Apartment Life

Can suck. Suck utter balls.

We live on the first floor. The landlady lives above on the second floor.

Around December last year, after significant unpleasantness, new neighbours moved in downstairs on the ground floor.

I took down soup and apologised in advance as I have two children, one of whom is around full time.

Everything seemed fine.

While we were away, one of said neighbours complained to the landlady that:

The children run around so much it shakes the light fittings.

Now I admit, my children can be… boisterous… but no more so than any other 3 and 7 year old pair of siblings.

In fact, #1 Son, when left to his own devices, is perfectly happy snuggled in his room with his tablet.

So I was mortified. Since I thought we had dealt with this issue last year.


Apparently there were issues with doors slamming. We put large rubber bands over the relevant door handles and the problems went away


However, more information has just come to light. The landlady and her partner came to do some light maintenance (with about four hours notice this time 🙄) and the topic came up.


Side note: if you’ve never had kids do not try and discipline someone else’s thank you very much. Yes the landlady attempted to talk to TT and #1 Son about the excessive noise and, rather unsurprisingly, was ignored.


However, as it turns out, downstairs have set up a Meditation Room and have placed it under my kid’s bedrooms.

I’m more than willing to work with my neighbours, but that? That is taking the piss.

Fortunately, the landlady’s partner has grandchildren. He understands kids. She is child free, and kind of seems to view children as little aliens/a different species. Which is fair, but I am not hobbling my kids. They are entitled to live in their homes.

And though I would never put it like this – we were here first. They saw us all leaving the house en masse on the day they viewed the property. So they knowingly rented an apartment where they knew there were kids living upstairs.

So, there have been discussions of what can be done. The landlady and partner have suggested they will buy large Ikea rugs for the relevant rooms.


I’m not footing the bill for it. Rugs are a bastard to keep clean.


And I have suggested (and will follow through with) buying slippers for the kids. I have no problem with that.

But I have stated, on record, that while I will happily have “no running in the house” as a rule (indeed have been trying to institute that since we moved in) I am not stopping my kids from playing in the place where they live.

TT is in bed before 7pm, #1 Son before 8pm. That is not unreasonable. I am not putting their lives on hold for a Meditation Room.

I will not be shitty about it, we all need to live together, but I have my limits. I know my kids well, including their flaws, and they are not as bad as is being made out.

Mama Dinosaur mode has been engaged.

Author: Fliss

Wife, mum (of two), yarn-obsessed cat-slave

5 thoughts on “Apartment Life”

  1. Seriously?! Your kids would have to throw themselves off a table with a cinder block to make the kind of noise she is talking about. They were causing light fixtures to move? Seriously? They’d better go meditate some more. Or maybe all of their meditation is causing light fixtures to move! Noisy kids my ass! 😡 I don’t like your new neighbors!!

    1. Well done Fliss..,,,, but I think it’s time you went into buying your own house mode!!! Kids will be kids!!!!! Xxx

      1. We will be looking into it sometime next year all being well. There’s apparently a true “house buying season” around April-ish. Certainly in Melrose, so we have to time it.

  2. Holy Sacred Bovines. That is utterly unreasonable and fair play to you for being so reasonable in response. My kids would be getting their first Doc Martin steel toed, hobnailed boots the very next day.
    I think the measures you’ve agreed to are more than enough, don’t give in after that point. If your neighbours want a quiet, meditation friendly home, they can go find one….

    1. Part of it is that they are covered in the remainder of their first lease – our landlady offers 12 months in the first instance then it goes to rolling. The previous neighbours were evicted and we are on month to month – I do not want to have to scramble to find a new place to live.

      I appreciate this is completely paranoia talking, but things are SO different out here that I am probably overcompensating.

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