On the brink of insanity

penguine

I agree with the advice not to retaliate. I did this about 10 years ago when living in a flat above a woman who played her music very loudly. Nothing else I tried had worked and the landlord refused to intervene, saying we needed to sort it out ourselves. I started playing loud music back at her and it ended with her shouting at me with a knife in her hand -- a crafts knife which I think she happened to have in her hand at the time, so not as bad as it sounded, but it was still pretty scary for awhile. It's not worth risking your safety or you children's by retaliating. Keep on at the council and ask them for their complaints procedure. Ask the name of every person you talk to and ask to speak to a manager if whoever you're talking to isn't helpful. Speak to your councillor and consider going to the local papers -- if you cause the council enough trouble they are more likely to take action!

hethmar

To be absolutely honest - what can you do about this sort of thing. You cant expect the kids to tip toe about all day and yet the noise is making you feel miserable.

I guess its all down to builders getting themselves sorted out and preventing this happening in the first place.

Ive just had my son on the phone, he is having the carpets laid and that woman has complained to the management company that its noisy. Of course its noisy, they are moving furniture and laying carpets. He had already sent her a note telling her they were coming to do it. Can you see from the other sides point of view?
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two-for-one

hethmar wrote: »

To be absolutely honest - what can you do about this sort of thing. You cant expect the kids to tip toe about all day and yet the noise is making you feel miserable.

I guess its all down to builders getting themselves sorted out and preventing this happening in the first place.

Ive just had my son on the phone, he is having the carpets laid and that woman has complained to the management company that its noisy. Of course its noisy, they are moving furniture and laying carpets. He had already sent her a note telling her they were coming to do it. Can you see from the other sides point of view?
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I can certainly see it from the other sides point of view. I certainly don't expect the children to creep around or be tied down. But how about taking them out to the local park 10 mins walk away so they can have some fresh air and a good run around especially on the weekends when they seem to always be cooped up inside? And how about getting them to stop jumping off the sofas? Also how about putting some decent rugs down to soften the sound of when they are jumping around. Am I being unreasonable??

I have a 3 year old who is just as energetic as any other child. However she is not running around and jumping off the sofas in the home. She does her running and jumping around outside. It's called having consideration for people living beneath you. If you want to allow your kids to run around and jump about inside the home as if they were outside, then should you not be living on the ground floor especially if you have laminate flooring?

I think you will find my situation is very different from your sons. I do not expect to live in complete silence. A bit of consideration would be nice though.

hethmar

I was not criticising you at all, Im sure it is driving you round the bend but as I said, I cant see a way out with these flats and the problems they bring with noise. Surely architects/engineers ought to be doing something to prevent the noise travelling.

jan74

Hi,I feel very sorry for you as I am in a very similar situation.I live on the ground floor of a ha property,new neighbours moved upstairs and put LINO with no underlay in the flat.Their two kids make my life hell to the point where I tried to end my own life....thankfully im still here as I have two kids myself.The housing association visited them that has made them even worse,I have now contacted my mp and am waiting to see if he can help.I will let you know how I get on.I wish you well x

skintandscared_2

Nothing constructive to suggest I'm afraid, but just sympathies because I know how tortuous noise pollution can be. I used to live in a flat below twin babies and their crying drove me insane!!!

two-for-one

Hello again.

Jan74 - I know exactly where you're coming from. Just got to stay strong and put the pressure on. It can be so unbelievably demoralising as it takes over your whole life.

About two weeks ago I contacted the council official dealing with my problem. He was much nicer in his attitude towards me, which took me aback because the time before that when I spoke to him, he sounded pretty cheesed off with me, like I was some sort of neurotic woman.

I also sent him a long email again explaining the situation and what I had been experiencing. He arranged a meeting with the people in the flat above me and would have basically emphasised to them that they had to have floor coverings down in their living room as this was now the area I'm experiencing the most noise.

Well guess what, after the meeting the guy upstairs put rugs down; it made a huge difference to the level of noise travelling down to my flat, but you won't believe this, just over a week later, the b****y rugs are back up again!!! Unbelievable.

This man upstairs has been told so many times to put floor coverings down on his floor. After every exchange he has had with the council, the rugs in the living room go down, but before you know it, they are back up again!! I think the only solution is to nail the !!!!!!!g things to the floor!!

I shall leave it a few more days, see if they do something about it, if not will have to get back to the council again.

mrs_baggins

I work for a council dealing with these types of things and i have to say your council is not doing all it can. Your council has a duty of care to fully investigate these problems. I cannot understand why they have not installed noise minitoring equipment in your flat. ask them to do so.
as to what can be done is a diffeent matter. There most probably should not be laminate floors and you can take this up with housing but saying that most housing are unwilling to take this up. The cause of the problem is probably cheap underlay for the laminate. In extreme cases the occupier can be told to either get better underlay or use large rugs/replace but these are extreme cases.

what you need to show is that the noise is not 'day to day living' as you cant take action against this. you need to show that the noise contiues throughout the day and also the evening. that it is interupting your day to day life-ie having to raise volume on tv etc to hear it.

the bit about it being witnessed is a bit lame. Yes we do need it witnessed which is why we install noise monitoring equipment. but it equally can be witnessed by a pcso, housing person etc. but the noise kit is the best bit.

go yo your council, dont badger them too much but politely request that they install noise kit. go above their heads if need be,