Nextdoor footsteps

markin

New builds really are terrible if joists run up to the separating wall now, they are also sometimes wood framed now rather than block.

I would never buy a stairs adjoined or a new house, The corridors act like drums and you cant block the sound without taking your stairs off the wall, sound proofing a living room wall is far simpler if its needed.

And its wrong to blame the people next door for shoddy design and building.

Rosa_Damascena

newbuild2020 said:

So we are in a newbuild property built with a steel frame. We don’t hear sound but it’s the impact noise that is the problem. We have spoken to them before but the man is very aggressive and speaking to them actually made it worse

I’ve had a look under the upstairs floorboards and our joists run up to the brick separating the two houses, but we don’t share these joists. I do wonder if them touching the brick is what carries the noise? 

I am thinking of filling the upstairs floorboards with insulation and a few resilient bars just to try and minimise the noise. I think we’re a few years off a detached yet due to the price of them so want to try and find a way around it until we (or they…) move on. 

Thanks for everyone’s tips. Please keep adding bits, it’s nice to know we aren’t alone. 

Don't do anything further to aggravate your neighbour, but make the effort to get to know your other neighbours well. Whilst its not going to fix this particular problem, good neighbours are worth their weight in gold.

MalMonroe

While I do agree that a certain amount of noise is to be expected, the noise of kids running up and down stairs is annoying and unnecessary. I mean, we've all been kids, did we all do that? I didn't. Nor did my brother. We may have run up and down a couple of times but my parents would intervene if we overdid it. ('find something constructive to do!')

I don't see why you should have to put up with that. They're obviously being thoughtless. There's a lot of that about, nowadays. But you can always approach them in a friendly way and ask if they hear your noise, as others have suggested. Then both agree to tone it down. 

When we moved to our flat and went to tell my neighbours upstairs (there are only two flats in a block) that we could hear their TV every evening, they were appalled - both hard of hearing and didn't realise the volume was up quite so high. But we did it in a friendly way, they gave us a cup of tea (and a biscuit) and turned down the volume. They didn't want to cause any problems and I've found that many people are like that. They just don't realise.