Are you supposed to use carpets in flats?

[smokey]

We live in a flat and the people up staires are driving me insane, you can here ever little step they make and their kids are always throwing stuff around the floor.
I can even hear the woman sweeping the broom acroos the laminated flooring at the moment.
I always thought that you had to have carpeting down in flats for this reason.
Its just driving me bonkers all day every day I just wish they would put carpet down.
Its not just that though they are diy addicts, there has been a drill or sawing or hammering going every single day for 8 months now and they normaly start about 8 in the morning then they ease off about 11 and start again everytime I put lo down for a nap.
They live in the flat with 3 kids so I dont think its a case of renovating it unless they are doing it around living there but iv never seen anyone going in or out with any wood,units or construction stuff

When we moved here last year we had carpets put down straight away and according to the lady below us the last people never bothered and where so noisey with her walking up and down in stillettos all day.
Thing is this place never even had laminated flooring so they just had the bare construction floorboard for the 8 years she lived here

 

[rainbowbaby2]

unforchinatly no you dont have to put carpets down. I used to live on the ground floor of a two story flat and could hear my neighbours every move and other not so plesent things and vice versa she had to put up with a colicy
baby ... you will either get used to it or have to move as it is their home to x

 

[RachA]

It's worth checking the deeds (if you are buying) or contract (if you are renting). We lived in a flat and our deeds stated that you couldn't have laminate or wood flooring down in the lounge/dinner or bedrooms.

 

[smokey]

The company we rent from generaly have it as part of their terms that you have to have addiquate sound proofing on floors, generaly this would mean carpeting but I have no idea if upstaires are part of the same company.
All the flats here where owned by the same company at one point but some of them bought there flats outright from them.

 

[Mummy2B21]

How bloody annoying, im glad you have highlighted this actually as i will be moving to a ground floor flat soon and that would really bug me, although i dont know how i would know if the upstairs have carpet or not before decideing if i want to live there..

 

[Wiggler]

Most housing associations say you need carpet in flats, I'm not sure about private. The annoying thing is with most flats they are soo poorly soundproofed when they are built that even brilliant carpet and underlay wont stop all the noise. x x x

 

[smokey]

Its a old 1940's flat so no the soundproofing probably isnt great, at least carpeting would mean I dont have to listen to tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap all bloody day long its like slow torture

 

[summer rain]

Most housing association and council flats you have to either have carpet or an expensive underlay that prevents sound transfer, if you don't and the laminate is deemed to be too noisy they can make you either rip it up and put the appropriate underlay in or at the very least put carpet on top of it. The only exception being kitchens and bathrooms. We just chose to have carpet (a tweedy, officey type one which actually looks quite cool but was only 1.99 a square metre) and a mediocre underlay for it, as the laminate with the type of underlay that was guaranteed to stop it being noisy costed 4-5 times as much as what we ended up getting. Neighbours downstairs say they never heard anything at all from our flat. The one good thing with these flats is they have concrete several inches thick between each floor so the soundproofing is pretty decent, the only thing that ever got through the sound proofing was the bass/vibration from the soundsystem of the downstairs and across neighbours and thankfully the housing assoc having a word with them sorted that xx

 

[Kiddo]

It would be worth checking with the company. If you complain then they'll tell you whether or not the people upstairs rent off them. If not then it might be worth looking into whether it could be classed as a noise pollution issue.

I must admit I had laminate flooring in my hall and living room when I lived in a top floor flat. It was there when I moved in and I couldn't afford to change it. I was always paranoid about it so had a chair at the door for folk to take their shoes off as soon as they came in.

 

[deafgal]

insulations or padding (i think some hardwood floor use padding) would probably work just as well.

personally, I hate carpet. vomit are hard to clean and it attracts allergies (can't vaccum everything)

 

[KatieB]

I don't know about housing association rentals but we previously privately rented 2 flats and moved out of the first one due to a noisy, inconsiderate tosser living above us. Our flat had the original wooden floorboards and you could hear downstairs neigbours tv through them (and nightly rowing lol) and above played his music at all hours - you get the picture. It seemed all the flats had floorboards and no carpet because you could hear everyone, above and below. We ended up moving to a top floor flat which was laminated in the kitchen and hallway, carpeted in bedroom/living room. We were only ever considerate anyway, no loud tv/music etc and never had any complaints, you can hear everything through laminate it's awful. I really don't think it's a good option when building flats, it just echoes noise IMO.

Have you had a word with your neighbours (pleasantly done of course)? Some people genuinely don't realise they're being noisy

 

[Pink Flowers]

we used to live in a block of private flats and you didn't have to have carpet down.

The people next door to us had wooden flooring and you could hear them walking around, but I guess it is all part of living in a flat, which is why we made sure we moved to a house this time lol

 

[Laura2919]

With my HA I had to apply to lay laminate flooring and I am ground floor and end of terrace.

I only have laminate in my hallway, bathroom is lino, kitchen is tiled and my bedroom, twins room and living room is carpet.

Laminate flooring creats a level sound apparently so most housing association and council housing ask you to apply or they can ask you to bring it up!

 

[Abz1982]

In council and LHA you usually have to apply to have laminate, however, you dont have to have anything down at all. We dont have carpet down as I wasn't paying for new carpets for a baby to puke and crap on them, that and I am allergic to dust.