Noisy, selfish neighbour in above flat. Please help.

Roki21

boliston wrote: »

I think the problem with conversions is that they were originally built as a single large family home where noise between floors is not such an issue as with separate dwellings - I think new regs were introduced around 2005 that addressed sound transmission between each unit - you should not be able to hear day to day noise such as hifi at normal levels from one unit to the next. At least you are renting so can move more easily than if you had to sell and buy another flat AND you do not have the risk of declaring all the noise problems to each prospective buyer by law (you would basically be stuck unable to sell unless you massively reduced the price). I'd stick with purpose built flats if renting a flat.

Thank you, I'm going to look into the regulations you have mentioned and see if I can use that to get anywhere. I'm 99.9% certain that he has not soundproofed (he told us that he was going to and that it was going to cost £200K... more than his own flat costs) and I know for certain that our flat has no soundproofing. We have high ceilings and there is also about a one foot gap between our ceiling and his floor upstairs which you would think would absorb some noise but it doesn't. Completely agree re the conversions, hopefully it's not so common for these to be made because unless the other tenants in the building are considerate and decent human beings, you've got no chance.

He seems to walk around like Ironman, to the point where our couch shakes when he walks around, but even that doesn't bother me. It's just the awful howling.. sorry, singing, guitar and music that has to be full blast every night that does it. He's recently started being quiet through the week and being loud on the weekends - I could even live with that but it's starting to become stupid levels of loud and as bad as it sounds, it's our weekend too so surely we deserve some respite and shouldn't have to sacrifice peace of the weekend for the sake of quiet after work during the week.

It's just a really stupid situation which could be easily resolved if he was a decent human being willing to compromise. He's not though unfortunately so I spend most of my evenings typing emails to Councils, etc. trying to sort it.

carefullycautious

Have you contacted the Antisocial behaviour team? who can give you advise on best course of action also

sniggings

the regs are for new builds, so the regs won't help.

Sorry to say, your only solution is moving, if the powers that be won't help you are on to a loser.

The rules on noise in most places are so weak, a complaint will almost always see the LL/council turn on the complainer as they know their powers are so weak, that time and money would be wasted with the result that the noise carries on, so it's cheaper/easier to get the complainer to stop complaining and be quiet (no pun intended).

ognum

Roki21 wrote: »

Hi,

I'm at my wits end at the moment so just hoping someone can offer a glimmer of hope or advise.

Basically, we have lived in our current property for a few years. The first year and a half or so was fine, the lady above was nice and we never had any issues with noise - she used to do workout DVDs so would hear skipping and jumping for half an hour or so a night but that wasn't a problem -you can allow for half an hour or so and it wasn't disruptive enough to be bothered about. Obviously you expect footsteps, doors closing etc. which is fine and we were okay with that.

She sadly sold the house just over a year ago to what I can only describe as the most disgusting, selfish idiot I have ever had the misfortune to meet in my life.

He has bongos, guitars, keyboards, every kind of instrument that you can imagine in his flat. Classes himself as a 'musician' (not sure why as he is awful) so is constantly playing guitar and singing (extremely loudly and badly up until 11pm at night). He smokes weed, the smell infiltrating our bedroom if we have the window open as he smokes it out of his bedroom window. He also has a "huge hi-fi system" with speakers placed all over his living room and has not had any soundproofing done so all of his noise carries through into our flat (his living room is above ours). We spoke to him on numerous occasions, being polite and asking him to turn the music down - this was every single night from 6pm until 11pm on the nose. He said that he couldn't turn his music any lower as he wouldn't be able to hear it or enjoy it even though it was so loud that you could hear it in the hallway downstairs. Yet when it hits 11pm, he can turn it down to a reasonable level and hears it perfectly fine!

I've had MPs involved, escalated throughout the Council, and no one is willing to help. Are we in the wrong here? I feel like I am the one who is out of order and no one is willing to help. I would love to move to get away from this reprobate but given the cost of renting somewhere new - it is £1k just to move out - my partner and I have no option but to be stuck here.

Has anyone had any success going down any other routes? Are there any other routes I can explore given the fact that we can't really afford to move yet? Surely if he has all these instruments and massive music systems, he needs to have the flat soundproofed? It isn't normal behaviour for someone living in a flat so surely he needs to adjust his flat to suit his lifestyle?

Please help if you can.

I am really interested to know why you haven't moved? If this was me and I rented I would look for somewhere else unless the cost was so good I couldn't find anywhere else.

Why are you still there?

trevormax

If you live in England or Wales, then the new Anti-social Behavior, Crime and Policing Act 2014 will potentially be very useful for you to get your council to take action.

ASB now no longer needs to cause Harassment, Alarm or Distress (HAD) for it to be classed as ASB. Now it can also be housing related nuisance and annoyance (which this loud music obviously falls under).

see http://asbhelp.co.uk/what-the-law-says/ for a brief description of the new act

Also, the new legislation introduced some fairly useful tools.

First, you have a Community Protection Notice (CPN). This is a special warning issued by the council, police or other authorised person. In your case, this order would require the guy upstairs to stop doing what he is doing. For someone to issue a CPN, you need to start putting in complaints to the council noise pollution team (probably environmental health), your council ASB team, your council private sector housing team, your police (101, not 999), and anyone else in a position to help you. The police will tell you it is a council issue so tell them you are reporting it to have it on record for later. Ask them to send a PCSO round too. People bash on them a lot but ASB is their bread and butter, they sometimes know people in high places and they are useful to have on your side.

see http://asbhelp.co.uk/community-protection-notices/ for details on a CPN

Second and equally useful is the Community Trigger. The gist of this is that if you feel that your complaint is not being taken seriously or is not being dealt with, you can make a complaint and request a review. The council (or other bodies) are required by law to record your request, determine if the threshold has been met for the review and then determine what action to take re your complaints of ASB (for example, issuing an abatement notice or CPN to the guy upstairs). They MUST also inform you of the progress of the review and their actions taken AND publish all of this information.

see http://asbhelp.co.uk/community-protection-notices/ for community triggers.

Finally (but very unlikely to be used), the council or police can kick the guy out of his flat for a period of up to 3 or 6 months. As I have said though, this is very unlikely.

See http://asbhelp.co.uk/closure-of-premises/ for closure of premises.

My advice, complain to everyone in the council and police. Complain every time the guy does it but also be reasonable. If it is mid day on a sunny Saturday and he is having a go on his guitar, complaining about that will make you look like an overcomplainer.
Be nice to the people you complain to. You want them on your side.
Get evidence (recording of loud noises fir example)

Hope this all helps.

sniggings

trevormax wrote: »

If you live in England or Wales, then the new Anti-social Behavior, Crime and Policing Act 2014 will potentially be very useful for you to get your council to take action.

ASB now no longer needs to cause Harassment, Alarm or Distress (HAD) for it to be classed as ASB. Now it can also be housing related nuisance and annoyance (which this loud music obviously falls under).

see http://asbhelp.co.uk/what-the-law-says/ for a brief description of the new act

Also, the new legislation introduced some fairly useful tools.

First, you have a Community Protection Notice (CPN). This is a special warning issued by the council, police or other authorised person. In your case, this order would require the guy upstairs to stop doing what he is doing. For someone to issue a CPN, you need to start putting in complaints to the council noise pollution team (probably environmental health), your council ASB team, your council private sector housing team, your police (101, not 999), and anyone else in a position to help you. The police will tell you it is a council issue so tell them you are reporting it to have it on record for later. Ask them to send a PCSO round too. People bash on them a lot but ASB is their bread and butter, they sometimes know people in high places and they are useful to have on your side.

see http://asbhelp.co.uk/community-protection-notices/ for details on a CPN

Second and equally useful is the Community Trigger. The gist of this is that if you feel that your complaint is not being taken seriously or is not being dealt with, you can make a complaint and request a review. The council (or other bodies) are required by law to record your request, determine if the threshold has been met for the review and then determine what action to take re your complaints of ASB (for example, issuing an abatement notice or CPN to the guy upstairs). They MUST also inform you of the progress of the review and their actions taken AND publish all of this information.

see http://asbhelp.co.uk/community-protection-notices/ for community triggers.

Finally (but very unlikely to be used), the council or police can kick the guy out of his flat for a period of up to 3 or 6 months. As I have said though, this is very unlikely.

See http://asbhelp.co.uk/closure-of-premises/ for closure of premises.

My advice, complain to everyone in the council and police. Complain every time the guy does it but also be reasonable. If it is mid day on a sunny Saturday and he is having a go on his guitar, complaining about that will make you look like an overcomplainer.
Be nice to the people you complain to. You want them on your side.
Get evidence (recording of loud noises fir example)

Hope this all helps.

Good post...though I feel in real life it isn't going to help the OP, sounds a very long process,worth trying if moving is impossible, hope I'm wrong.

The trouble is,if the noise maker does not want to be reasonable, then the noise can continue and there is nothing they can do if the noise is "reasonable" which even "reasonable" noise can be a nuisance, slamming doors, stomping, music at "reasonable" times.
The noisy guy has already stated he can make noise from 7-11, so looks like he will play the system, add to that a flat in a converted house, the OP is very unlikely to get to a place where they are happy with the volume of noise.

People imo are either considerate or not, changing them is unlikely..always worth a try tho.

Saving the £1000 would imo be the way to go

Red_Spider

Agree with the advice of others, you should just take the hit and move.

You'd have problems sorting this out if the man upstairs was a tenant - but with him being an owner occupier, you'll get nowhere.
What are the police/council going to do? Evict him from his own house? Put him in jail?
Unlikely. I bet they did nothing even when you told them about the drugs?

It's not fair, but that's life in the UK today, unfortunately.

Best to put it down to experience and be glad you haven't bought the flat - because that would be much more of a headache for you.

Out of interest, will your landlady be under any obligation to reveal this dispute when she sells the flat? You'd be asked to if it was you selling, I think...

Jon_B_2

It is a shame these "musical types" are generally selfish and don't understand the only place for them is in a detached residence.

It's also why I have vowed that I will never ever live in a flat ever again.

m0bov

Ask your LL to check the lease as i know mine has a clause against playing things like pianos etc..

Rosemary7391

Jon_B wrote: »

It is a shame these "musical types" are generally selfish and don't understand the only place for them is in a detached residence.

It's also why I have vowed that I will never ever live in a flat ever again.

Not every musician is selfish. I have several acoustic instruments which I never play after 9pm, and I play them quietly unless I'm practising playing loudly. I also don't practise for more than an hour a day across all instruments, although I'd like to play more. I do mix up the annoying technical exercises with pretty tunes for my neighbours' benefit as well! If my neighbours complained I'd try and work with them to find a suitable time/place for me to practise without annoying them, but actually that's probably the only noise they can hear from me - I use headphones for everything I can so I don't have to worry about it.

It wouldn't be fair to ban musical instruments from flats; as much as I'd love to live in a detached house, that costs a lot more money than I have! Most people are forced into living in a flat/house share at some point in their lives, but being a musician tends to be a life long thing.

OP, I wonder if your fellow has caused annoyance before - if he turns it all down at 11pm it might be harder to get something done as that's "reasonable". Perhaps he's been told to do that before. If you're renting I'd just move as soon as - but warn any viewers about it please! Your LL won't like it but they won't have to live with it.