Flat dwellers: how much neighbour noise do you suffer from?

wherediditallgo

Sapphire wrote: »

In my experience Latins, Afro-Caribbeans and Africans are generally noisier than say Scandinavians, Slavs and Indians. I don't think it is racist to point this out.

No, just socially ignorant, bordering on very thick. If that's the best your "experience" has given you, to coin a phrase, you need to get out more.

Behave yourself. Noisy adults are something totally different - they usually choose how to behave, assuming a disability of some kind isn't involved. This was a crying baby, & whether its parents were black, white or green with a frilly yellow border, it was still a crying baby. It wasn't louder because it was mixed race, but maybe you're wetter & louder because you're not.

Sapphire

wherediditallgo wrote: »

Behave yourself. Noisier adults are something totally different - they choose how to behave. This was a crying baby, & whether its parents were black, white or green with a frilly yellow border, it was still a crying baby. It wasn't louder because it was mixed race, but maybe you're wetter & louder because you're not.

That is hardly a rational reply to the issues raised in my post, is it?

The point is that its parents should have done something about the situation, which was of their making, not mine.

It's probably best to curtail this thread before it starts getting too fraught - it is obvious that you won't see my point of view and cannot put yourself in my position. So be it. Have a great Christmas.

wherediditallgo

No, I can't see your point of view so there's no way I'd be in your position, because you seem to think the colour of the parents & the child is relevant, whereas I & others don't. I don't like noise myself (a black woman who doesn't like noise - what a novelty, hold the front page :rolleyes:), but the colour of the person had nothing to do with it. My noisy neighbours were ignorant idiots, & being 10 shades up or down the rainbow wouldn't have changed that.

As for my reply to your post not being rational, it was more rational than you deserved given the nasty slant of your original post.

Nicki

Leaving race aside, I think it is unreasonable to make an issue about noise from a neighbouring flat if this is completely outside the occupants of that flat's control. There is a world of difference in my view between between a neighbour playing music loudly, and a neighbour with a baby who cries in the night, irrespective of whether the noise levels are similar. I suspect Sapphire has no children and no experience of children, and therefore does not appreciate that it is not possible always to stop children crying noisily (whether day or night), and simply picking them up to reassure them, feeding or changing does not always do the trick. Some childcare experts actually advocate controlled crying techniques for children who wake often in the night, and this will be disturbing for neighbours while it is happening but may well be in the best overall interests of the family (though I'm not a fan of this myself).

I am glad to hear that Environmental Health don't regard this as noise pollution and nor should they. It is I'm afraid one of the drawbacks of flat living, and if it is a sound which you cannot tolerate, then perhaps living in an appartment is not a good lifestyle choice for you. Others will regard it as a price they are willing to pay for the communal aspect of flat living or the reduced cost.

My opinion is that it was not reasonable to ask the neighbours to soundproof their baby's room. First, this would no doubt have been extremely expensive. Second, it would have potentially been dangerous as they would not have been able to hear if their baby was in trouble or distress if he was left crying in a sound-proofed room. If they had left the door open or used a baby monitor to surmount this, then the point of the soundproofing as far as Sapphire was concerned would have been lost. Third, they did not cause the noise as Sapphire claims. It was simply an unavoidable consequence of their adopting a baby. Sapphire talks about sleep deprivation being used as a torture technique yet avoids the fact that the right to have children is also regarded as a basic human right.

Mozette

Sapphire wrote: »

Well, in the similar way that an earlier poster mentioned a Lithuanian noise maker by her nationality, I mentioned the race of the noise makers in my post (I don't know their nationality). I don't recall you or anyone else taking issue with that poster for being a nationalist.
Didn't see that post or I would have

Actually, your response raises some interesting issues. I'd say that some nations (and races) are noisier than others. My brother-in-law is Turkish and I have been going to Turkey for many years. The Turks are generally more noisy than people are in Britain, since they stay up until all hours along with their children. They also tend to eat outdoors in the evenings on verandahs or balconies. However, noise doesn't seem to be such a problem there. Perhaps it's because there is a community spirit and people know each other well and tend to talk to each other with less fear than they do here? The children are also better behaved and generally bought up with better manners.

In my experience Latins, Afro-Caribbeans and Africans are generally noisier than say Scandinavians, Slavs and Indians. I don't think it is racist to point this out. Had I said that the next-door neighbours were, say, Chinese or Russian, would you have criticized me in a similar way? Some people in this country are overly sensitive to the issue of racism (due to guilt on their part because of British colonial history). The result is that no criticism at all can be directed at someone of African origin, whether they are wrong or right. Oh get over yourself you fool, you pointed out, which was entirely irrelevant, what colour your neighbours were. Yes if you had irrelevantly pointed out their National origin I would have pulled you up for it. I don't feel in the least bit guilty for British colonialism - it's in the past, I wasn't responsible for it, why should I feel guilty. Yes, critcise people for being antisocial, but these people had a baby. What would you have had them done, gag it?

Those people gave me absolute hell and I feel very bitter about them for driving me out in the way they did - even though I am very happy living in a much nicer area now.:D

Well let's hope your new neighbours don't have a baby then; or perhaps you've moved into a nice gated community for the old & feeble minded :rolleyes:

VioletBaudelaire

Well I think you're all being rather unsympathetic to Sapphire. If people choose to have a baby they can expect to be sleep deprived and presumably they love the child so much, to them it's worth it.
If you're not particularly maternal (and I'm certainly not) a crying baby causing an innocent neighbour sleep deprivation is just as annoying as some thick moron playing loud music.
Obviously the colour of the baby ISN'T relevant!

zip1980

i live on the ground floor in a converted manor house, the guy above me has laminate flooring it drives me insane, not only can i hear him walking (well pounding) around, i can also hear him useing the toilet too! how delightfull for me.

wherediditallgo

VioletBaudelaire wrote: »

Well I think you're all being rather unsympathetic to Sapphire. If people choose to have a baby they can expect to be sleep deprived and presumably they love the child so much, to them it's worth it.
If you're not particularly maternal (and I'm certainly not) a crying baby causing an innocent neighbour sleep deprivation is just as annoying as some thick moron playing loud music.
Obviously the colour of the baby ISN'T relevant!

Having had noisy neighbours myself, I'm sympathetic to the issue of noise disturbance, but the premis/implication that this crying baby's noise was somehow connected to its racial origins will get no sympathy from me whatsoever. It's hard enough to deal with racism as an adult, without having the effects of it seemingly foisted you before you've even learned to speak.

Anyway, leaving the race issue out of it, some people don't realise how noisy their children are. I spent almost an hour on a bus yesterday, with a child sitting behind me running a toy car across the window about 6" from my ear. When I asked the woman with him to stop him doing it, she said "Oh, he's only a child" to which I said "Please run that car by your own ear for a minute & tell me what you think". It took her only a few seconds of the racket next to her own eardrum to put the toy in her pocket. There's no doubt in my mind that some parents don't think about disruption to other people by their children, & some parents simply don't care. I don't think this is one of those cases though - from what was posted, this was the first child, the only child, & that makes pretty much everything the child did something the parents had to learn to deal with themselves for the first time. That's hard enough to do without having a neighbour complaining & wanting them to take up impractical solutions as well.

There are soundproofing remedies that can work with older children & adults that would be inappropriate for a baby. As someone else pointed out, asking someone to soundproof a baby's room isn't a good idea for safety reasons, plus there's no way to guarantee the baby won't cry in any other room anyway, making the soundproofing pointless. It's possible to put up a false wall though - I've set up a home studio & have used eggboxes behind hardboard to lessen the risk of disturbing my neighbours. I've probably lost about 3" on the shared walls as a result & it's only a small room to start with, but it's worth it to know they don't have to hear me or me them. I wouldn't be surprised if there are other ways to soundproof that aren't too expensive. A crying baby can be like a drill going through your head, but the parents will be hearing it even more than the neighbours, & offering reasonable solutions will get neighbours further than blanket complaints. I think people (especially new exhausted parents) don't want to be getting complaints any more than a neighbour would want to make them. Maybe asking them to go halves on soundproofing Sapphire's side would have worked, or some sort of neighbourhood mediation service. Sometimes, simply inviting a neighbour round to hear what the sound is like on your side of the wall can work wonders - often people don't appreciate what it's like for the neighbour until they've heard it for themselves: until then, it's just a cranky/jealous/lonely neighbour complaining yet again

At the end of the day, I think you get more out of people by offering sweet than sour.

Mozette

VioletBaudelaire wrote: »

Well I think you're all being rather unsympathetic to Sapphire. If people choose to have a baby they can expect to be sleep deprived and presumably they love the child so much, to them it's worth it.
If you're not particularly maternal (and I'm certainly not) a crying baby causing an innocent neighbour sleep deprivation is just as annoying as some thick moron playing loud music.
Obviously the colour of the baby ISN'T relevant!

Sapphire was the one who seemed to think the colour of her neighbours was relevant. If he/she hadn't mentioned it, he/she may have got a bit more sympathy.

BenGlancy

Hmm after listening to all these moaning people...

I think someone should make a comment about how it sucks to live next to an intolerant neighbour, who complains at every jerk and peep.

Ultimately, they chose to live in a flat, therefore they should expect toGIVE SOME LEVEL OF TOLERANCE to noise in the understanding that people need to live their lives as naturally as possible without a strict regime to follow. Reducing noise (for normal , non-hermit people) is actually a stressful and tense pasttime. If we all gave a little bit of slack, we'd all be much happier.

I have lived in two places where I have had to suffer a complaining neighbour, for not accepting any sound whatsoever from a flat other than his own. This is particularly problematic for me because I have a significant hearing deficiency, the TV programmes tend to up and down the volume and I spend my life with the remote in my hand trying to keep it at a constant level to stop him banging on the ceiling.

Guys, JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN HEAR SOMETHING FROM A FLAT OTHER THAN YOUR OWN DOES NOT GIVE YOU AN INHERENT PERMIT TO HURL A TORRENT OF ABUSE at people.

Teenagers and children are noisy by nature and cutting a headphone wire on the bus is an ignorant thing to do and the old lady should have had her hand cut off in return. The headphones may have cost a hell of a lot.

Often the complainer is actually making JUST AS MUCH NOISE but the other neighbours are MORE TOLERANT towards them. We've all been in positions where we are too annoyed in an argument to care about the neighbours.

So get a life, have some tolerance in our ever increasing world of flats, apartments and maisonettes, and accept that noise is a part of life in the city/town.