at all in my opinion. But then on the other hand you do get people living in these situations who are completely inconsiderate of anyone else :(

There was one instance of an older person regularly making a formal complaint about one neighbour "partying at all hours late into the night multiple times a week" - it was literally like 2-3 weekends over the summer where they'd have friends around and a BBQ and music on the patio outside until around 10-11pm and the odd day when they'd have loud music on until around 10pm which was very much the exception rather than the norm like 1 evening every 2-3 months.

Just because kids don't understand doesn't mean you can't do a lot as parents to mitigate it as you've pointed out.
 
If done correctly, I think soundproofing can make a big difference. In the flat above, fitting carpets with acoustic underlay would make a big difference. Then, you could also soundproof your ceilings. If it was all done properly I expected it would cut out most if not all sound of kids running around, but I doubt it would be cheap.
 
fez said:
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This was pretty much my reaction on reading the post as well. These parents have two toddlers running around - they must be knackered and have just moved house, and the last thing they need is a neighbour asking them to parent better.

Equally, as someone who hates noise myself, I get how aggravating it is.

First thing I would do, if I were you, is leave them a bottle of wine with a card apologising that you got off on the wrong foot, and that you'd like to start again, and that you'd be keen to discuss how they may be able to do something to mitigate the noise, and that you're happy to talk to them about the laundry situation. It'll stick in the throat and you may not like that you're having to do it, but it's the only way you can get anywhere remotely amicably.

If you find that, when tempers have cooled a bit, they're actually not unreasonably, maybe float the idea of insulation. It's usually easier to lay insulation under a floor than to tear out a ceiling and put it up there, so laying it would need someone to go into their flat. But if the floors are just floorboards and carpet rather than something more solid, it's really easy to lift one of the floorboards (perpendicular to the joists) and stuff a load of insulation down. I did it at a previous flat, and it pretty much killed all the noise aggro we were having.

If you want to consider the legal side of things, there is presumably an agreement as to behaviour between the three freehold owners? What does that say?
 
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Quartz said:
As someone who also lives in a flat and has had unpleasant tenants as neighbours I don't think @famasfilms is being unreasonable.
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I don't think the general feeling is unreasonable, but if it's gone down as written then it sounds like there definitely could have been a "you catch more flies with honey than vinegar" approach tried in the first instance.
 
If all the interactions are as you say, then I'd be making a whole heap of racket and all types of ********* to **** you off even more if I was them.


You catch more bees with honey, or whatever the saying is...
 
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fez said:
Not being rude here and perhaps most people don't share this view but you come across as rather unreasonable. New people moved in and it sounds like the first interaction with them was to passive aggressively ask them "are you still moving furniture around". I'm pretty sure you knew they weren't because little feet running around don't sound anything like furniture being moved around or adults moving about. The rest of your post reads somewhat like someone who is looking for issues to try and get them kicked out....because of the noise rather than for any of the other issues.

You live in a flat. Some flats have good sound proofing, others don't. They have young kids. Young kids have the attention span of a gnat and don't understand that they can't run about all the time because its noisy for others. You can tell them this until you are blue in the face and they will still do it. How old are the kids? Are they 2? 5? older?

As a parent you can try to encourage different sorts of play and behaviour but at a young age there are limits and those limits are not very big. If they have twins then its worse. I have twins and they wind each other up and want to play together. It would be a nightmare to try and stop them from making noise.

I'm not sure you are going to get any joy with noise complaints from children running about above you. Its not antisocial and its not something that can be easily remedied. You might simply have to look to move or look to put sound insulation on your ceiling to help with it.

It sucks but in any accommodation where you share walls/ceilings etc with others you might have noisy neighbours. We had neighbours in our last house who had 2 spaniels and three cats. The spaniel would nearly give me a heart attack regularly because he would wait quietly until I was walking past the fence and then bark at me like a nutter. One of their cats sat in our front garden 80% of the time and people would just walk up to our house to pet the cat. Another one was nasty and would hiss at and attack our cat in our garden and the third came in and ate our cats food whenever he could. They were great neighbours and in the grand scheme of things, these were minor issues but we could easily have fallen out with them about it.

Constant noise is horrible so I understand that it makes you a bit irrational but you need to try and work to resolve this rather than just making enemies. Can they put rugs or carpet down if they have cheap ****** wood floors. Can you sound proof your ceiling. If your neighbours like you they are far more willing to try and keep noise down rather than just thinking "**** him".
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I have to agree with that.

You only really understand how difficult it is keeping young children quiet when you have young children. And it's not always as simple as waltzing them out of the door to the park - again unless you have children you will not understand.

I get it - relentless noise is annoying. But if you want to keep your sanity the best approach is moving somewhere where you do not have people living above you.
 
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