Advice on Floor issue due to Neighbour

Jaynorth_2

LateStarter wrote: »

Let's assume you're not a crackpot; from what you say the neighbour doesn't know you, so there's no reason for him to be directly targetting you.


So is it possible that he IS using his loud TV etc as sound cover? So that you can't hear what's actually happening in his house?

Maybe but I have never done anything to suggest that I have an interest in what is happening in his house - remember I just moved in and I have been sorting the place out. I did not have time to take any notice of what was happening apart from if I was woken up around 2 or 3am and even then I did not knock on his door and ask what was going on.

Fire_Fox

Your dogged determination that your neighbour's strange nocturnal activities can ONLY be a deliberate and concerted effort to disturb your sleep is preventing you from moving forward with this. Dismissing anything that doesn't fit your hypothesis is unscientific.

By your logic every teenager/ spouse/ partner that engages in illicit online or real life sexual activity when their parents or partner are asleep or at work are doing so with the sole purpose of hurting them or ruining their day/ night.

Norman_Castle

Jaynorth wrote: »

Do you know how annoying it is to be trying to get some sleep after a hard day at work only to be woken up several times during the night everyday of the week by a grown nuisance who obviously has issues?

Yes I do know what its like. My problems stopped or were reduced after doing something about them.

Knock on his door and explain his noise and whatever is causing the vibration is preventing you from sleeping. I understand this is not easy to do after the regular annoyance but it is the most likely way of getting any improvement.

Without a reason such as a previous argument I would discount the idea this is being done to annoy you, as someone else said, they might be using the upstairs tv to cover other noise such as grow room fans.

moneyistooshorttomention

Ganga wrote: »

i would be tempted to put the speakers of my hi-fi against the wall in the morning as you go out to work and put something loud on,when they cnnot sleep during the day they might stop playing stupid b----ars at night.

Playing music that very few people would like - even at normal volume too.

I've used Chinese music before now.

There's also Tibetan music (eg overtone chanting).

That sort of thing is very much a minority taste.

Now I personally can have the occasional moment of listening to the occasional bit of music from a very different country to ours - so one never knows someone's tastes (but that really isn't very likely).

Personally - what I hate most is from our own country - ie bagpipes.:eek:

naf123

Any update OP? This was one of the stranger posts on mse and keen to know if the problem is resolved,?

Jaynorth_2

naf123 wrote: »

Any update OP? This was one of the stranger posts on mse and keen to know if the problem is resolved,?

No the problem has not been resolved. I have contacted the noise pollution team at my local council and as expected they have been less than useless. You cannot even contact them during the daytime anymore, you just leave your name and number on a voicemail machine and then you are expected to wait until they call you back - I left a message 3 weeks ago for 4 continuous days and I am still waiting for the call back.

So I called the night duty officer and explained the issue to him and also asked him if there had been any previous noise or anti-social issues with my neighbours in the past. He suggested that I make a freedom of information request from the council to find out but in the meantime there was no point in him visiting my property at 2am in the morning as my neighbours would switch whatever they were using off the minute he knocked on my door. So I suggested that he contact me earlier in the evening around 8pm when he starts his shift and I could meet him at the top of my street and sneak him into my property. He said he would text me when he was on duty the following Saturday but he did not and I do not have his number because the only way to contact him is if you call the council's out of hours emergency number and leave a message with the person that answers who then passes on your message to the night duty noise officer who then calls you back at some point during the night, and this number is only operational after 11pm. The officer also told me that I would be waiting a long time for any form of recording equipment to be installed in my home so I really feel as before that I am wasting my time with the council.

Meanwhile the council did respond to my freedom of information request about my neighbour by stating that they felt it was personal data which would allow me to work out personal details about their personal lives and if other people had made complaints about them which could be used to cause individual detriment if it is just an allegation and not an actual outcome. So essentially if you have a nuisance or anti-social neighbour whom you report to the council and your complaint is not upheld or followed up to a successful outcome, you can sell your property safe in the knowledge that your council will not release any information about the complaint because of the reasons that I mentioned above. At least I now know that I can sell up and leave this mess for somebody else to clean up as a last resort!

So I have started to focus on getting the party wall in my main bedroom soundproofed. I have had quotes and it is not cheap but it is cheaper than selling up and moving out or moving out and renting the place out. My builder removed the skirting from the wall and rolled back the carpet and we found that the floorboards are not touching the wall which we initially thought was the reason why the floor was shaking because the joists run parallel to the party wall. He suggested that we leave it like that for a few days to see if there was any difference but the minute he left my neighbours lodger who does not appear to work or leave the house at all stomped into the room beside my bedroom and started using whatever he uses to shake the floor almost in defiance just to show that whatever myself and my builder had been doing had not worked. My builder thinks that is because there is timber connecting the other wall in the room to the party wall and that this transferring the vibration from the walls to the joists which in turn shake the floor.

Meanwhile I have been sleeping in my living room on the couch underneath the bay window which is obviously closer to the pavement outside so when my neighbour and/or his lodger use whatever they are using to shake the floor move it close to their bay window they are constantly having to switch it off everytime someone walks past or a car passes because they are not sure if it is the night duty noise officer coming to investigate and judging by the 3 or 4 times that he slams his front door in the morning he is not pleased with this. So they have resorted to waiting until around 2am in the morning before they start using it to disturb or more annoyingly just using it intermittently to wake me up so maybe for 5 minutes at 12 midnight, then another 5 at 1am and then from 2am or 2.30 when the streets are pretty much deserted and quiet they use it for much longer. I have a nasty feeling that they are doing something else and are just using this issue of disturbing me to divert attention away from what they are really doing.

naf123

I am very sorry to hear. Did you try to get a friend to sleep over to see what they say?

Mojisola

Jaynorth wrote: »

Meanwhile I have been sleeping in my living room on the couch underneath the bay window which is obviously closer to the pavement outside so when my neighbour and/or his lodger use whatever they are using to shake the floor move it close to their bay window they are constantly having to switch it off everytime someone walks past or a car passes because they are not sure if it is the night duty noise officer coming to investigate

How does your neighbour know that you are now sleeping on your couch and not in your bedroom?

JimmyChanga

Bit late to this one but if the walls are so thin that your neighbour can hear which room you're in, then surely you're going to be able to hear your neighbour just as easily even if they aren't deliberately trying to cause you disturbance, no?

Noises from either floor can transmit to all rooms. Walls will carry it. You can have someone on the top floor using something and it will still be heard on your ground floor. Maybe even louder than it is on your first floor.

JamesTP

I have had a similar problem since moving into my current home. My neighbor who occupies the basement flat was very inquisitive and quite unboundaried after I moved in so I began to politely dissuade his regular evening visits. One evening I heard several other voices below me(it is a Victorian terrace with poor sound insulation so that was no surprise on its own). I assumed they were watching football as it became quite bawdy. As I went to bed I heard them follow me to the room beneath my bedroom. I then heard what sounded like something being erected and lots of laughing. After a while I heard and felt a jolt and a humming noise started - which I'd complained about previously because it appeared to start just after I went to bed or woke me in the early hours.

However, going back to the 'humming, there was also what felt like an electrical charge which felt as if it were coming from below. I felt a tingling sensation all over and became very hot. This continued every evening but is now constant (day and night). There is a consitency with knocking, banging and reverberating crashes which immidiately precede, or coincide with this and heavy footsteps coming from below. It's as if he is forcing something against his celiing or upper walls. It is a nightmare scenario.

It either starts as I am going to bed, or wakes me between 2 and 3 am and it's impossible to get back to sleep. It affects my heartbeat and muscles and I experience what I can best describe as tension headaches, and other disturbing physical symptoms.

I have tried everything, talking to him, and he just denied any knowledge of it. If you approach the tenant they can call the police and you risk being arrested for athray. The police cannot enter the property without a warrant and there is no evidence of a crime. The police referred me to my local councils environment department who were of no use. The land lord can only use equipment for detecting noise, but the levels of noise are apparently considered to low to constitute a breach. The humming), the bumping and banging is sporadic and separated by several minutes so the noise detectors cant capture it. However it is the other stuff which also feels like a vibration coming through the floor and moving upwards through my body, that is the real problem. I don't know what to do.

In much the same way as I can distinguish between the sound of my fingers hitting the keyboard and the person's sitting opposite me, hitting his keyboard (I am in the local library) I know the sound is coming from directly below me. What makes it worse is that he only does it when I am alone so even my friends whose visits have become rare, are doubting me. It affects everything and in fact is ruining my life . I relocated to get away from anti social behaviour and although it's a nice property in a descent part of London; I live in social housing and used a public sector scheme to swap with someone (who probably inherited my former situation), so I am sceptical about using it again...and even if I do the average waiting time to find a suitable home is around 18 months............However,.......

I have done quite a lot of research into this and I may have an answer for what you're experiencing. It is a device invented by a random Chinese guy. It resembles a long pole with a cylinder like device that sits on the top. I guess you plug it in and it creates vibrations in your upper neighbours floor by hitting the ceiling. It's supposed to be used to counter noisy neighbours, kids playing and running etc.

Try typing this into your search engine for more evidence "Annoyed with your noisy neighbours? Chinese retailers have a gadget to help you get even"

In the meantime I would appreciate any advice or insight you or anyone else might have.