Noise in old rented houses

Rips

We have been renting an appartment in a shared period house for the last 6 months and our downstairs neighbour called up last night at 1am to complain about noise

We were still up, watching TV. It was my OH that answered the door, he said he felt awful, because the girl was really distressed.

Thing is, its a period house, the walls are paper thin and the sound proofing is really bad. We can hear our neighbours, across and above, practically doing everything, press doors, walking, scraping pans, TV, music, flushing ... and worst of all, the trickle of many slow toilet cisterns!
We have tuned it all out - it doesn't bother us at all. Not to mention, the house, although newly decorated is fairly shoddy, we pay the lowest amount of rent in the area, so really, what do you expect.

Its unusual to hear parties, we ourselves have never had anyone over, as the appartments are simply too small!

I called next door today to ask if our neighbours across from us had noticed us being particularly loud, and the girl shrugged, bounced on the floor and .. said, yeah, we hear everything - its the house!

We had new carpet fitted recently (because of a bad leak) and when we pulled up the old, really poor thin carpet, there was no underlay - we now have underlay and thick carpet, so are potentionally the most soundproof appartment in the house! But its still quite bad, there a slight sag in the middle of our floor, that not only creaks, but makes anything freestanding in the house rattle - as I'm sure their lightfittings do!

I work late shifts, and it wouldn't be unusual for me to be coming home from work at 10pm and starting to make dinner ... but theres nothing I can do about that.

We also have a very small quiet cat, the only noise he makes, is when he occassionally runs across the floor - it makes a soft repetitive pattering noise, but he's not heavy enough to actually make the noise on the floorboards. He goes to bed when we do ... which can be late ... but as I've said, we make more noise walking across the floor then he does.

God love them if we had a baby!

While we both feel upset about the girl downstairs, I'm kinda pissed that she called to the door late night, in a state, instead of saying something to us earlier in a nice way?

I'm thinking of calling over tomorrow to chat to her? Good/bad idea?
Any idea also on what to say? Should I mention it to the landlady?

Victor

Rips wrote: »

I'm thinking of calling over tomorrow to chat to her? Good/bad idea?
Any idea also on what to say? Should I mention it to the landlady?

Bring cake. Apologise that she was put out (not the same thing as apologising that you made noise), say you didn't realise, that the house does tend to carry sound and you'll try to be more careful in future. Let her know that she can come to you before an issue becomes a crisis.

One of my neighbours has been leaving anonymous notes complaining about noise we make. While yes, I had the radio on at 3am, it was 1 metre from me and not particularly loud, i.e. at an ordinary conversational level - my hearing is near perfect (tested 6 months ago).

By comparison, the other neighbour had a baby and the only time I'd hear any noise is when I was passing the door.

I think some people are overly sensative.

the_syco

Victor wrote: »

that the house does tend to carry sound and you'll try to be more careful in future. Let her know that she can come to you before an issue becomes a crisis.

I'd query how long she's been living there. If it has only been a week or so, she may not know that the entire house is like that. She may have expected no noise (or told by the letting agent to expect no noise).

MissFlitworth

We have the same situation, old period house, nice apartment, super cheap rent for the area and the price for it is that we can hear every single thing that goes on above us. I'm sure the people below us also swear like sailors whenever a pot gets dropped on the floor etc. Nothing that can be done though, except for general things like not wearing shoes on tiled floors and not slamming doors though.

I'd defo drop down to talk to her & just explain that it's an old building & while you're careful to be considerate about the amount of noise you make you can't completely stop her from hearing you