Unfortunatley that was the route I went down when this first started, friendly chats and all that. It’s not the noise they make that’s a problem now, it’s the noise we can hear. If that makes sense.

The background to it all about them being unreasonable etc, is more to show the potential problems there could be if I force the issue.

Late night parties happen rarely now, maybe once a month. That we can live with. It’s the general level of noise that I want to try and dampen.

Thanks for the link dropoff, do you (or anyone else) have any experience of these products? I thought things would have moved on from “build a false wall and pack it with rock wool”.

we had a complete twunt of a neighbour once, got really nasty.

we moved. we could afford a second house without selling the first, luckily – probably not an option now

on the day we moved out, the cheeky sod asked if he could rent our house from us.

Then we rented the original house out. took another 12 years to sell it though, but it’s someone else’s problem now

Create a nice new patio?

a dispute in the PAST wouldnt affect resale. Its only recent surely that would unsettle a potential buyer.

I have to say this isn’t true. When I was hunting for houses (and still got a fairly noisy lot, as per earlier threads) I asked every single owner if they had had any noise issues with the current neighbours, if they had I’d not be looking there any more. From previous experience, those who are inconsiderate enough to make lots of noise don’t stop because they’re asked to, and even if they do it’ll get forgotted after a relatively short period, and the asking sours relationships with them, making living next door less pleasant.

kick his head in or burn is house lol 😈

I feel some of your pain tree-magnet. I live in a late 60s flat with concrete bison beam ceilings which transmit the sound amazingly well, during the day when there is general background noise its bearable but at other times any noise from above can be horrendous, to the point that you can hear the guy upstairs taking a leak!! By no means is hea noisy person, tbh quite the opposite. It was getting so bad when the ashes were on that he would be listening to the radio and fall asleep with it on and I would be waking up every 30 mins or so from it,and I dont even like criket!! :-).I mentioned it to him and he made sure he didnt fall asleep with tit on.

But after the first test I got some acoustic plasterboard and screwed that to the existing fibreboard ceiling, taking the chance to put teh thin metallic coated thermal insulation blanket, between the layers. Got the ceilings plastered and then painted them.It has made a massive difference now and Im so glad I did it. It wasnt that expensive, less that £10 per sheet and £60 each ceiling to skim coat plaster.

Im no acoustic expert, far from it but it worked well in my situation.

I am so concious of it now that I find myself creeping around in my flat so not to disturb the downstairs neighbour

I moved flat because there was a creaky floorboard in the upstairs flat, i dont know how youre coping TM. It is clearly causing stress so bite the bullet and contact the council – that is what they are there and what you pay your council tax for.

Decide whether or not you are being reasonable. Sounds like you are, but also that your partner is getting the worst of it. Go about finding out if they intend to stay or not. Perhaps even hire an investigator to find out if they have long term plans to stay or move on. Then decide if and how much you want to stay or not. If you do want to stay, then keep a diary of events for three months, then approach the Council with the whole diary AND the call the local police phone number (not 999) EVERY SINGLE TIME you are disturbed at an unreasonable time of day thereafter. Things will be utterly awful for about 6-12 months then either you will win (they will adjust their lifestyle or move) or they will win (you will move) and it will be resolved.

Or move now.

It’s the hardest thing to fix, getting people with incompatible lifestyles to understand and respect each other.

I’d also say, it is not your dream home, because of this situation. It may be a cheap mortgage but there seem to be other costs. Sometimes you have to walk away. There are other houses, villages, fields etc. The hardest part of moving is taking the first ornament of the shelf, then the spell is broken and you’re off.

Can I also say I would be reluctant to leave my partner to deal with this alone while I was away for months at a time. I’d think about getting a home posting. It would be the decent thing to do. I am sure you have tried already.

Sorry for both your upset.

Actually there is one other thing you could do and that is try for some kind of mediation. Find a person who has some rapport with both yourselves and your neighbour and get them to mediate between the two in a semi formal session. You will also need an observer and someone to take minutes, and a written agreement at the end of it, should any agreement be reached. If nothing else you will get to air your grievances in a relatively controlled environment.

Noise insulation – this is incredibly difficult to achieve. You need to introduce more mass into the dividing wall, and preferably an air gap also. Basically some kind of cavity wall. Ideally you would actually cut the two houses apart but you will then have to build a full cavity wall up your side, losing 300mm from your house, not really practical. Alternatively you could put up on skin of blockwork on your side with a nominal 50mm air gap. You lose 150mm from the inside of your house. That will make a difference and a good architect will be able to suggest someone who can calculate the noise reduction in decibels this will achieve. I don’t know if the attic space are divided but noise “coming over the top” can be very significant so starting out with a blockwork wall in the loft could be the way to go. You will need council approval for this. Don’t waste your time with plasterboard. It’s just not heavy enough to make the difference required, well, not unless you start putting 6 layers up.

However, I note you are worried about having to admit to neighbour trouble on selling your house. Building a secondary wall is a pretty effective way of telling everyone it was bad enough to get the builders in. Perhaps not really what you want to do.

Sounds like an unpleasant experience over a long time – I couldn’t cope. I found it bad enough in rented accomodation for a few months (ie we could move quickly) with privacy issues with the Landlords next door. Not nice when you come home hoping you don’t bump into them or don’t feel as if its your own private space in what over wise was a lovely house.

I wonder if I share joists with next door, as most of my low freq noise seems to come through the floor/ceiling space, and the rest through the loft space despite a brick wall between. I reckon some under-floor insulation may help mine a lot for higher frequency noise but the low frequency stuff seems to be nigh impossible to get rid of. This is why I hate people having home theatre systems, I could seriously go on a rampage.

Oh dear. If someone goes on a rampage in your area, you are now prime suspect #1.

Hi tree-magnet,

I do not know how you can stay sane, i moved from a new build house which had excellant soundproofing to a 50s semi, shared living room and master bedroom.

I could hear everything, only 9 inch brick between dwellings, great location, big garden but i can hear my neighbours life.

I have gone down the soundproofing path which is full of contradictions, and if you do not get the science bit right before you start work, waste of money.

If you do not want to move then you can reduce the sound, this is what i did, i built a stud wall onto the party wall and filled it with rockwool slabs, 1x acoustic plasterboard, sealed all the gaps with acoustic sealent and got the new stud wall plastered.

O.k result……..

What i did wrong was that my new wall was touching the old wall, sound will travel into the wood of my new wall.

What i should of done is decouple the new stud wall from the old noisy wall.

Round two, build another stud partition onto my new stud wall, more rockwall insulation slabs, but this time i added resilient bars which will hold my acoustic plasterboard so that it will not have to be screwed into the wood and must not let the plasterboard touch the ceiling, floor or sides of room.

I then added a plastic sheet(mass loaded vinyl)and another less heavy sheet of plasterboard which must be drilled into the resilient bars.

Acoustic seal all around the edges, sound is like water and will find a way out, sound will also flank ito the ceiling.

My next step is green glue(check this product out), fill floorboards upstairs with rockwool to stop sound flanking from neighbours living room.

I have had good improvement in my living room but before i spend on a plasterer i am going to add another layer of plasterboard and sandwich this green glue between it and my new stud wall, if this does not work then its hopeless.

google sound solution.

If you do want to avoid moving then you will need to research soundproofing, but their is so much info and products.

I am desperate not to have to move but i may drive myself mad trying to silence my neighbours.

What i am learning is that sound is complex and hard to shut the hell out of older homes, chimney breast are a weak zone.

We have a mad old chap living upstairs, plays piano (madly!) every day. Downstairs’ kids practise wind instruments each night. Most annoying for anyone that stays over, is that their kitchen is under our spare room so people get woken up by the microwave ping when they make porridge at 6.30am!