How do families with children deal with neighbors complaining that their children are too noisy in Japan? Are Japanese natives not noisy when they are babies?
The neighbours below you? Put down some mats. It’ll reduce the noise and protect your baby from falls.
Try to minimize the noise, maybe.
Invest in those cushioned mats (you can find really cheap ones in nishimatsuya, nitori, daiso…), cover all the corridor, living and bedroom areas. You can adjust to the right size with a regular cutter and a metal ruler. Put rugs on top if you don’t like how it looks. I have friends who have the whole apartment covered in the thickest joint mats they could find and then added big noise absorbing (防音?) carpets on top. They had twins. Noise tolerance is low here, yes. I, personally, got noise complaints from our downstairs neighbors when our kid was younger, and I haven’t had a single complaint since we did all that. It’s annoying having to do so, but it’s not a lot of work or a big investment so it’s worth doing so.
If they don’t want to hear noise from people, they shouldn’t live where people are. “Baby learning to walk” is WELL within normal common-courtesy levels. Neighbors can fuck off.
Two things.
1. Buy those mats that look like jigaw pieces. We have our living room floor covered in them and not only does it protect our little one but also they absorb sound. 2. Why do so many of these grumpy complainers exist and insist living in buildings where families will clearly live? If it fucking bothers you that much then buy/rent a house, or if you don’t have the money then just live in a forest where kids wont bother you.
oh man, our neighbors complain over me just being on conference calls (we are in a single family home) to the point that when I tell them to get lost, they call my wife’s mother or aunt (we live in the grandparents old house) at which point I then need to tell them to go pound sand.
Recently we had neighbors ask my wife, to ask me to stop talking loudly with our 18 month old baby in the mornings. I told them if they stop blasting NHK at 6am in the morning with their windows open we can have a conversation, but short of that, to pound sand.
If it’s at night, I’d say put a mat down or something.
If it’s during day, they can pound sand or move somewhere else.
If they don’t stop complaining, start complaining to your rental company about them harrassing you.
Just don’t engage with them. Nod head while walking backwards
Thanks for the suggestion. Parts of the floor are thickly matted, but not all. Still complained. Children don’t like being locked in a room, they don’t like to walk on very soft cushions, they like to walk around. When walking, she would often lose her balance and sit on the ground. Maybe it was the sound that came downstairs. If there is no other way, I can only move. It might be better to live in one house. Somewhat curious, is it common for families with young children to be complained by downstairs neighbors, or is it an isolated case?
…. I live in a stand alone house, ’cause screw neighbors.
Tell em to fuck off
“Usero” is the vocab you are looking for.
People are gonna hate me for this but whatever.
I used to love Japan as a tourist destination. But after moving here and having to deal with all this noise pollution, I don’t think I can say the same anymore.
Sometimes, it’s unavoidable to make noises, especially when it comes to children. But try thinking as if you were in their shoes, how would you feel? After a long stressful day at work in this weather, just wanting to get some rest but you can’t because your neighbors keep stomping, or shouting, or crying. And not only once or twice but every single night.
As for OP, consider moving to a detached house maybe?
Japanese natives are noisy as hell when they have kids. Little shits run and jump like mad. It was quite unbearable at our last place, as the soundproofing was dreadful. People need to be tolerant and I think that goes both ways. We are all living in a shared space.
My old neighbor used to complain about music I was playing that was actually coming from the teenage girl whose window faced mine the next building over.
Construction noises? Me Nighttime bangs when I was at work? Me Letters missing out of her mailbox? Me
Just couldn’t win and ended up moving.
I’d assume most Japanese natives don’t live near crazy people.
It’s worked for me so far too!
My neighbors complain about me breathing too loudly. Now I’m down to breathing through only one nostril every ten minutes.
Fuck them
Babies make noise. Doesn’t matter if they are Japanese, American, from outer space.
I have had neighbors with babies for years. Just a part of life. Hear the kid crying at 1am? Oh well, go back to sleep.
Who the fuck is complaining about literal babies being babies
Is baby learning to walk in those absurdly loud squeaking baby shoes? If so, I can understand their plight
Your neighbors are idiots, racists or both.
Hard subject. On one hand I understand a small baby needs to learn how to walk and that’s noisy, on the other hand I understand the tired salaryman who wants to relax and feels like Thanos is walking on his ceiling. What you can do is bring a small “omiyage like” gift to this neighbor and explain him or them that it’s hard to keep the baby quiet but you gonna try your best.
Tell them they are being unpatriotic.
It’s the reason people no longer want to have babies, because this country hates babies to the bones.
My wife “befriended” the Obasan below us, baked her cake and PRE-apologize for any upcoming noises. The “pre-apologize” is SUPER important in Japanese culture. It shows that you’re considerate enough, which is enough in most cases. If you’ve been here long enough, you’ll would’ve gotten apologetic letters about streets being fixed and the noises being generated and what not.
The Obasan still say things like “your kids are pretty lively heh !?”, which means “you kids is noisy!”, but we just introduced them to her, and she never caused more troubles than just light comments here and there. We just made sure no noises in the evening.
They’ll get old enough to be annoying but doesn’t seem like theyrr old enough to have bad hearing
Japanese kids are so quiet that when my wife’s sister’s kids come over, I go to a pachinko center to rest my ears.
I had those rubber mats on my flooring when I had small kids. They were softer than a hard wooden floor which was good for toddlers learning to walk. Of course they also add a layer of sound insulation.
It is whether how nice you want to be, most mansion will only just advise to reduce noise according to timings as well as limitation to instruments. It all depends on the mansion rules if it is rental, there exists mansions that literally do not allow kids.
You can do like what other suggest to buy mats, 100 yen shop square mats or nitori isn’t that expensive.
If they complain to you directly and you do not wish to comply then look for the building management so they can be the mediator, in certain cases they may even pay for the mats.
28 comments
The neighbours below you? Put down some mats. It’ll reduce the noise and protect your baby from falls.
Try to minimize the noise, maybe.
Invest in those cushioned mats (you can find really cheap ones in nishimatsuya, nitori, daiso…), cover all the corridor, living and bedroom areas. You can adjust to the right size with a regular cutter and a metal ruler. Put rugs on top if you don’t like how it looks. I have friends who have the whole apartment covered in the thickest joint mats they could find and then added big noise absorbing (防音?) carpets on top. They had twins. Noise tolerance is low here, yes. I, personally, got noise complaints from our downstairs neighbors when our kid was younger, and I haven’t had a single complaint since we did all that. It’s annoying having to do so, but it’s not a lot of work or a big investment so it’s worth doing so.
If they don’t want to hear noise from people, they shouldn’t live where people are. “Baby learning to walk” is WELL within normal common-courtesy levels. Neighbors can fuck off.
Two things.
1. Buy those mats that look like jigaw pieces. We have our living room floor covered in them and not only does it protect our little one but also they absorb sound.
2. Why do so many of these grumpy complainers exist and insist living in buildings where families will clearly live? If it fucking bothers you that much then buy/rent a house, or if you don’t have the money then just live in a forest where kids wont bother you.
oh man, our neighbors complain over me just being on conference calls (we are in a single family home) to the point that when I tell them to get lost, they call my wife’s mother or aunt (we live in the grandparents old house) at which point I then need to tell them to go pound sand.
Recently we had neighbors ask my wife, to ask me to stop talking loudly with our 18 month old baby in the mornings. I told them if they stop blasting NHK at 6am in the morning with their windows open we can have a conversation, but short of that, to pound sand.
If it’s at night, I’d say put a mat down or something.
If it’s during day, they can pound sand or move somewhere else.
If they don’t stop complaining, start complaining to your rental company about them harrassing you.
Just don’t engage with them. Nod head while walking backwards
Thanks for the suggestion. Parts of the floor are thickly matted, but not all. Still complained. Children don’t like being locked in a room, they don’t like to walk on very soft cushions, they like to walk around. When walking, she would often lose her balance and sit on the ground. Maybe it was the sound that came downstairs. If there is no other way, I can only move. It might be better to live in one house. Somewhat curious, is it common for families with young children to be complained by downstairs neighbors, or is it an isolated case?
…. I live in a stand alone house, ’cause screw neighbors.
Tell em to fuck off
“Usero” is the vocab you are looking for.
People are gonna hate me for this but whatever.
I used to love Japan as a tourist destination. But after moving here and having to deal with all this noise pollution, I don’t think I can say the same anymore.
Sometimes, it’s unavoidable to make noises, especially when it comes to children. But try thinking as if you were in their shoes, how would you feel? After a long stressful day at work in this weather, just wanting to get some rest but you can’t because your neighbors keep stomping, or shouting, or crying. And not only once or twice but every single night.
As for OP, consider moving to a detached house maybe?
Japanese natives are noisy as hell when they have kids. Little shits run and jump like mad. It was quite unbearable at our last place, as the soundproofing was dreadful. People need to be tolerant and I think that goes both ways. We are all living in a shared space.
My old neighbor used to complain about music I was playing that was actually coming from the teenage girl whose window faced mine the next building over.
Construction noises? Me
Nighttime bangs when I was at work? Me
Letters missing out of her mailbox? Me
Just couldn’t win and ended up moving.
I’d assume most Japanese natives don’t live near crazy people.
It’s worked for me so far too!
My neighbors complain about me breathing too loudly. Now I’m down to breathing through only one nostril every ten minutes.
Fuck them
Babies make noise. Doesn’t matter if they are Japanese, American, from outer space.
I have had neighbors with babies for years. Just a part of life. Hear the kid crying at 1am? Oh well, go back to sleep.
Who the fuck is complaining about literal babies being babies
Is baby learning to walk in those absurdly loud squeaking baby shoes? If so, I can understand their plight
Your neighbors are idiots, racists or both.
Hard subject.
On one hand I understand a small baby needs to learn how to walk and that’s noisy, on the other hand I understand the tired salaryman who wants to relax and feels like Thanos is walking on his ceiling.
What you can do is bring a small “omiyage like” gift to this neighbor and explain him or them that it’s hard to keep the baby quiet but you gonna try your best.
Tell them they are being unpatriotic.
It’s the reason people no longer want to have babies, because this country hates babies to the bones.
My wife “befriended” the Obasan below us, baked her cake and PRE-apologize for any upcoming noises. The “pre-apologize” is SUPER important in Japanese culture. It shows that you’re considerate enough, which is enough in most cases. If you’ve been here long enough, you’ll would’ve gotten apologetic letters about streets being fixed and the noises being generated and what not.
The Obasan still say things like “your kids are pretty lively heh !?”, which means “you kids is noisy!”, but we just introduced them to her, and she never caused more troubles than just light comments here and there. We just made sure no noises in the evening.
They’ll get old enough to be annoying but doesn’t seem like theyrr old enough to have bad hearing
Japanese kids are so quiet that when my wife’s sister’s kids come over, I go to a pachinko center to rest my ears.
I had those rubber mats on my flooring when I had small kids. They were softer than a hard wooden floor which was good for toddlers learning to walk. Of course they also add a layer of sound insulation.
It is whether how nice you want to be, most mansion will only just advise to reduce noise according to timings as well as limitation to instruments. It all depends on the mansion rules if it is rental, there exists mansions that literally do not allow kids.
You can do like what other suggest to buy mats, 100 yen shop square mats or nitori isn’t that expensive.
If they complain to you directly and you do not wish to comply then look for the building management so they can be the mediator, in certain cases they may even pay for the mats.