Downstairs neighbor complaining about every little noise and banging on ceiling

Homeowner NFH

Hi,

My wife and I bought a condo which is on the second floor of our three floor building (6 units total, 3 each side). Shortly after moving in the downstairs neighbor began complaining about the noise of our footsteps, coffee machine, and other appliances. At the time we had a newborn only 2 weeks old, both my wife and I were barely holding it together and we're caught off guard and politely explained the situation and there would be occasional noise due to our child (by email because this person refused every invitation to speak in person and will not answer the door if you knock). She responded by sending us several sound recording of "noise" which basically amount to footsteps, moving of boxes, and one night we're there was a bit of noise at 8pm on a Saturday when we had a few guests for a house warming (before the baby arrived). Anyways since then I haven't felt welcome in my own home, so to speak. I will not lie it does cause me a bit of distress. I've lived in apartments for a decade and never dealt with this before.

Fast forward almost a year and my neighbor consistently bangs on the ceiling when my daughter crawls on the floor. Also my espresso machine running at 7am or any appliance running before 830am is considered too noisy and disturbing her sleep (what a life to be able to sleep in till 830am!). It seems this person will only be content when it is absolute silence. I start work at 8am and my daughter usually wakes around 6am so when she is up we have to get ourselves and her ready for the day.

There are several other problems with this person, I have caught her lying and making up condo rules that don't exist in any official document to try and control our behaviour. Anyways this is a bit of a rant but im curious what anyone else would do at this point to stop the banging on the ceiling? I've confronted her about it and her view is that we are unreasonably noisy, but we have not broken any rules. The banging is to alert us to the noise we are creating.

Posted Jul 4, 2026, 6:38 PM UTC

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