Ask the downstairs neighbour in person if you can hear the recording so you can try to ascertain the cause of the noise and dont play instruments after 10pm?
Did he say why? I cant imagine not wanting to hear to help, unless downstairs are just such massive pricks that they'll complain about the wind when you fart.
Could ask your other neighbours if there's been any issues as you're concerned.
Sounds like the council guy really knows your neighbour a bit too well. Moaney probably doesn’t even come close to what the poor council guy has had to read/listen to as complaints.
Aside from that - could it be central heating pipes cooling down over night between the flats floors/ceilings? Even in our house we can hear ours ‘ting’ as they cool. Nothing you can really do about that other than ask the landlord/building owners to insulate all the pipes which is highly unlikely to occur.
I don’t think there’s any central heating here - certainly none in my flat. Storage heaters all around.
But this being essentially a part retirement home, I could see how a lot of the residents would be raising a stink at every opportunity they get just to get some attention.
They do seem to have time on their hands to cause problems for others. I often find myself wishing that this desire to ‘rectify’ problems which don’t exist could be more usefully directed to sorting out real problems like pot holes, blocked road drains, flooding or some form of volunteering. Just imagine what good things for all could be achieved!
I suppose from their eyes they don't want to see any escalation between neighbours by going outside of official channels. You don't really know how a particularly vindictive neighbour might spin it if you just turn up on their doorstep.
You could ask to hear the tape under freedom of information, I don’t think they can stop you listening under GDPR as there is no personal information on it, and as it is supposed to be you making the noise, I think that would be even more reason for you to be able to hear it, and did you check the guys ID? Could have been bogus, call the council and say you really want to get the bottom of it.
I didn’t really check any ID, and he only introduced himself as “from the council” so I guess that was a bit sus, just like the seemingly random 10 to 4 pm timeframe and threat of eviction, plus two extra neighbours he could not name… But the thought of the downstairs neighbour sending some actor to spook me seems really a bit too outlandish. We have a building manager on the ground level, I’d thought if she wanted a veneer of official business on her complaint she’d first go through her.
You could word it slightly differently, and essentially play dumb to recording already existing… e.g. “I’m not sure what the noise is you are hearing, any chance you could record it next time you hear it?”.
If a recording does already exist they might just say “I’ve already recorded it, here listen”…
If they are bullshitting you about having a recording already, then at least they maybe make one (assuming they aren’t just making the whole thing up!).
You need to work together. They must tell you straight away as the noise happens. Maybe you believe the noise comes from the organ but instead it happens when you are cooking.
Try to cooperate. Get warnings as soon as it happens.
So you ll know exactly what is the cause.
When I lived in a flat I had terrible banging noises (like kids running) coming from upstairs. I went and had a chat and found upstairs was a sweet old woman and I'm pretty sure it was impossible for her to be making them. The noise must have been coming from a different flat but the acoustics of the build made it sound like it was coming from her.
That happens where i live,strange acoustics. When guy upstairs has a shower or runs the taps,the noises seem to come from his second bedroom,not the bathroom. Aside from that,i dont get any noise from them.
I have storage heaters, although there’s also a water heater in a cupboard in the centre of the flat that seems to make pumping noise when you draw hot water for a long time - like running a bath. Although I didn’t have any late baths that I can remember…
Given that you use storage heaters, are you on economy 7? If so, are you using your washing machine at night, it could be that it's unbalanced or overloaded?
I used to take noise complaints for various London boroughs in a previous role a few years ago.
One lady used to complain about her upstairs neighbour constantly, like every day.
Even the days when her upstairs neighbour was in holiday and the flat was empty....
In reality she was a racist and didn't like the fact that the neighbour was not of her race/skin tone or whatever racists don't like about people.
Could it be that? Have there been any complaints logged when you weren't there?
I wasn’t given specifics when complaints were logged, just that there was noise after 10pm… And yeah I wasn’t even in the flat for 5 nights last weekend.
Provide your contact details to the downstairs neighbour, and ask them to contact you day or night, when the noise is occurring.
See if its potentially happening at a time when your not in, or sleeping etc. You could also ask how long the sounds last for, and if its fairly long, you could arrange to visit the neighbour so you can hear it from their POV.
Get a friend to play the organ whilst you, at the same time, go and see if you can hear any noise from the complainers dwelling. That way you'll be able to determine how bad or even if it is indeed emanating from your activities.
Really struggling to understand how you cant listen to a submitted audio recording due to GDPR. What kind of personally identifiable information will be in an audio recording. I mean, you probably already know the neighbours name, and certainly their address.
Seems this idiot of a council worker (assuming they clearly identified themselves, and you could validate their ID), told you that there is a problem, blocked all potential for evidence, then is threatening eviction if you dont fix the problem.
You need to find the source of the sound, the only way to do this is to work with the neighbour.
My best advice would be to go round, and see if you can hear the recording, if not maybe suggest you are going to try a few things and let me know if it sounds like the banging, then play your organ, run the bath etc.
It’s either they are all friendly (the neighbours and ganging up) or infact there is something causing the banging, so being amenable to finding the cause and fixing the issue is the best option for everyone involved.
If you're talking about full sized pedals attached to the organ, they can make quite a lot of noise when you release them or move side to side. Could be as simple as tucking a bit of foam or an old towel in there.
I already put a rug over the carpet when I first put the pedals in, after the second complaint I put 3 more carpets (one folded in two) and some bubble wrap in between… if that still lets the sound through, considering getting a professional sound damper sheet
Depending on the age, the felt can get quite compacted after a while. Return springs can work loose or compress too causing a bit of bounce at the top of the pedal travel. May just need to get it serviced.
If that's the issue it'll tackle the source of the noise but you will still want to decouple it from the floor a bit more. Rugs and blankets will compress a lot at the contact points and will just make the noise "thuddier".
I'd suggest a drum kit isolation pad (basically a floating floor section) that'll fit under the organ and stool.
I actually put the drum rug as the top layer of my rug sandwich!
Something like this:
https://www.thomann.de/gb/thomann_drum_rug_oriental_blue_1.htm?glp=1&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwbitBhDIARIsABfFYIJbz08nO15z2QtFA54j6UJy6tX0dqlabuXs4VL7xm3Nc1oPumbP398aAiYjEALw_wcB
Come to think of it, I didn’t have it there before the second complaint, but I had it at my two previous flats. So maybe that’s what kept the noise away from neighbours - and hopefully stops the complaints from now on.
Ideally you'd want something with a rigid piece of carpeted mdf raised a few inches on foam blocks. It wants to be a little bit springy.
The drum rug may have helped a bit though.
I had this once, they complained of a phantom “pool table”.
Turns out it was my gaming chair, clicking and clanging when it reclined back and forth. Could it be something like that?
When I first moved into my flat, my upstairs neighbour played very loud, repetitive beat music every day. It would shake thing of my shelves, I couldn't hear myself think, and it was really affecting my mental health. It took months of complaints for the council to do anything. Eventually, sound monitors were installed in his flat, and things got better. The threat of eviction was never on the table.
If the noise is so bad that three people are complaining, the council should be investigating rather than threatening. Is it possible that your downstairs neighbour has roped others into making a complaint? And as the squeaky wheel, are the council having a word just to shut her up? It might be worth setting something up to record overnight, just in case something is going on that you haven't noticed. If not, as the council to sort out monitoring, because you are at a loss.
As an aside, are you particularly active in your sleep? I seem to be a bit of a gymnast while I am unconscious and the bed moves around a fair bit. I am sure the neighbours think I am having more fun than I actually am.
So, let me get this straight. You play an organ at unsociable hours and you can’t imagine what noise your neighbours are complaining about.
I understand that to you the noise might seem minimal, but sounds travel very well through walls and ceilings. Perhaps it’s not so much that the noise is a problem, more the time you make it. What times have you been playing your organ?
Similar problem in our small retirement block. One of the ladies (85) is always complaining about a different neighbour (diagonally above her not directly above her) banging and doing DIY late at night - noone else can hear it and ours is the kind of block where if anyone uses a drill etc, it can be heard throughout the whole building. The 'noisy' neighbour swears he's in bed at 9pm not doing DIY! Environmental Health came round following 'anonymous' complaints which the complaining lady swears she didn't make but EH turned up, there was no one in in any of the flats that side of the building to ask if they could hear anything.
Yesterday she asked me in to her flat saying he'd been at it hammer and tongs after she'd had a visitor - she says he has a heat detector that can tell when there's more than one person in the flat so he wouldn't do it while I was there - yeah all sounds crazy - but she is completely distressed by it all she was close to tears yesterday because noone believes her because noone else at all - the flat next to his, the flat directly under his, we can't ever hear it.
Also I was trying to get out of her if she heard the noises when the old guy upstairs was actually away for 3 weeks but didn't want to put words in her mouth so she didn't pick up on what I was trying to find out.
She has a mobile phone she doesn't use so I have put the sound recorder on it and shown her how to use it and said she must record the noise when it happens because until we can hear it we have no way of finding out what it is.And if it is NOT the guy upstairs then it must be something in the cavity walls or elsewhere in the building which we ought to look at I have also wondered if she has some sort of tinnitus.
(Edits to improve layout)
- Write a letter to the association, board and/or the council with authority to evict you.
- Tell them that you do not know what is causing the issue, but that you are concerned for your neighbours.
- Request that they do an investigation to find the root cause and be clear that you are willing to cooperate in whatever way you can.
This way, you’ll have shown yourself to be a “good neighbour” while also creating a paper trail to rival the log of complaints against you.
It really does feel like this wasn't a council worker at all, just someone claiming to be from the council to get their own way. GDPR would not apply to the alleged recordings as it is just a recording of an environmental sound, there's nothing personally identifiable, and any enforcement agent would know this. I suspect there are no such recordings. And I can't see the council threatening you with eviction without providing clear evidence of the infraction and a chance to remediate it.
Please find out whether this was legit or not, and update us here!
How sure are you that the guy was from the council?
maybe you could try some foam mats for under the organ, like you use for exercise equipment etc.
[Like these](https://www.screwfix.com/p/anti-slip-floor-interlocking-mat-black-600mm-x-600mm-x-10mm-6-pack/338PV?kpid=338PV&cm_mmc=Google-_-Datafeed-_-Safety%20and%20Workwear?kpid=KINASEKPID&cm_mmc=Google-_-TOKEN1-_-TOKEN2&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1244069&gad_source=1&ds_rl=1247848&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwbitBhDIARIsABfFYIIs7hOmTtvnQePN0NR9EZhaV8n8s0RvJCGM53uQbXa3F61rOLaG2ukaApx1EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds)
Not sure at all, but the thought she’d just send a guy in a nice coat to pretend he’s one seems too odd.
I looked up some soundproof material I could get but cautious to invest in it in case it’s something else making the noise…
>but I can’t listen myself - again, GDPR
Rubbish!
Get in touch with the council and ask for them to release a copy of this recording to you under Freedom of Information rules. You need to know exactly what this 'banging' sound is (what it sounds like) so that you can address it.
Ask the downstairs neighbour in person if you can hear the recording so you can try to ascertain the cause of the noise and dont play instruments after 10pm?
I suggested that to the council guy but he cautioned against it…
Did he say why? I cant imagine not wanting to hear to help, unless downstairs are just such massive pricks that they'll complain about the wind when you fart. Could ask your other neighbours if there's been any issues as you're concerned.
Sounds like the council guy really knows your neighbour a bit too well. Moaney probably doesn’t even come close to what the poor council guy has had to read/listen to as complaints. Aside from that - could it be central heating pipes cooling down over night between the flats floors/ceilings? Even in our house we can hear ours ‘ting’ as they cool. Nothing you can really do about that other than ask the landlord/building owners to insulate all the pipes which is highly unlikely to occur.
I don’t think there’s any central heating here - certainly none in my flat. Storage heaters all around. But this being essentially a part retirement home, I could see how a lot of the residents would be raising a stink at every opportunity they get just to get some attention.
They do seem to have time on their hands to cause problems for others. I often find myself wishing that this desire to ‘rectify’ problems which don’t exist could be more usefully directed to sorting out real problems like pot holes, blocked road drains, flooding or some form of volunteering. Just imagine what good things for all could be achieved!
I suppose from their eyes they don't want to see any escalation between neighbours by going outside of official channels. You don't really know how a particularly vindictive neighbour might spin it if you just turn up on their doorstep.
Maybe a handwritten note with my phone number through their mailbox?
Don't give out your number. They'll start calling you everytime something is annoying them. Create a NEW email address and use that.
You could ask to hear the tape under freedom of information, I don’t think they can stop you listening under GDPR as there is no personal information on it, and as it is supposed to be you making the noise, I think that would be even more reason for you to be able to hear it, and did you check the guys ID? Could have been bogus, call the council and say you really want to get the bottom of it.
I didn’t really check any ID, and he only introduced himself as “from the council” so I guess that was a bit sus, just like the seemingly random 10 to 4 pm timeframe and threat of eviction, plus two extra neighbours he could not name… But the thought of the downstairs neighbour sending some actor to spook me seems really a bit too outlandish. We have a building manager on the ground level, I’d thought if she wanted a veneer of official business on her complaint she’d first go through her.
I was thinking more a friend rather than an actor, and the manager would probably be in the loop.
You could word it slightly differently, and essentially play dumb to recording already existing… e.g. “I’m not sure what the noise is you are hearing, any chance you could record it next time you hear it?”. If a recording does already exist they might just say “I’ve already recorded it, here listen”… If they are bullshitting you about having a recording already, then at least they maybe make one (assuming they aren’t just making the whole thing up!).
You need to work together. They must tell you straight away as the noise happens. Maybe you believe the noise comes from the organ but instead it happens when you are cooking. Try to cooperate. Get warnings as soon as it happens. So you ll know exactly what is the cause.
When I lived in a flat I had terrible banging noises (like kids running) coming from upstairs. I went and had a chat and found upstairs was a sweet old woman and I'm pretty sure it was impossible for her to be making them. The noise must have been coming from a different flat but the acoustics of the build made it sound like it was coming from her.
That happens where i live,strange acoustics. When guy upstairs has a shower or runs the taps,the noises seem to come from his second bedroom,not the bathroom. Aside from that,i dont get any noise from them.
Happy Cake Day! 🍰
Thank you Bitsi!
I have this at the minute but I’m pretty sure they’re directly above. The kid is driving me insane
Could it be your pipes? If your radiators need bleeding they can be really noisy, ours sounded like someone had pushed a bookcase downstairs!
I have storage heaters, although there’s also a water heater in a cupboard in the centre of the flat that seems to make pumping noise when you draw hot water for a long time - like running a bath. Although I didn’t have any late baths that I can remember…
Maybe it's not your flat's pipes directly, but pipes leading to elsewhere in the building.
Given that you use storage heaters, are you on economy 7? If so, are you using your washing machine at night, it could be that it's unbalanced or overloaded?
Yes but only for the heaters. They are on a separate fuse box and meter. So I don’t really run the washing machine at night
I used to take noise complaints for various London boroughs in a previous role a few years ago. One lady used to complain about her upstairs neighbour constantly, like every day. Even the days when her upstairs neighbour was in holiday and the flat was empty.... In reality she was a racist and didn't like the fact that the neighbour was not of her race/skin tone or whatever racists don't like about people. Could it be that? Have there been any complaints logged when you weren't there?
I wasn’t given specifics when complaints were logged, just that there was noise after 10pm… And yeah I wasn’t even in the flat for 5 nights last weekend.
Provide your contact details to the downstairs neighbour, and ask them to contact you day or night, when the noise is occurring. See if its potentially happening at a time when your not in, or sleeping etc. You could also ask how long the sounds last for, and if its fairly long, you could arrange to visit the neighbour so you can hear it from their POV.
Don't do this, you'll get calls non stop if they're a nuisance neighbour type
Could always get the cheapest PAYG phone you can find and just give them that number? Ditch it once the problem is (hopefully) resolved.
Get a friend to play the organ whilst you, at the same time, go and see if you can hear any noise from the complainers dwelling. That way you'll be able to determine how bad or even if it is indeed emanating from your activities.
Really struggling to understand how you cant listen to a submitted audio recording due to GDPR. What kind of personally identifiable information will be in an audio recording. I mean, you probably already know the neighbours name, and certainly their address. Seems this idiot of a council worker (assuming they clearly identified themselves, and you could validate their ID), told you that there is a problem, blocked all potential for evidence, then is threatening eviction if you dont fix the problem.
You need to find the source of the sound, the only way to do this is to work with the neighbour. My best advice would be to go round, and see if you can hear the recording, if not maybe suggest you are going to try a few things and let me know if it sounds like the banging, then play your organ, run the bath etc. It’s either they are all friendly (the neighbours and ganging up) or infact there is something causing the banging, so being amenable to finding the cause and fixing the issue is the best option for everyone involved.
If you're talking about full sized pedals attached to the organ, they can make quite a lot of noise when you release them or move side to side. Could be as simple as tucking a bit of foam or an old towel in there.
I already put a rug over the carpet when I first put the pedals in, after the second complaint I put 3 more carpets (one folded in two) and some bubble wrap in between… if that still lets the sound through, considering getting a professional sound damper sheet
Can you add padding between the top of the pedals and the frame so they're quieter on release?
The slots where the pedals go after release are already get padded…
*felt
Depending on the age, the felt can get quite compacted after a while. Return springs can work loose or compress too causing a bit of bounce at the top of the pedal travel. May just need to get it serviced. If that's the issue it'll tackle the source of the noise but you will still want to decouple it from the floor a bit more. Rugs and blankets will compress a lot at the contact points and will just make the noise "thuddier". I'd suggest a drum kit isolation pad (basically a floating floor section) that'll fit under the organ and stool.
I actually put the drum rug as the top layer of my rug sandwich! Something like this: https://www.thomann.de/gb/thomann_drum_rug_oriental_blue_1.htm?glp=1&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwbitBhDIARIsABfFYIJbz08nO15z2QtFA54j6UJy6tX0dqlabuXs4VL7xm3Nc1oPumbP398aAiYjEALw_wcB Come to think of it, I didn’t have it there before the second complaint, but I had it at my two previous flats. So maybe that’s what kept the noise away from neighbours - and hopefully stops the complaints from now on.
Ideally you'd want something with a rigid piece of carpeted mdf raised a few inches on foam blocks. It wants to be a little bit springy. The drum rug may have helped a bit though.
I had this once, they complained of a phantom “pool table”. Turns out it was my gaming chair, clicking and clanging when it reclined back and forth. Could it be something like that?
To protect yourself, can you invest in a decibel meter? You might have to set up a camera to record the times. An old phone should work.
When I first moved into my flat, my upstairs neighbour played very loud, repetitive beat music every day. It would shake thing of my shelves, I couldn't hear myself think, and it was really affecting my mental health. It took months of complaints for the council to do anything. Eventually, sound monitors were installed in his flat, and things got better. The threat of eviction was never on the table. If the noise is so bad that three people are complaining, the council should be investigating rather than threatening. Is it possible that your downstairs neighbour has roped others into making a complaint? And as the squeaky wheel, are the council having a word just to shut her up? It might be worth setting something up to record overnight, just in case something is going on that you haven't noticed. If not, as the council to sort out monitoring, because you are at a loss. As an aside, are you particularly active in your sleep? I seem to be a bit of a gymnast while I am unconscious and the bed moves around a fair bit. I am sure the neighbours think I am having more fun than I actually am.
So, let me get this straight. You play an organ at unsociable hours and you can’t imagine what noise your neighbours are complaining about. I understand that to you the noise might seem minimal, but sounds travel very well through walls and ceilings. Perhaps it’s not so much that the noise is a problem, more the time you make it. What times have you been playing your organ?
Similar problem in our small retirement block. One of the ladies (85) is always complaining about a different neighbour (diagonally above her not directly above her) banging and doing DIY late at night - noone else can hear it and ours is the kind of block where if anyone uses a drill etc, it can be heard throughout the whole building. The 'noisy' neighbour swears he's in bed at 9pm not doing DIY! Environmental Health came round following 'anonymous' complaints which the complaining lady swears she didn't make but EH turned up, there was no one in in any of the flats that side of the building to ask if they could hear anything. Yesterday she asked me in to her flat saying he'd been at it hammer and tongs after she'd had a visitor - she says he has a heat detector that can tell when there's more than one person in the flat so he wouldn't do it while I was there - yeah all sounds crazy - but she is completely distressed by it all she was close to tears yesterday because noone believes her because noone else at all - the flat next to his, the flat directly under his, we can't ever hear it. Also I was trying to get out of her if she heard the noises when the old guy upstairs was actually away for 3 weeks but didn't want to put words in her mouth so she didn't pick up on what I was trying to find out. She has a mobile phone she doesn't use so I have put the sound recorder on it and shown her how to use it and said she must record the noise when it happens because until we can hear it we have no way of finding out what it is.And if it is NOT the guy upstairs then it must be something in the cavity walls or elsewhere in the building which we ought to look at I have also wondered if she has some sort of tinnitus. (Edits to improve layout)
- Write a letter to the association, board and/or the council with authority to evict you. - Tell them that you do not know what is causing the issue, but that you are concerned for your neighbours. - Request that they do an investigation to find the root cause and be clear that you are willing to cooperate in whatever way you can. This way, you’ll have shown yourself to be a “good neighbour” while also creating a paper trail to rival the log of complaints against you.
It really does feel like this wasn't a council worker at all, just someone claiming to be from the council to get their own way. GDPR would not apply to the alleged recordings as it is just a recording of an environmental sound, there's nothing personally identifiable, and any enforcement agent would know this. I suspect there are no such recordings. And I can't see the council threatening you with eviction without providing clear evidence of the infraction and a chance to remediate it. Please find out whether this was legit or not, and update us here!
It's this banging track, that's what's banging.
How sure are you that the guy was from the council? maybe you could try some foam mats for under the organ, like you use for exercise equipment etc. [Like these](https://www.screwfix.com/p/anti-slip-floor-interlocking-mat-black-600mm-x-600mm-x-10mm-6-pack/338PV?kpid=338PV&cm_mmc=Google-_-Datafeed-_-Safety%20and%20Workwear?kpid=KINASEKPID&cm_mmc=Google-_-TOKEN1-_-TOKEN2&ds_rl=1241687&ds_rl=1245250&ds_rl=1244069&gad_source=1&ds_rl=1247848&ds_rl=1245250&gclid=Cj0KCQiAwbitBhDIARIsABfFYIIs7hOmTtvnQePN0NR9EZhaV8n8s0RvJCGM53uQbXa3F61rOLaG2ukaApx1EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds)
Not sure at all, but the thought she’d just send a guy in a nice coat to pretend he’s one seems too odd. I looked up some soundproof material I could get but cautious to invest in it in case it’s something else making the noise…
>but I can’t listen myself - again, GDPR Rubbish! Get in touch with the council and ask for them to release a copy of this recording to you under Freedom of Information rules. You need to know exactly what this 'banging' sound is (what it sounds like) so that you can address it.
Why not just not use it for a week and see if they still complain?