Ground floor converted flats - please share good and bad experience about upstairs noise

Murphybear

Smodlet wrote: »

Why am I seeing red shoes and an axe?

Pass. Why are you seeing red shoes and an axe?

Tom99

dan_first_time_buyer wrote: »

Hi All,
I am planning to buy my first property to live in.
I am considering ground floor converted flats, as I'd really love to have a garden but can't afford a house.
However, the thing that I am mostly worried about is noise from the upstairs neighbour - my nightmare is to even be able to hear every single step.
If you are living (or lived) in a ground floor converted flat, what's your experience about it?
Thanks,
Dan

Don't buy a ground floor converted flat. There will probably be no sound insulation at all, upstairs could well be rented out and have occupiers change at short notice and don't believe whatever the vendor tells you about noise from upstairs.
Your life will be hell.

PasturesNew

I lived in a GF studio, one of those standard 1970s/80s Barratt blocks of 8. The one above me had laminate. It sounded like a herd of elephants when she wasn't being noisy, with EVERY step she took. There was another tenant up there, he had two girlfriends... I could tell this as his night time technique had two distinct patterns. I also knew every time he'd received a text.

Although flats are different in every part of the country, if you live where there are converted mansions in their own grounds they sometimes have an attached bungalow, so it's GF but nobody's above.

I was going to look at one of those bungalows some months back - it also had a conservatory and garage and private garden, so that one was just like a house!

Don't believe the top floor's "safe" either - I've seen a lot of flats these days flogging off the roof space for a new build to add another storey.

phoebe1989seb

DS lived in a ground floor conversion (Edwardian). No issues with noise from the only other flat upstairs which was rented to young professionals. He had no trouble selling it for a huge mark up either (London ).

Our first home was a Victorian mansion style flat - semi-basement, not ground floor - and again there were no noise issues, although I know our immediate neighbours above had carpet throughout. We did have issues with people noseying in our front bay window and general rowdiness outside - but it was on the seafront so lots of tourists/clubbers etc about.....

Currently DS also lives in a semi-basement flat - a Georgian conversion - and that is far more noisy. Since purchase five years ago there have been two different tenants in the ground floor flat immediately above and both couples sound as though they wear heavy boots and stomp about at all hours.

The worst experience was when a bloke fell from an upstairs window, through the polycarbonate roof over DS's courtyard. That was noisy...and scary for DS's girlfriend who was home alone at the time :eek:

My only other experience of a ground floor flat (another Victorian conversion, rented as a student) was when a burglar got into an empty flat and broke through from above into mine, trashing the place and stealing some inherited jewellery. Luckily I was back at my parents' for the weekend.

Otherwise I think I made so much noise myself, I was unaware of the other handful of residents, lol!

phoebe1989seb

DS lived in a ground floor conversion (Edwardian). No issues with noise from the only other flat upstairs which was rented to young professionals. He had no trouble selling it for a huge mark up either (London ).

Our first home was a Victorian mansion style flat - semi-basement, not ground floor - and again there were no noise issues, although I know our immediate neighbours (mid-thirties professionals) above had carpet throughout. We did have issues with people noseying in our front bay window and general rowdiness outside - but it was on the seafront so lots of tourists/party goers etc about.....

Currently DS also lives in a semi-basement flat - a Georgian conversion - and that is far more noisy. Since purchase five years ago there have been two different sets of tenants in the ground floor flat immediately above and both couples sound as though they wear heavy boots and stomp about at all hours.

The worst experience was when a bloke fell from an upstairs window, through the polycarbonate roof over DS's courtyard. That was noisy...and scary for DS's girlfriend who was home alone at the time :eek:

Fortunately they've now SSTC.

My only other experience of a ground floor flat (another Victorian conversion, rented as a student) was when a burglar got into an empty flat and broke through from above into mine, trashing the place and stealing some inherited jewellery. Luckily I was back at my parents' for the weekend.

Otherwise I think I made so much noise myself, I was unaware of the other handful of residents, lol!

Smodlet

Murphybear wrote: »

Pass. Why are you seeing red shoes and an axe?

Because of the fairy tale. Like most, if not all, fairytales, it was Bowdlerised for children. These stories were originally full of horrible violence and not a little smut just as were the Arabian Nights.

For instance, when the ugly sisters are trying to get their feet into the glass slipper, Mommie Dearest chops part of their feet off with an axe to make them fit. When lassie with the red shoes can't stop dancing, she goes to the village executioner and asks him to chop her feet off. De-feeting seems to have been a bit of a theme.

Sorry if I have put anyone off their lunch.

faerielight

I am in a gff converted Victorian,I only ha e a single person upstairs and I can’t hear a thing. However the last flat I was in, there were 4 students upstairs and the noise was horrendous.. I think it’s a neighbour lottery tbh.

[Deleted User]

I have lived in two ground floor maisonettes (houses on top of one another), never had a problem with noise (concrete steps to upstairs maisonette).

Never had a problem with upstairs maisonettes except when drilling etc going on and of course, of short duration.

However I have had problems with sideways neighbours (not next door either). Previous place (maisonette), on a bad estate and two doors away there was someone upstairs who used to play loud music constantly with all windows open in the summer. It annoyed absolutely everyone who lived there. You went outside where the children played, you could hear it, constantly. If you opened your windows to get some air, you could hear it. You could feel the vibrations if you didn't. As it was mostly during the day, no one would do anything. But it caused a lot of problems for a large number of people.

Also had problems in a usually good terraced house with dogs barking all day next door, and music (band player) on the other side. The people with the dogs next door were nice people I got on with so I just put up with it, part of having them as neighbours, which was mostly a very good experience. I dealt with it with the headphones as below.

So from a personal experience you need to look at the area, and look at how more distant 'neighbours' behave. I know in my first place some people did have problems with noise (was a flat in a converted block) but I didn't hear a thing from the old lady upstairs. Hopefully she didn't hear a thing from me (she was the sort who would have said something lol, not an 'old dear' lol).

If you are noise sensitive (I am), and you have no choice but to live in a ground floor flat, buy some soundless wireless headphones. Then if anything is annoying you can listen to the tv, music, whatever and not hear a thing. I know once the front door is shut, I can cope with anything.

Skiddaw1

Our first home was a flat. Unless you can afford something very posh I honestly don't think you can get around the noise issue regardless of where the flat is situated. Ours was on the first floor (flats had been converted from a terrace of early 19th century town houses) and the sound traveled both down from the floor above and up from the floor below. We didn't mind it initially (flat itself was gorgeous and we'd rented it for a while before we bought it from the landlord) but it did wear us down over time. I remember us walking in following a fortnight away to the dulcet tones of Mr Upstairs washing machine on full spin cycle making the ceiling vibrate and Mrs Downstair's bloody awful music blaring through the floor at full blast. We went on the market two days later.


At the very least I'd suggest viewing flats at times when the adjacent neighbours are likely to be in. That way you'll hopefully get a proper feel for how significantly any sound travels.

z1a

I can't understand anybody buying a flat, renting yes, buying no.