Bass heavy neighbour

BottomRung

Hi All

Been a little while since posting my elation at buying my first home, a 2 bed ex-council flat. Well we moved in and are slowly decorating and making it homely but we have an issue with 1 neighbour.

The couple on the floor below us, but on other side of building, have music blasting most days which doesn;t bother us too much as we work, but lately they have started playing music and basically having mates over till 3am. The music they play is extremely bass heavy and I can hear it through the structure of the building in my bedroom which is the furthest point away from his flat. Last night (Monday) I had to go down and ask him to turn it down as it was impossible to sleep with the constant thud, thud, thus. This was at 3.15 am and he eventually turned it off at about 3.45 am.

The lady below us has mentioned they have had a lot of problems with this family but mostly the noise which is completely unacceptable. The flat above him is now empty as the couple that lived there couldn;t live with the noise and now the elderly chap from below him has had to move out for the same reason. There was a petition going arounfd prior to us moving in to get ehem to stop but this has clearly not worked.

I just don't know the best way to deal with this as we aren't going to tolerate this sort of selfish behaviour in our new home and the guy we bought from clearly knew this was occuring but failed to mention this when we bought it.

We own our flat and have a hefty chunk of equity in it and am now very worried that these council tenants are going to make it very difficult to live in or sell the flat.

Really takes away the joy of your first home.

Sadly

BottomRung.

Yorkie1

My sympathies.

As speaking to him hasn't helped, and there is clearly a history from him, I'd suggest that you keep a noise diary every time the noise is troublesome.

Also speak to your council's environmental health team, who have responsibility for preventing anti-social noise levels.

BottomRung

Thanks, it is frustrating. I just don't get the people that do this. They have a little girl living with them, maybe 8 years old. How does she sleep at night with that noise being created?

Also is there any comeback to the vendor, as he's clearly mislead us into believing there was no issue when he obviously knew there was?

Richard_Webster

I always tell people to have a good look round an area at different times of the day and week and to talk to the neighbours, especially if it a flat. One set of neighbours might have told you about this other set of neighbours!

Errata

If these are council or HA tenants, speak to the Area Manager about their anti-social behaviour and ask what will be done to curtail it.

BottomRung

Hindsight is a great thing they say, but sadly we were very naive when we bought the place. We did visit at different times of the day but there seemed no issue we could find. The neighbours would without doubt have told us of the problem as they get it worse than we do. The family on the bottom floor, 2 floors below us, are good friends with the noisy people and so spend a lot of time in or around their flat so i'd imagine none of the issues bother them. That just leaves the old lady below us that gets it full force through her walls and us that just get the constant bass through the building structure.

I'd like to do something about this before it gets too far. Speaking to the council is our first option?

TrickyDicky101

Be aware that the moment you do that you have an official record of a disclosable dispute should you try and sell your flat in the future (and these tenants haven't already moved on). This may well impact your abaility to sell.

BottomRung

Yeah I realise this but surely as the vendor was already aware of the issue he should have disclosed this during the conveyancing? Or is it down to us to discover these issues?

I would not sell the flat without disclosing this as it's not in my nature to rip anyone off so selling isn't an issue at present.

I would hope that the HA would be appalled that their tenants are interrupting a whole block of flats, one of which is privately owned, and do something urgently to stop this. Or am I again being very naive?

princeofpounds

The sellers only have to disclose problems if you ask them about them directly. Your SPIF should have contained a long list of questions and answers. One of them will likely be about neighbourhood disputes and nuisance. They would probably have said no problems. But if you then find out that there were disputes (for example, a registered noise complaint with the council) then you might have a claim against them.

That out of the way, what can you do now? Complain via environmental health is the main thing. As noted, you would probably have to disclose this in any eventual sale, but if you have only just bought I would presume that you intend to stay there for a long while. So if in 5 years time you have to disclose a dispute you can probably downplay it enough not to worry buyers unduly - it would most likely be solved by then in any case. Plus who wants to live with disruption for the sake of some hypothetical future sale?

Now, it seems they haven't really listened to you, but given it appears to be bass causing the problem it might be worth one last try - often the woofer is not isolated from the ground or walls by a proper stand. The vibrations then travel through structures much more easily. My old neighbours were bothering me, but when I got them to move their speaker a couple of inches from the wall and put it on a springy surface (I think we cut up a couple of old tennis balls into halves to balance it on) I couldn't even hear it any more. Probably this isn't going to help, but you'll be the best judge of that.

ruggedtoast

If they never made an official complaint it would be very difficult for you to have any comeback against them, and this is why a lot of people never make one.

When all is said and done they could just say that they didnt hear the music while they were living there, or if they did it didnt bother them. Frustrating from your point of view, but what can you really do to disprove that now?

There is a website called neighbours from hell (nfh.org I think) which should really be your next port of call.

There are various things you can try like getting environmental health to periodically check the noise, or trying to get the LHA to act on breach of tenancy, or even calling the police when it happens.

Be aware that any official complaint you make will have to be declared when you sell, also unless you manage to complain anonymously (the police wont say which of the neighbours complained), you may well be on a collision course with your neighbours.

It sounds like they are already on a collision course with you though.

BottomRung

Thanks for all the replies, seems like the council are the way forward for these people. I have drafted a letter which I thought I might pop through their letterbox on the way past tonight, is this a good idea:

Dear Tenants of Flat x, xxxxxxxxxx Lane

I was disturbed last night by a ridiculously heavy bass coming from your flat until well into the early hours of the morning. This was a Monday night when I have work the following day. It has lead me to be late in getting up and late in getting to work and means that I got very little sleep, which makes me extremely grumpy.

I’m sure you were unaware of the nuisance you were creating and so I’ll let it go this once but if it occurs on an anyway regular basis I will be employing the services of the local council to put an end to this.

Be aware that living in a block of flats means we all have to be a bit conscious of any noise we are creating and if necessary cease all noise past a reasonable hour. I myself love a bit of music and have a system in my flat that is more than capable of causing a lot more than a disturbance but I choose not to blast it at all hours because I have neighbours to consider and a young girl living on the floor below that really doesn’t need to be kept awake by heavy bass.

I honestly hope you take this request on board and start to keep the noise down without the need to get the local authorities involved.

If you have any questions, please just pop up and ask as we’re really not nasty people but just want to enjoy the new flat we bought with our hard earned money.

Yours sadly

xxxx & xxxxFlat x, 82 xxxxxxxxxxxxx