Hi,
Just posting to see if anyone has ever been in the same situation or has any further ideas of what we can do to resolve an issue.
Myself and my partner are both 23 and around 18 months ago purchased our first property. It’s only a small ground floor flat of a town house but our first home and something we worked hard for. First 6 months were fine, the upstairs flat is owned by a family in new Zealand and rented out. the tenants were no problem. After around 6 months, a new family moved in with a 2 year old daughter.
For the last year, we are woken at 6AM on our weekends by the child running all over the house upstairs causing horrendous banging. This goes on all day and on the weekend evening until 2-3AM in the morning. Our lights shake, our radiators wobble. The owner has had a few carpets replaced but to no avail, the banging is too much for any quality carpet to make a difference.
We have tried speaking to them, they are Romanian and do not speak very good English so it is difficult but they say it is not their problem, they cannot stop a child from playing. We have spoken to their property managers who seem to have little power in order to do anything. We have spoken to the council who as soon as they heard the fact is was a child, told us they couldn’t do anything regardless of the fact it was during unsociable hours.
I have now asked the owner of the property to serve them notice and offered to pay for any estate agent fees and missing rent in the time it takes to find new tenants who don’t have a young child. My inclination is however that he won’t go along with this.
Does anyone know what else we can do.
Not having the property long means it doesn’t make too much financial sense for us to move. We enquired about buying the upstairs property ourselves but the owner wanted far too much for it.
Very thankful of any ideas or help from anyone!
Thanks
This is a horrible situation to be in!
Again, it may sound like the OP is exaggerating, but I know first hand it can be amazingly loud!
OP do you have Lath & Plaster or Plasterboard ceilings? Are the floors concrete, or (I am guessing) joists and one of the above? The problem with most ceilings as they act like a drum skin or a hollow box and noises can reverberate horribly. Quite often the ceiling can make the issue worse!
You can reduce it by adding lots of mass to the ceiling. This is not a magic fix by any means and is expensive
Loading the ceiling with Genie Clips & DB Board/ Gypsum sound board or Resilient Bars & the above boards along with some acoustic mineral wool between the floors would help somewhat, but to be honest, I do not think it will make a life changing difference for impact noise (It definitely helps, but does not eliminate it by any means) as you get a lot of flanking down the walls. The construction of your property will play a big part in this. For example, concrete floors and breeze block walls are worse, whereas Lath & Plaster ceilings and brick walls are generally better Also budget at least £2,000 a room to do it properly if you get a co. in. You could probably do it yourself for about £1,200 for a room (my 4x3.5m lounge would be roughly this cost), but it is a tough job, as working with ceilings always is. If you have a joist & plasterboard ceiling, you could pull it all down and replace it with one of the above, or an independent ceiling.
What may work better is tackling the issue from above. Special underlays could be put under the carpet to combat this, but, it is expensive AND your neighbours/LL have to allow it. Again, it will not totally eliminate it, I promise you that.
Unfortunately, unless you are willing to build a 'box' inside your rooms, you won't eliminate it totally.
I have no idea of your finances and how much you would lose by moving, but maybe try tackling one room and see how the result is, then make a call on if you can live with it.
Let me know if you want to know more about soundproofing. I'm about to do my living room ceiling (1900 maisonette, upstairs neighbour whose TV I can hear and frequent get-togethers etc. Not the same problem as yours, but I've sought tons of advice on the issue).
At the end of the day, if it were me, (and reading the thread, you have the means and won't lose money), I would either move out and rent the place out or sell up completely. Be careful about getting into any disputes with upstairs as you have to declare this when you sell.
