Renting house with nightmare neighbours

Face1992

When they kick off, in any shape or form, ring the police. Going through the letting agents is a waste of time, call the police and say you are feeling threatned.

diable

Ring the council and report them for being neighbours from hell.

princeofpounds

OP, you won't have an official problem unless you do things that are considered not 'normal' living noise.

It turns out that he was annoyed about my two year old running from room to room, not a lot I can do about that unfortunately. She is a toddler.

He started banging on the ceilings, swearing and several times during the day. I know he was swearing, because I could hear it through the floorboards

I've lived under a family who had a toddler. It was like living under a hippo farm. The problem wasn't actually the toddler, it was the flooring. Hard floorboards are very unfair on the people below, to the point where many apartment blocks prohibit it.

They had a carpeted bedroom and playroom, but the corridor and sitting room were wood. When the child ran from end to end (as they often did, repeatedly, at 6am on Saturday) it was "padpadpadBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMBOOMpadpadpad". And repeat 12 times. My god, don't get me started when the hard objects hit the floor (marbles were the worst, followed by matchbox cars). You could hear it through the earplugs, right into the bones!

I went to speak to them a few times, they were nice enough and I never raised my voice or got angry. But after the first four times I just had to resort to banging on the ceiling because surprisingly enough I didn't want to get out of bed, get dressed, go upstairs at 6am every weekend day for a month. And besides, they were basically banging on my ceiling themselves.

So, if you had hard floorboards, my sympathy lies with your neighbour actually.

JanetAS

princeofpounds, that is exactly what I'm experiencing at the moment! Wooden flooring and tenants who couldn't give a *!

I've tried phoning the owner (I tried to stop her installing the flooring when she moved in but she went ahead, saying she was quiet!). A group of Europeans then moved in after she went somewhere else with her partner and baby, and I had cause to complain.

Then in December last they moved out and I was then told a nurse would move in, and oh, she would be out at work, so I'm lucky. The owner's words! OK?

Within 3 days she made a heck of a noise going out at 3am with her son, taking him home to the Caribbean, and then there was stomping.

I tried contacting the owner but she ignored all my calls, texts and emails. So got the housing association involved. I own 50%, she owns 100%. A new Scheme Manager took over and he's useless!

Anyway, since the holidays started he's been here. She was off for the first 2 weeks and by the cringe, the noise was horrific. Unless you live below laminate flooring, you have no idea of the horrors. Of course I tried banging on the ceiling in retaliation, but she just ignored it.

Now, I'm waiting for the HA to get back to me as they were going to write to the owner again. I did write a 3 page letter myself but they refused to forward it on to her, saying the content could have caused offence. There was no swearing, no harsh words. I just said how would you like it? My GP is concerned about raised BP, would you be happy if I suffered a stroke. Please be a responsible landlady and deal with the problem. Don't ignore my calls or correspondence. By doing so has allowed the problem to escalate. etc etc

The Scheme Manager even had the gall to infer that I may have a low noise tolerance. :mad:

Laminate flooring should be outlawed: it's a damned nuisance and one that nobody will address or act upon.

JanetAS

Her boyfried is a frequent visitor, who also stomps about overhead, stomps down the stairs and slams the door. Never mind if it's day time, or in the middle of the night, midnight, or 4am! In fact, he's here so often I reckon he should be on the council tax register.

She also has a female friend who keeps visiting, and again there seems to much noise. At Easter weekend she played loud music on 3 of the 4 evenings and she didn't respond to my knocking on her door. Eventually I had to press the external door buzzer, go up the stairs and stand outside on the landing, asking her to please turn down the music. She replied 'What?!' So I had to repeat it. She said, it's not loud, if the police came (I never mentioned the police!) they wouldn't think much of it.

Her friend came down and listened and I said to her, I will not tolerate this noise. But it was lower than the previous evenings.

When I then made the complaint to the housing association, they said they'd received a counter allegation; from both the owner and the tenant. Saying, she'd felt threatened!

In my defence, I said I'd never threatened anybody in my life and anyway, with rheumatoid arthritis in my hands (and feet), I would feel the pain more! And I certainly wouldn't be able to lash out. She was inside, with her friend. She's taller and stockier than me. And I was outside her home.

Threatened? When I told our mutual neighbour, she snorted 'Oh do me a favour!'

Ulfar

For those in flats, noise is a real issue.

First thing if you are above someone don't wear shoes in doors, this goes doubly for kids. If you have laminate flooring, don't let kids play in these areas, it is the invention of the devil.

For those who are suffering in flats time to get your leasehold out and make a formal complaint that the person causing the noise has breached their lease. If their is a residents association bring it up there. you will have to persist as they will try and fob you off.

If the flat making the noise is rented out quite often a letter from the residents association or management company/housing association to the Landlord advising that breach of lease is being considered will do wonders.

If you are in housing association then contacting the council and make a noise complaint this will also see results.


To the OP with loopy neighbours, if you aren't making sound then your neighbour won't be able to record it and any noise complaint will be considered vexatious, a counter complaint is in order.

If you are brave enough when they next bang go round, be polite but ask what the hell they are banging for.

harrup

livmad, I believe that both you AND your" crazy" neighbour are the victims of shocking badly built houses which suffer from poor/ absent sound proofing.

I grew up abroad ( Switzerland) were most modern houses or apartments feature thick solid concrete floors and walls and who-knows-what-kind-of-effective-sound proofing between floors and adjacent walls. Meaning that disturbance from someone walking, running, rollerskating, singing, etc. in the floor above or next door is inaudible.

I couldn't believe how noisy houses could be after moving to the UK. For example, if my husband is moving around swiftly upstairs and I am downstairs it literally is akin to having a herd of elephants trampling around upstairs. If we had kids who constantly ran around upstairs, I would have gleefully murdered my own children by now....it is THAT intrusive and loud.

Thus, I feel for you AND your neighbour. Neither of your faults that the houses were built so crummily.

The ONLY solution I can think of is to approach the landlord and enquire about retrofitting effective sound proofing. IF this is even possible.

Meanwhile, consider penning a polite note to your neighbour, stating that her complaints have been noted and that you have raised the sound proofing issue with the landlord. Ask whether it would be possible for you to come round for a cuppa and hear for yourself what she is hearing. ( if she does invite you round, leave your kids at home with a babysitter and with the instruction to gallop around the house. You may well be surprised how loud and booming their movements are. Whilst this doesn't help you in addressing the noise issue per se - you can't tell young children not to move in their own home!- it may promote understanding that your neighbour isn't gratuitously difficult and mean. In turn, you can then invite her round to see what your children are doing ( just moving around normally ) which will help her understand. And then you might find a solution together!)

Good luck....I can imagine how unpleasant this neighbour issue must be

Hermia

I used to have a neighbour who was forever accusing me of making too much noise. Most of my time is either spent at work/commuting or asleep so it was total nonsense. I think she made her first complaint a couple of days after she moved in. She accused me of hoovering at 2am. I have never hoovered at 2am in my life. She accused me of playing music all night. I sleep all night because I have to get up for work and I don't actually own anything that you can play music out loud on anyway. Whenever she complained I made a note of what I was actually doing at the time in case it would be useful if the council ever got involved.

Irn-Bru-Kid

Many years ago, we rented a small garden flat. We had an alcoholic who lived directly above us. Nice enough guy, set the place on fire a couple of times after forgetting his chip pan was on, but apart from that, it was fine.

He had lived there for many years and when he died, his landlord gutted the flat and put in wooden flooring. He then rented the property out to a young girl who liked to party.

The noise was simply unbearable. To give uou an idea of how bad it was, shortly after she moved in, I was sitting at my pc sending an email and I thought I heard my mobile vibrate. I found my mobile, no message. Two minutes later the same thing happened again and it dawned on me. It was the upstairs neighbours phone that I could here. It must have been on the floor directly above me and I could hear it as clear as day.

She would often have people over and whenever she had company, apart from the ungodly racket, we were constantly hearing a chopping sound. Like vegetables being cut on a board.

In passing, I happened to meet the neighbour who lived next door to her and she told me that she had had enough and decided to confront her about the noise. She said that she knocked on the door, no answer, but the door was open so she let herself in.

To her shock, there was the neighbour in the sitting room, surrounded by a dozen or so men with piles of cocaine all over the floor. This was the chopping that we could hear! They were cutting their lines on the parquet flooring.

We moved.

Livmad

Thanks everyone. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has experienced this kind of situation.
I'd like to point out that I'm in a carpeted house, not a flat and have no laminate flooring.
I'll post if there are any further developments :-)