'AITA for not changing my lifestyle to accommodate my neighbours?'

"AITA for not changing my lifestyle to accommodate my neighbours?"

Alright everybody, get ready for a long one. A few months ago, my fiancee (F29) and I (M29) bought our first appartment. It took years of saving and 6 months of renovation, but we finally managed to move in at the end on January. I have recently been laid off for economic reasons and to top it off, I have trouble relaxing/lazing around during the day. If the sun is out, I feel the need to do stuff.

As a consequence, my only real "relax time" is at night, when I do not feel any internal pressure to be active. You might imagine that, as an unemployed nightowl, my bedtime is a little bit dephased with the rest of society and it is not rare for me to get to bed at 5am.

When renovating the kitchen/living area, we realised that the concrete slab rigidifying my hardwood floor had been destroyed by an old downstairs neighbour (we live on the 4rth floor) to attach their ceiling directly onto my floor beams. This means that there is basically no acoustic insulation between the 2 floors, and the lack of rigidity due to the slab being broken creates a lot of vibrations.

When we moved in, my downstairs neighbours quickly came to tell us that the noise from the floor vibrating was a big issue for them, and we started walking carefully around the house during the evening.

One night, I was about to go to bed at 4:30am when the neighbour comes, telling me that my moving around is basically ruining her life. She can't sleep, is getting psychological issues, just because I move around at night.

Of course, I say sorry, and I get a call from their landlord the next day, asking me to go and try to appease the situation. Obviously, I genuinely feel sorry. So I go to see her, say that I do empathize, that I will make efforts to be as silent as possible, but that I can't change my entire lifestyle to suit her sleeping schedule.

A few days later, her husband comes back from a trip and, having heard his wife cry repeatedly on the phone because of sleep deprivation, he comes to my door to confront me. It is 10pm at that time. The dude tells me I am a savage doing too much noise and, when I tell him that I already am walking as silently as I can (literally on my toes), he calls me a liar.

I decide to close the door to put an end to this sterile discussion, but he blocks the door with his foot and tries to force his way in! Things start to heat up, my fiancee separates us, they shout at us for about 30 minutes in the hallway and the next day I went to the police to record the incident.

The only way we managed to cool things down was to promise them I'd go to bed at 11pm, which I will obviously not do, especially for someone who tried invading my home (and insulted me because of my unemployment and lifestyle). I understand her plight and empathize, but I am in my home and I won't self impose some kind of curfew. Am I the AH?

Edit for more info : Despite the bad blood, I still make as many efforts as I can to remain silent. I litterally walk on my toes after 11pm. I should also say that we paid for the insulation in the kitchen area when we remodelled it, despite not being responsible for the degradation.

Unfortunately, our insulation does not fix the vibration issue.
Also, they are renters, so they can't actually pay to fix the issue themselves, and their landlord won't do it either.

Edit 2: I removed the ADHD comment which might be wrong and brings nothing to the actual story.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

pottersquash wrote:

ESH. My knowledge of home construction must be very limited cause this makes no sense to me, but if y'all know of the actual reason (previous construction removed a needed feature) Y'all should be adults and just figure out how to fix that.

Are y'all not concerned about other structural damages that may be present due to the clearly faulty previous reno? I doubt a concrete slab was poured merely for acoustic convience. Theres other, cheaper, sound proofing. Usually you use concrete cause you need strength and if thats been compromised y'all have more to worry about than sound.

OP responded:

So this is an old French building with pretty local building techniques. The layer that was actually destroyed is called a "Bacula" or "Machefer". It helps rigidify the floor and offer additional sound and thermal isolation.

It is not structural per se, so it really is a comfort issue. The actual structural issue is the fact that their ceiling is hanging from my floor beams, which they are not meant to support. I will mention it at the next homeowners assembly.

Regarding the actual solutions, the issue is that they are renters, so they cannot engage in any kind of renovations, their landlord isn't obligated or willing to pay for these renovations, and the issue comes from their side so I really do not want to destroy my floor to pay for their isolation.

illprobablyeditthese wrote:

From what you've explained, the excessive noise they're experiencing is due to THEIR unit being improperly renovated. That's not your problem, and I would be bringing that up at every opportunity- to them, their landlord, your community meetings, everything. This is their problem, whether they did it themselves or it was a previous tenant, it's their/their landlord's responsibility to fix it.

In the meantime, I would at least try to maybe get some cheap area rugs and slippers to help with the noise just as a gesture of goodwill, because getting into a pissing match with your neighbors is never a good idea if it can be avoided. NTA. Sing to the heavens about the construction issue.

OP responded:

Thank you, I already walk on rugs, barefoot to make as little noise as possible. And yes, I'll mention their flooring issues at the next community meeting!

Lunar-Ecplise0204 wrote:

NTA. In fact, I would be calling the landlord and telling them what you found about the ceiling fan and concrete slab...that landlord would have to fix it.

OP responded:

I already did, but since floor are part of the common areas of the building and the destruction was made by an ex-owner, no one really bears the responsibility today. The ceiling IS in my floor though, so I could make them take it down.

Riker_Omega_three wrote:

When renovating the kitchen/living area, we realised that the concrete slab rigidifying my hardwood floor had been destroyed by an old downstairs neighbour (we live on the 4rth floor) to attach their ceiling directly onto my floor beams.

This means that there is basically no acoustic isolation between the two floors, and the lack of rigidity due to the slab being broken creates a lot of vibrations. You need to talk to a lawyer to see if the building is responsible for fixing this issue. Because it sounds to me like they might be. NTA.

kittycatluvr wrote:

I’m leaning towards YTA. If I ripped up my kitchen and noticed a ceiling attached to my floor beams, that’d be an immediate phone call to the downstairs owner to (at a minimum) make them aware, and potentially see about options to remedy the situation. Doesn’t sound like you did this.

You chose not to try and soundproof the floor (or even just give a heads up about it) - and now you’re staying up all night and being an AH neighbor. Your neighbor's husband does win an AH for getting aggressive with you.

That type of response is unwarranted. That said, your reaction of “of course I’m not going to do that,” is only adding fuel to an already aggressive fire. If this guy is unhinged, why would you actively choose to take steps to make him more unhinged?

Yes, it sucks to adjust your habits, but if the choice is between going to bed at a reasonable hour to avoid pissing off an aggressive neighbor and allowing them to get some rest, versus staying up all night for no reason at all, it’s an obvious choice.

OP responded:

So, to specify, I did tell their landlord about the issue but they refuse to fix it as "they've lived their for years and it was never an issue". To be clear, their ceiling is IN my kitchen area. I also did pay for added soundproof by adding rockwool between the kitchen floor beams, but this does not solve the vibrations issue.

As for the "AH neighbour" comment, I litterally am walking around barefoot, on my toes, on thick rugs, maybe once every 2 hours to go pee. How is that AH neighbour behaviour?