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Laminate floorboards/noise complaints
wubbue_2
Posts: 30 Forumite
Not sure if anyone can help with this. Apologies in advance as this will probably be quite a long post!
My husband has a flat that we used to live in but now rent out. We have a problem neighbour upstairs who complains about any and every noise made in our flat. Unfortunately her method of complaining is not through discussion but by banging extremely loudly on her floor/our ceiling. She has even done this @ 2am when we've been sleeping. When you knock on her door to talk she pretends she's not in(!). She's extremely unreasonable even putting a letter through complaining that she can hear our lightswitches clicking! We managed to ignore her and have moved on (not related to all this - it didn't seem like such a big deal at the time) and now have tenants in. Unfortunately our tenants have small children so create more noise (naturally) resulting in more banging from her even in the middle of the night which scares the children. Understandably this has angered the tenants who are unable to ignore her and everything has escalated.
The upshot of this is that SHE has officially complained to Environmental Health about the tenants' noise and we were ordered to carpet the flat - it had had laminate floorboards. A surprising move considering she is the upstairs neighbour not downstairs neighbour (who incidentally hasn't complained). We have complied and put in the carpet but now she's complaining because we put the carpet in on top of the laminates and she's insisting that we should remove the laminate first.
Where I understand the logic of installing carpet as laminates can be noisy this makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever as the original flooring underneath the laminate is creaky old floorboards! It seems to me that old floorboards + underlay + laminates (which stop the creaking) + carpet = less noise than creaky floorboards + carpet.
Unfortunately the council are backing her up all the way and I'm worried that they will force us to rip everything out to re-lay the carpet. This will be a big job and pretty pricey and for what? The noise levels will be worse!
So what I wanted to know is if anyone knows if we can fight this and how? I've heard something about a new law requiring laminates to be removed, does anyone know about this law?
(If you made it to the end of this post well done and thanks for reading! :T)
My husband has a flat that we used to live in but now rent out. We have a problem neighbour upstairs who complains about any and every noise made in our flat. Unfortunately her method of complaining is not through discussion but by banging extremely loudly on her floor/our ceiling. She has even done this @ 2am when we've been sleeping. When you knock on her door to talk she pretends she's not in(!). She's extremely unreasonable even putting a letter through complaining that she can hear our lightswitches clicking! We managed to ignore her and have moved on (not related to all this - it didn't seem like such a big deal at the time) and now have tenants in. Unfortunately our tenants have small children so create more noise (naturally) resulting in more banging from her even in the middle of the night which scares the children. Understandably this has angered the tenants who are unable to ignore her and everything has escalated.
The upshot of this is that SHE has officially complained to Environmental Health about the tenants' noise and we were ordered to carpet the flat - it had had laminate floorboards. A surprising move considering she is the upstairs neighbour not downstairs neighbour (who incidentally hasn't complained). We have complied and put in the carpet but now she's complaining because we put the carpet in on top of the laminates and she's insisting that we should remove the laminate first.
Where I understand the logic of installing carpet as laminates can be noisy this makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever as the original flooring underneath the laminate is creaky old floorboards! It seems to me that old floorboards + underlay + laminates (which stop the creaking) + carpet = less noise than creaky floorboards + carpet.
Unfortunately the council are backing her up all the way and I'm worried that they will force us to rip everything out to re-lay the carpet. This will be a big job and pretty pricey and for what? The noise levels will be worse!
So what I wanted to know is if anyone knows if we can fight this and how? I've heard something about a new law requiring laminates to be removed, does anyone know about this law?
(If you made it to the end of this post well done and thanks for reading! :T)
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Comments
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Your tenants could put in a complaint about her behaviour but as she "got in" first it might be too late.
Sort it out or sell up.
You'd probably have to declare the neighbour issue to buyers already though.
Can she hear them from upstairs really?
Can you sound insulate the ceiling?
What have the council said to you?
Have you asked for noise measurements (I suspect they have to show it's a nusiance rather than accepting her word - but who knows!)0 -
Check the terms of your lease, a lot of flats are not allowed laminate/wooden flooring due to the noise issue. Yours may not be affected by this due to the wooden floor boards.0
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Well, I hope you spoke to the council about the complaints re the noise of light switches. The problem is people become fixated dont they and are laying listening for noises. One of my sons had a similar problem, the lady concerned even rang management to ask him why he was hoovering at 10.30 p.m. at night - poor soul was sound asleep in bed as he had to get up at 5 a.m. the next morning. No doubt the sound was coming from another flat but she had fixated on every single noise coming from his.
Its a real problem for you but I really cant see why you would need to lift all the laminate as that would give an extra layer of sound proofing surely? Have you spoken directly to the council about this? And anyway, how does she know the carpet was fitted over the laminate?
I think you need to speak to the council about it and ask them to monitor the noise to see whether they really believe she has a justified complaint.0 -
poppysarah wrote: »Your tenants could put in a complaint about her behaviour but as she "got in" first it might be too late.
The tenants are putting in official complaints about her now, even to the police for abuse (as I said, the situation is really escalating), but as you point out she "got in" first so seems to have the upper hand with the council :-( Very frustrating because we know how unreasonable she is from personal experience.poppysarah wrote: »Sort it out or sell up.
You'd probably have to declare the neighbour issue to buyers already though.
Would love to sell up but with the market being as it is it's not the best time to!poppysarah wrote: »Can she hear them from upstairs really?
Can you sound insulate the ceiling?
She can probably hear something but I really can't see how you can be so affected from noise below unless it's really loud music which it's not.poppysarah wrote: »What have the council said to you?
Have you asked for noise measurements (I suspect they have to show it's a nusiance rather than accepting her word - but who knows!)
The council's communication with us has simply been to demand the carpet. They say they have monitored the noise from her flat but I'm not sure if they actually measured it or if someone just went up for a listen.
Those flats have got paper thin divides which can be annoying but that must be taken into account. If noise is caused by neighbours' normal actions, ie not blaring music or having parties, then surely one has to learn to live with it?0 -
Well, I hope you spoke to the council about the complaints re the noise of light switches. The problem is people become fixated dont they and are laying listening for noises. One of my sons had a similar problem, the lady concerned even rang management to ask him why he was hoovering at 10.30 p.m. at night - poor soul was sound asleep in bed as he had to get up at 5 a.m. the next morning. No doubt the sound was coming from another flat but she had fixated on every single noise coming from his.
I think that's precisely the case here - she is totally fixated on our flat. The situation with your son happened with us while we were there. She was banging on our ceiling to make us turn music down that was being played in a different flat! :mad:Its a real problem for you but I really cant see why you would need to lift all the laminate as that would give an extra layer of sound proofing surely? Have you spoken directly to the council about this? And anyway, how does she know the carpet was fitted over the laminate?
Our argument is that the laminate provides an extra layer of sound proofing - it's logical! Unfortunately LA's don't do logic! Their argument is that the original request (which they know we didn't receive and which we still haven't seen) stated that the laminates be removed and carpet fitted so they're sticking to it. We only knew the bit about fitting carpet otherwise we would have challenged the removal bit earlier. The worrying thing is that new law that I've since heard about re the removal of laminates. If such a law exists then you know they'll make us conform to it regardless of the negative effect. You know how LA's love bureaucracy... and power!
They did an inspection which is how they found out that the carpet was fitted on top - either our tenant told them or they guessed because we didn't carpet the hallway (didn't think it was necessary, who spends time in their hallway?)I think you need to speak to the council about it and ask them to monitor the noise to see whether they really believe she has a justified complaint.0 -
can you not prove that acoustically the noise is more likely to travel down from her than up from you?Remember the time he ate my goldfish? And you lied and said I never had goldfish. Then why did I have the bowl Bart? Why did I have the bowl?0
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can you not prove that acoustically the noise is more likely to travel down from her than up from you?
I really don't think they care as she's the one who made the initial complaint. The tenants are now putting in their own complaints so we'll have to wait and see what results from that.
My main concern right now is the council insisting we pull up the laminates. I feel really strongly that I would want to fight that. Does anyone know if there's some kind of arbitration or court procedure we can go through if it comes to it?0 -
Have got actually read through a copy of your lease?? I would personally be seeking legal advice to stop any further complaints or harrassment.
Are your tenants willing to stay in the flat after their tenancy agreement ends?0 -
Our poor tenants are desperate to leave - who can blame them? Their tenancy is up in December but we do need to do something as this will carry on with the next tenant. The current tenant has gone to the police already and has been given one of those diaries to complete whenever there is an incident. He'll hand it in soon so hopefully something will happen after that. No-one seems to be able to tell us whether she owns her flat or rents it. If she owns it we could be stuck with her forever! :-(0
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You could go online and find out details at the land registry website. It will detail mortgage stuff etc, normally £3 for the info. As I said before you need to read the lease!
Normally they have a clause about not causing a nuisance to other neighbours and this could be used as leverage against her - if she persists in causing harrassment etc her lease could be "forfeited" by the freeholder/owner, i.e. out the door with no financial compensation. Mortgage is still owed in those circumstances too. Used a clause like this once before.
Can you get your tenants to confirm in writing that they are leaving because of her behaviour? You could potentially sue for the loss of rental income.0
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