My mum lives on the first floor of a three storey building and is almost 80. The housing association she rents from have moved in a single mother with a child above her and she is going through hell with the noise and it's making her ill.

The woman has had people coming in doing DIY at all hours - 7:45pm tonight - and her children are often up at 6am, and sometimes earlier, which wakes my mum (and sister, who lives with her) up and they are unable to get back to sleep due to the noise.

They're often also running around late at night as well so mum has to wait until almost 10pm and later before she can go to bed.

She's tried writing a very reasonable letter to the occupant upstairs about the noise but this has been ignored.

I know that when children move in, everyone around them automatically loses their right to a reasonable quality of life because of this, but does my mum have any recourse ?

Most nuisance neighbour policies i've looked in to, as well as the housing association's anti-social behaviour policy, all basically exempt children from any action being taken which I think is grossly unfair because at almost 80, my mum simply can't "just move".

And she's lived there for nearly 20 years as well, so why should she give up her home because of some inconsiderate above her ?

She'd be willing to go to mediation with the woman, but since the woman has ignored her letter, is there any other way to get this to happen ?

Apologies if this is a bit of a mess of a post but i'm just getting quite concerned about my mum's health overall.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

DIY at 7.45pm is not unreasonable and nor is a level of general domestic noise at 10pm as 10pm is not late in the eyes of the law so just complaining without some specific point or expected remedy is not going to get anywhere.

What she will have to show is that the noise is above a certain threshold for more than a certain length of time and that means she will need to speak to environmental health and get use of some noise measurement kit and monitor it over a lengthy period.

She should then ask the landlord to consider looking into better sound insulation if what is there doesnt come up to current spec. They are not obliged to do more than the statutory minimum so you should lower her expectations as there is no entitlement to quiet, just not be subjected to excessive noise and the measure of that will very according to the time of day and length of time over which it is made.

Alternately she can carry on sending letters to the other tenant and get evicted for harassment

I appreciate the response but we're looking at other avenues now to tackle this issue.

I still think it's wholly unfair that your rights are simply summarily removed as soon as children enter the equation, but this appears to be the norm and people who don't have to live with it usually don't really get it either.

Hi

Exactly who has said your rights are removed as soon as children enter the equation (or is this your assumption?) as this is incorrect in the housing association issue you are referring to as those children are the legal responsibility of the Parent in that property and the Parent can be held accountable for there actions.

I do agree with ericsbrothers post#2

For the Housing to take action they would require evidence of the issues to be able to take any action so your mum needs to keep a record of every incident this PDF may be of use:

Incident Log-with form fields -----.pdf

What your mum needs to also do is make a Formal Complaint in writing to the Housing Association explaining the issues

I can appreciate you saying it been your mums home for over 20yrs but sadly the property may be your mums home but in reality it belongs to the Housing Association.

As for your comment that people that don't live with it don't get it either is unhelpful as you are been given good advice

Yes I do know exactly what it is like as live in a HA Property and had a few years ago a single parent with 4 children in the flat above me running riot 24/7 took a lot of evidence which I provided and a lot of months later they moved before being evicted.

you say rights summarily removed but you cant say what those rights are because they dont actually exist.

As said, there is a right not to suffer from excessive noise but there are tabulated values for what is and isnt excessive and they vary for place and time but from wat you have said so far there is nothing to act upon. A road drill in use 6 hours a day in the flat wont breach the regs as long as she gets a half hour break in the middle and it is between 8am and 9pm

Now how about speaking to environmental health and HA and see what they come up with.

Saying it is unfair when it isnt ( they have a right to live their lives as well) will get you nowhere so start off by looking up what councils think is acceptable and unacceptable and ask about borrowing a suitable decibel meter and datalogger and then keep a diary.

The HA will be obliged to see if the insulation meets building regs and they may find it cheaper to add insulation to the flooring above rather than spend a fortune on endless meetings even if the current situation meets the requirements of the law

You have to quantify things or you get nowhere