Noise from flat below (Ed.)

[Sleep deprived]

Hi all, I recently purchased a two bedroom purpose built flat , the flat downstairs has a tenant who snores really badly, so much so I can hear him from most rooms of my flat when he does so.
i can hear him move around his flat , pulls the light cord switch in his bathroom. Etc etc, I can cope with that,and when kids kids come over and are jumping up and down for a few hours, laughing or having tantrums I can cope with that ,
The issue is when he goes to sleep, he snores so badly we can’t get to sleep , or he wakes us up with the snoring, I have tried earplugs, and they don’t work.
My adult Son has said we can swap bedrooms , we tried this but he has said the snoring is off the scale and can’t sleep either, we can hear the snoring in all rooms of the flat to some degree, but the main bedroom is a no go, the last straw was when I found my son sleeping on the kitchen floor , as he could not sleep in the lounge either
I have tried talking to the neighbour , but the talks have broken down , I enquired about noise insulation for the floor , but have been quoted between 5 and 10k to do two rooms , and there is no guarantee it will work as the sound could be coming through the walls, and I don’t have that kind of money
i am literally hanging , knackered call it what you will, I even thought about putting the flat back on the market, but becuase I have had discussions with the neighbourbelow , I would have to divulge the noise problem with prospective buyers, and who in their right mind would then buy ? Do I have any recourse with the owner of the flat below regarding his tenant , what other options do I have ?
Thanks

 

[blup]

Having discussions with your neighbour is not a dispute. Pursuing through formal complaints to the Council or private litigation, is; so make your decision whether to leave now. People are noise sensitive but vertically divided flats, particularly if conversions, can be problematic.

Blup

 

[Sleep deprived]

Hi Thanks for the reply , the only thing I have stupidly done is contact the management company for the block of fiats and asked if they have had issues with noise and explained the problem , they said they had not , will this be a problem if I try and sell ?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

In the interim, have you tried noise cancelling ear buds (not ear plugs), they are the work of the devil. Some are more comfortable than others and can be worn whilst sleeping.

 

[Sleep deprived]

Yes I have , the sound insulation is so bad , I can here him clear his throat , on some occasions yawn loudly , have had to put noise cancelling EarPods pro to sync up to my tv his snoring is louder than my tv , as he sometimes falls asleep in his lounge

 

[diy_fun_uk]

The developers no doubt built the place to 'just' meet the minimum regs/specs or whatever the correct term is with regard to how well a property needs to be constructed in terms of noise insulation.

My mate suffered the same thing in the 'luxury' apartment he bought years back. Could hear the guy downstairs snoring etc.

Funny, when I lived in the council house I grew up in and another ex council house years later, if you were sitting downstairs and someone was snoring upstairs, you couldn't hear them.

That's progress for you ...

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

I've been where you are, had similar neighbour issues, have total sympathy. Moving was the only solution that actually worked for us. Turned out the new place is better in lots of other ways too, so did us a favour.

Just sell the place. Don't declare any issues on any seller forms, forget it and move on. Make your life positive.

 

[Ivor Windybottom]

If you falsely declare there are no issues when there are then the worst case outcome is that the buyer somehow (unlikely) finds out there was a dispute, and can then sue you for how much less they think they'd have paid if the issue was known. In reality this is very unlikely to happen.

The person who sold to you was happy to drop it on you. Do the same to someone else.

Ideally buy a house if you can afford it.

 

[Sleep deprived]

Hi unfortunately I can’t afford a house , just divorced at sixty , and just about scraped through to buy this flat , have got to the point I dread going home , I don’t look forward to weekends as his children are over and the noise , well you would think they were actually in my flat, I think he suffers from sleep apnea, he told me his ex wife would tell me a thing or two about his snoring , he had an operation to try and sort it , but it didn’t work, I went and saw him early hours this morning out of desperation and was sworn at for waking him up, how ironic is that ? I was calm and said maybe a cpap machine would help, at which point he lost the plot ,

 

[DiyNutJob]

What kind of floor do you have? Thicker carpet may help a little. Hard floors would cause sound to bounce around. If you haven't tried these, it may help:

https://www.3m.co.uk/3M/en_GB/p/d/b00017634/

 

[Sleep deprived]

I have thick carpet, I think the noise is coming up through the walls as well, I sat outside my flat on the communal stairs , and I could hear his conversation from his flat below , quoted between 5 and 10k to do two rooms , to lift floor boards , put rock wool in replace floor boards and then put mute mat 3 down , but have read all that happens is the noise diverts elsewhere, and if it’s coming through the walls , I will have spent 10k for nothing , I have a feeling he doesn’t have carpets in his flat below , the main bedroom is a no go area , the smaller bedroom I can still hear him, and if he falls asleep in the lounge , then I am screwed

 

[DiyNutJob]

As an extreme measure, construct a box, pad all sides with carpets/fabric/etc to a thickness until satisfactory, and use that for sleeping.

 

[Sleep deprived]

If you falsely declare there are no issues when there are then the worst case outcome is that the buyer somehow (unlikely) finds out there was a dispute, and can then sue you for how much less they think they'd have paid if the issue was known. In reality this is very unlikely to happen.

The person who sold to you was happy to drop it on you. Do the same to someone else.

Ideally buy a house if you can afford it.

Hi the flat I had bought had tenants in before , and judging by the number of letters I get addressed to different people, suggests there might have been a problem, the downstairs neighbour has not been there long , and the party I bought the house from had not bothered getting new tenants in for a few months before they sold to me , I think I will have to sell , but can’t do it until downstairs has moved out , I can imagine someone coming to view the property and he has fallen asleep in his lounge , it will be clear to the prospective buyer there is a problem

 

[DiyNutJob]

it will be clear to the prospective buyer there is a problem

Use the same estate agent you bought from. They obviously know the tricks of not revealing the problem when you bought it.

 

[Lower]

I have thick carpet, I think the noise is coming up through the walls as well, I sat outside my flat on the communal stairs , and I could hear his conversation from his flat below , quoted between 5 and 10k to do two rooms , to lift floor boards , put rock wool in replace floor boards and then put mute mat 3 down , but have read all that happens is the noise diverts elsewhere, and if it’s coming through the walls , I will have spent 10k for nothing , I have a feeling he doesn’t have carpets in his flat below , the main bedroom is a no go area , the smaller bedroom I can still hear him, and if he falls asleep in the lounge , then I am screwed

Not quite correct. You can either reflect sound, absorb it or a combination of both. If you fit sound absorbtion (the dense rockwool solution), it will help considerably, even if some of the sound is being conducted through the walls. There are some very heavy duty floor coverings (25mm + thick) that can go down on the floor that would help considerably. But it will be very hard to eliminate all the sound from below, particularly as you are now sensitive to it.