The Joys of Laminate

I've mentioned my evil upstairs neighbour before, he's been a joy* to live beneath for the last year and a half...

(*utter nightmare)

After he'd been living there about a month I had a particularly bad night: it was 11.30 at night and he was sawing and banging and generally being annoying, then he came down to proudly tell me about his new laminate floor. My heart sank... He'd blatantly not put down any kind of underlay and the noise just got worse after that. He might as well have been living in my flat the amount I could hear.

Well it's now a year later and he goes through phases of loudness and quietness (the quietness usually being those times he's in rehab). But this last week or two has been particularly bad. It began with a girl banging on my window to be let in the block (one of my personal favourite annoyances) and there followed continual late night bangings and shoutings plus extremely loud Coldplay at 3:30 am - I was at boiling point (at least choose better music!)

I was on my way for a weekend in Aberdeen to see the boy L and I ran into my neighbour selling the Big Issue at the train station. I was about to have it out with him when he told me that he'd moved out 6 weeks ago to a Multiple Needs Unit, which is great news because he'll finally get the care and support he needs without bothering me any more! But then who is in the flat? It turns out that he gave the keys to someone else and she's been living there illegally. Lucky for me though that the council are coming to change the locks this week.

And here was my chance! I phoned the Leasehold Team to ask about laminate floors and whether there were any rules about it - it appears you need permission to lay them (great news I thought! He obviously didn't have it), and the builders may or may not take it up between tenants, and that it depends on them. She then passed me on to the contractors to see if they were likely to take it up when they made the flat ready for the next tenant. On finally getting through to the contractors I was told rather unhelpfully that what the builders are going to do to the upstairs flat is classified information (this is Birmingham City Council not the CIA!!) , that they were unlikely to take it up unless it was a repair (despite not having permission to lay it in the first place), that I couldn't even put in a request for the floor to be taken up, despite it making my life a misery, and there was nobody I could talk to as it was plainly none of my business. Leaseholders' rights my arse!

So, I'm at an impasse. My best bet is to either pounce on the new tenant and hope for sympathy, or write a letter to the council. I suspect neither will work brilliantly but I'll give it a go. Until then I'll make the most of a tenantless flat...