neighbours

Hi all,

Just wanted to find some support and perhaps people in similar situation.

Sorry for the amount of writing but I have tried to sum it up in as little words as possible.

So I am writing the subject neighbours because I have had harrassment from my neighbours for over 2 years now, with no luck in moving and have only recently found a job so luckily wont be in all day to be harrassed. Details:
I moved into my 1st floor flat just over 2 years ago, I met the upstairs neighbours the first day when I was moving in and they seemed nice but a bit goofy and said to me if I experience any problems to come up and tell them, which I thought 'thats nice of them, however there must be a reason why they have told me this'.
I didnt get around to meeting the downstairs neighbour because I was moving in and it was a lot of stress and I just wanted to get settled in.

So my first 2-4 months I had no issues with any neighbours what so ever and spent the best part of the first year decorating literally the 'whole place' since it was in a disgusting condition, mould in the bathroom, dirty carpets, sticky tiles scattered in the kitchen and stuck randomly, yellow window frames (probably from smoke) and generally poor living condition and lack of decoration. I went through a phase of going to bed a bit later 11pm / 12am and started realising that the upstairs neighbours who had seemed to be out at work all day were infact sleeping all day and staying awake all night, I know this because I started hearing them every night in anticipation from the last, even if I had gone to sleep early 10pm I was woken up by them talking and shouting loudly, and not normal talking this way childish and strange talking and behavior, and it has been strange ever since I started hearing them they have done the same thing every single night at the exact same time.

I complained to the landlord lots of times until they finally called on a mediation between me and the upstairs and when we met I told them they need to stop keeping me awake in the night and go to sleep, which they said they dont realise how loud they are (mainly the female) who swears her head off every night and seems like a very uneducated person, like I said, they seemed goofy. We agreed that 11pm was the time they would stop being loud and settle themselves down and that was that.
They stopped being loud in the night and all was peaceful... for a while!
So they started up again about a month after stopping and it was literally like back to their old routine, literally every single night has been the exact same like they are robots, again they are not discussing debates or politics or anything serious, it is literally swearing and childish talk! It has got to the point where I just ignore it and I am so used to it I dont really take notice any more, I hear but I just dont let it bother me. All I know is they are very strange people and again, never make one peep of noise in the day between 9am to 11pm and come 11pm they are bathing, washing clothes, hoovering, stomping, laughing (rarely), slamming doors, swearing!!!!!

Once I had finished decorating after about 1 year and a half, I started to realise the downstairs neighbour was making lots of noise in the day which I had never heard before. I dont know if its the same person been there since I moved in over 2 yr ago but I literally started having doors slammed under my feet, windows slammed, strange tapping and pounding noises, all from under me. I couldnt see that it was any sort of retaliation because I have always been a good neighbour, so I just assumed it was not towards me and moved on from this way of thinking. Over time I started noticing more and more the strange goings on coming from the neighbour downstairs, at first I thought she must be re paying me for some sort of thing such as dropping something or something silly that she may have thought I had done, I couldnt really think of anything I could have done but I thought if it was anything it was probably something like that, but I am not a clumsly person and I am very organised.

So fast forward to 2 yrs and this woman started being very very strange, the banging and strange noised of tapping and pounding on either the walls of her flat or the floor of mine (her ceiling) all increased in loudness and frequency. I thought to myself that she must be hearing things from other flats and thinking its me, or even she could be hearing my upstairs neighbours in the night, considering how loud they have always been, and the fact that she has always done it in the day. I didnt jump to conclusions I mean come on it took months before I started thinking its on purpose, and the reason I did start thinking this is the frequency and precision presented by the woman, e.g. banging starting when I walked into a room or door slammed directly under my feet while I walked through the door way. So all my calls to the landlord was a waste of time as they are not bothered to help someone unless you have a young teenage neighbour who is stereotyped to be a thug, because the downstairs woman is in her late 40s or so the landlord did not help at all and said there was nothing she could do because the woman had never complained about me.

So after hearing this from the landlord I decided one day to go down and meet the woman, I didnt want to introduce myself because by this time she has made it clear she did not like me, for what ever reason. I will elaborate quickly, by the time I had knocked on her door she had already: Banged and tapped for many months, screamed at me through the floor randomly even when I was painting one day, drilled around her flat following me from room to room using some sort of power drill that vibrated my floor, also revving it as if to try and scare me. So at this point I was not about to greet the woman I was simply there to see what she had to say for herself, usually I would have been slightly annoyed in the way I speak given the situation, but I had been getting more mature since leaving teenage years and was mature enough to conduct myself in a mature way despite the anti social behaviour the woman had presented.

I knocked on the door firmly and she came to the door, opened it and I said kindly 'do you have a problem with me'? she said 'no, no problem' with a smirk on her face, by smirk I mean she was smiling but not in a nice way, she turned around to a woman who was standing in her hallway which I believe is her daughter, the daughter smirked at the woman whos flat it is, then the woman turned around screwing up her face and said "f*** off go on and a few other things I didnt quite hear as she slammed the door. I then said to her you should be in a mental home, because of coarse I was angry and confused and she had made it obvious that she had a problem with me by becoming aggressive with me when I had been polite to her and simply asked if she had a problem, if she had a real problem it was her chance to discuss it with me, but clearly she didnt have anything to complain about and this has lead me to believe she has mental problems, perhaps paranoid schizophrenia?

The downstairs woman has persisted to behave strangely and I suspect she knows I have Aspergers' and is picking on me because of it, I say this because I was on the phone to the landlord on my balcony and I mentioned to the landlord over the phone that I have Aspergers' and that her slamming and banging was effecting me and her and her daughter walked across the estate smirking up at my balcony.
I have seen her out in the estate once where she kept looking at me over and over as I was leaving to go out and I could see out of the corner of my eye that she was looking at me over and over, and she was acting guilty. But she has never knocked on my door and seems to behave like a recluse, stays indoors all day every day, doesnt have any friends and she just seems like a very odd person and personally I think she has a mental problem as I said, as I say I dont do anything to anyone I am a nice person and I keep myself to myself, but no matter what I do this woman seems obsessed with me and in turn has made me think about her when I am indoors.

Any advice welcome.
Any conclusions and opinions welcome.

Charlie

Parents
  • Noise in purpose built flats is a strange phenomenon. It travels through walls and ceilings in an odd way you don't experience in semi-detached or terraced houses.

    I recall many years ago, in university halls of residence, I was regularly disturbed by very loud rock music with a heavy base beat. It was coming from one side of my room (the opposite wall being next to a utility room). So I started knocking on my neighbour's door asking him to turn down the noise. He would always insist he was listening to Bach, and it did seem to me that when he opened the door, that is what I was hearing - very quiet Bach.

    It got to very bitter feelings between us. I suspected him of turning off the Rock music and subsituting the Bach as soon as I knocked on his door. The reality, it turned out, was the noise came from a room above the other side of the utility room (1 floor up, 2 rooms the opposite direction). Yet the sound clearly came from the wall separating me from the Bach player, whereas the Bach player couldn't hear the Rock music at all.

    Sound travels in flats and if you cannot cope with it it is best to get out. Of course if you are renting on a small budget that can be hard, but you may find it easier in flats in a converted house.

    The trouble is you may not think you are making much noise, but the structure of purpose built flats, with concrete floors and service ducts set within the walls, may amplify your least sounds. Added to which you have the problem of people working shifts or anti-social hours who may be up and about when you are trying to sleep. Another well known problem is people who leave their dogs in their flats while out to work (whether permitted to keep pets), so the dogs bark incessantly. Living near the lift shaft or stair well is aals a common problem.

    You can complain about the noise. I think you have to try to steer clear of alledging insanity, or weirdness/goofyness. Whether they swear a lot or laugh loudly isn't really your concern, just that in the process they are too loud for your comfort. People are entitled to live their lives freely so long as they do not disturb others. But resolving neighbour noise has long been a conflict issue, and it gets very bitter as people start colouring the issue with allegations about the neighbours morals. Think, your comments get passed around, and get back to your neighbours as gossip.

    Have you tried rearranging your flat so you sleep in the room least affected by noise above? 

Reply
  • Noise in purpose built flats is a strange phenomenon. It travels through walls and ceilings in an odd way you don't experience in semi-detached or terraced houses.

    I recall many years ago, in university halls of residence, I was regularly disturbed by very loud rock music with a heavy base beat. It was coming from one side of my room (the opposite wall being next to a utility room). So I started knocking on my neighbour's door asking him to turn down the noise. He would always insist he was listening to Bach, and it did seem to me that when he opened the door, that is what I was hearing - very quiet Bach.

    It got to very bitter feelings between us. I suspected him of turning off the Rock music and subsituting the Bach as soon as I knocked on his door. The reality, it turned out, was the noise came from a room above the other side of the utility room (1 floor up, 2 rooms the opposite direction). Yet the sound clearly came from the wall separating me from the Bach player, whereas the Bach player couldn't hear the Rock music at all.

    Sound travels in flats and if you cannot cope with it it is best to get out. Of course if you are renting on a small budget that can be hard, but you may find it easier in flats in a converted house.

    The trouble is you may not think you are making much noise, but the structure of purpose built flats, with concrete floors and service ducts set within the walls, may amplify your least sounds. Added to which you have the problem of people working shifts or anti-social hours who may be up and about when you are trying to sleep. Another well known problem is people who leave their dogs in their flats while out to work (whether permitted to keep pets), so the dogs bark incessantly. Living near the lift shaft or stair well is aals a common problem.

    You can complain about the noise. I think you have to try to steer clear of alledging insanity, or weirdness/goofyness. Whether they swear a lot or laugh loudly isn't really your concern, just that in the process they are too loud for your comfort. People are entitled to live their lives freely so long as they do not disturb others. But resolving neighbour noise has long been a conflict issue, and it gets very bitter as people start colouring the issue with allegations about the neighbours morals. Think, your comments get passed around, and get back to your neighbours as gossip.

    Have you tried rearranging your flat so you sleep in the room least affected by noise above? 

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