Downstairs Neighbour

The place we live in now technically has a partially above ground basement suite downstairs. When we looked at the place the landlord told us that he kept it empty and planned to use it for him and his son to come and and stay in the country during the summer. Well, that never happened, and about a month in to living there he told us he was looking for someone to rent the suite.

Fast forward 1.5 months and it seems he has found someone. They are a young couple with a 15month old. I don't know what would possess them to agree to live below a family with 5 kids all 8 or under. But they are strongly thinking about it apparently.

I don't want to live above someone. I really really don't. I don't want the anxiety of my kids running around upstairs, or playing outside. I want to be able to have conversations with craftymama and glassman without wondering or knowing (depending on location) that the people below us can hear every single word clearly. I don't want to have to worry all the freaking time, and I will. It will make me an angry person.

Here's the dilemma - it's September 27th. Craftymama and Glassman want to have a place lined up before we give notice, so obviously we will not giving notice in 3 days, so we will not be moving for November 1st. Craftymama will not move for December or January 1st, which means not moving until February 1st at the earliest. That's 4 months of potentially living above someone. 4 months of constantly worried about how loud we are being for our downstairs neighbours.

Now, Craftymama and Glassman argue that because they have agreed to live below a family with 5 kids, that they know what they are getting into in terms of noise. While I agree with that, to some extent, you still have to be considerate of your neighbours when you have them so close. Which means if they need you to be quiet because their baby is sleeping, then you need to try to be quiet. If they can hear every running step the kids take at early hours of the morning, then we have to remind the kids to use gentle feet constantly. I don't want that. I don't want the stress of trying to get the kids to essentially stop being kids because we have people right below us.

Yet, this is where we find ourselves now. Who knows, maybe they won't take the place. That's what I'm hoping for at this point.