Loud washing machine and neighbor relations

The only apartment building I've lived in where my washer/dryer was in the apartment (not a shared one in the basement or whatever) was in the Netherlands.  That apartment block was AMAZING in terms of insulation and sound-proofing.  In addition, the layout of each apartment took into consideration the layout of the other apartments.  eg, we had a utility closet which was right next to our door, and that closet backed up on the neighbor's utility closet.  not his bedroom.  or his kitchen.  etc.

(not that we would have heard anything, anyway, with the aforementioned sound-proofing.)

Unfortunately this isn't the case for you, and I have to agree with your neighbors.  I can't imagine trying to sleep with someone's dryer banging away over my head.  As many people have said already, it's very likely that there is a rule about not making noise after a certain time. 

I totally sympathize but I have to agree you have to make do. Doing laundry when I lived in the UK was the bane of my existance. If it wasn't a lack of a dryer, it was rain, or a crap machine or no place to hang stuff outside, etc. I personally loathe having the washer in the kitchen, too. Because, as is suggested, you have to run it usually when you're in there cooking. Which is not conduscive to conversation or quiet thinking while cooking.

I love the new homes with the laundry facilities near the bedrooms where they belong!

The tenants below us are university students, no kids. They lease our flat and we own ours. The only reason I know these things (and the only reason they've complained) is because I went over for tea so we could commiserate about the damage to both of our flats from a recent water tank bursting (which the building's insurance is going to repair... eventually. It's taking a while).

There's nothing in our "lease" about noise (I'm not sure you can call it a lease, since we own a share of the freehold, but it's basically the agreement for the building), which is odd, now that I think about it! It does have provisions about carpeting and pets. We live in an old mansion that's been divided into flats, and what's interesting is that if you look at the original divisions, the flat below ours has an almost identical layout--bedroom in the same place, kitchen in the same place--which would have completely avoided this problem. When I visited for tea I asked why her kitchen was in the hallway, and she said her landlord moved it so they could use the kitchen for a bedroom, since it was bigger.

I guess my main beef is that my husband and I are late-night people. The neighbor isn't particularly happy that my husband does the dishes at one in the morning, either (handwashes; we don't use the dishwasher), and she's even asked us if we could not sit at our kitchen table after ten because the sliding of the chairs makes noise. I told her we'd look into getting a rug.

I don't plan on complaining about the smoking, either. I've been a smoker off and on, and while I've never smoked in my home, I'd be pretty annoyed if a neighbor asked me to stop smoking on the balcony because it blew into their flat. It's a lifestyle thing, people have the right to smoke, and I guess I'm just more live-and-let-live when it comes to neighbor relations. (Speaking of, one of the downstairs neighbors posts a new note every week about something someone else in the building is doing, whether it's not closing the door quietly enough, not putting the junk mail in the proper boxes--he even wrote a poem set to "T'was the Night Before Christmas" to remind people not to "stomp" on their way up the stairs. I just find this sort of neighbor micromanagement annoying.)

Back to practical matters: if we only do the wash cycle, yes, we can then hang the wash on the radiators and do a new load in the morning. I'm not used to having to be this organized about laundry--I miss the days of throwing a load in a dryer and having them come out all fluffy and warm 45 minutes later. But the weekend thing definitely isn't working. Because we're late-night people, we also get up late, so we can at most get 2 full cycles in before having to shut it off. And despite having a drying rack, we just don't have space to hang dry that many clothes. Luckily today I'm jetlagged and up before seven (!) so I guess I can get on that pile of laundry.

I definitely find doing laundry here annoying and also as someone extremely busy, usually running in at 6pm and leaving again at 6:45pm (if that!), getting home at 10 pm, I too have little time for laundry and I can completely sympathise with you on this one.  However, this new flat has a lovely washing machine with a timing function! Yay!
Does your washing machine have a timing delay function? I load it up in the morning/night before, and then set the timer- I have it set to run 2 hours before I leave work- when I come home, its ready to either be dried (I don't usually use the drying function as I find it completely inefficient) or to be hung up, which takes me a few minutes. I pop out the door and then when I get back at 10pm, I reload the machine for the next day's timing function, and the other stuff is dry in the morning.  
So if you don't have a timing function on your machine, when you can afford to upgrade, I highly recommend it  

I have a family of 4 which includes a newborn who goes through a million blankets and bibs a day, 3-5 outfits and I use cloth nappies that have to be washed every other day (at a minimum)...and we don't have a dryer, living in a place that rains almost every day and is usually too cold to dry clothes outside when it's not raining and don't have enough room to dry the clothes inside.  I can feel your pain when it comes to the inconveniences of doing laundry.  I've had to become much more organized and diligent about laundry to make sure I stay on top of it without disturbing my neighbors (I've never received any complaints but we don't do laundry at night out of consideration).

I do agree that 10pm is a reasonable request.  It doesn't matter if the neighbors are college kids or not, it also doesn't matter who rents and who owns...everyone deserves to get a decent night sleep.

I think the suggestions previously mentioned are good ideas.  Put the clothes in the night before and all you have to do is push the button, then you will have clean and dry clothes when you get home everyday.  I don't know how many people live with you or how many clothes you were but I would think one load of laundry everyday should be plenty to keep up with it.

Sounds like this might be bugging you more than normal due to all the other "micromanaging" going on.

I do agree that 10pm is a reasonable request.  It doesn't matter if the neighbors are college kids or not, it also doesn't matter who rents and who owns...everyone deserves to get a decent night sleep.

Sounds like this might be bugging you more than normal due to all the other "micromanaging" going on.

Oh, no no, I didn't mean to imply that we had more of a right to do laundry because they rent or because they're uni students... just answering some of the pps' questions.

And yeah, I think that is a lot of the problem (that and laundry becoming a much bigger part of my life than it ever used to be... sigh). A few of the residents here nitpick about a lot of things that I feel are just part of living in a flat instead of a house. This doesn't particularly include the washing machine, more that I'm starting to roll my eyes instead of thinking, "Yeah, we should all be more careful about tiptoeing up the stairs," when I hear yet another new complaint.

if you look at the original divisions, the flat below ours has an almost identical layout--bedroom in the same place, kitchen in the same place--which would have completely avoided this problem. When I visited for tea I asked why her kitchen was in the hallway, and she said her landlord moved it so they could use the kitchen for a bedroom, since it was bigger.

  so her stupid landlord effectively rendered your kitchen useless for the sake of earning a few more quid a month.  I'm starting to sound like my German husband, but they really could use some more regulations when it comes to accommodation in this country.  They seem to especially dislike people who live in flats, even if they own them.

I have no suggestions, just commiserations.  Her request is a valid one- I wouldn't do laundry past 10pm if I knew the machine was just over someone's bedroom.  It sucks for you, though.

but they really could use some more regulations when it comes to accommodation in this country.

So true....but especially with these refurb jobs....old homes were just not designed for compartmentalizing....

I find it weird the way that flats in buildings in the UK are all arranged with the rooms in different positions.  In the  flat I lived in, my flat took up the whole floor, but the floor below me was divided into two teeny weeny  flats.

Our bathroom was above the kitchen of one of the flats below, and everytime they cooked we got the food smell in our bathroom.  I once asked DH if I had bowel trouble if the smell would fill up their kitchen  (ewww!), and he said no because the smells go up, not down.

Unlike the apartments I lived in when I was in the US, where all the apartments in a row were exactly the same. So my kitchen was above and below other tenant's kitchens, bedrooms above and below other tenant's bedrooms, etc.

I find it weird the way that flats in buildings in the UK are all arranged with the rooms in different positions.  In the  flat I lived in, my flat took up the whole floor, but the floor below me was divided into two teeny weeny  flats.

Our bathroom was above the kitchen of one of the flats below, and everytime they cooked we got the food smell in our bathroom.  I once asked DH if I had bowel trouble if the smell would fill up their kitchen  (ewww!), and he said no because the smells go up, not down.

Unlike the apartments I lived in when I was in the US, where all the apartments in a row were exactly the same. So my kitchen was above and below other tenant's kitchens, bedrooms above and below other tenant's bedrooms, etc.

My apartment back in Florida was built on the same floor plan as the apartment below it...but we must have shared ventilation or something because I got the weird smell thing in my bathroom all the time too :-( except it would come in the bathroom and then invade the entire apartment, ugh.

It's just one of those things, the first couple of years I lived above an Indian family and the food they cooked always smelled *SO STRONG* and it invaded my apartment starting in the bathroom. I thought I was safe when they moved out, but then another family (don't know where they were from exactly, Korean maybe?) moved in and they also cooked really smelly food. Well, smelly in the sense that I would come home and be like "OMG why does my apartment smell like an Asian restaurant??!?!" but then it would make me hungry for Asian food. :-(

It was just annoying in general, but I couldn't very well do anything about it (apart from move)!

I didn't mind the food smells. I just thought it was strange that their kitchen wasn't underneath my kitchen.

I didn't mind the food smells. I just thought it was strange that their kitchen wasn't underneath my kitchen.

I wish it hadn't bothered me :-/ It wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it wasn't pleasant.

If your machine doesn't have a timer delay and you're not looking to replace it anytime soon you can buy a plug-in timer (like one you'd use for lights when out of town etc.) and plug it into that so you come home to freshly washed or dried clothes.  Also possibly put a rug under the machine to dampen the vibrations?

she's even asked us if we could not sit at our kitchen table after ten because the sliding of the chairs makes noise

I'm sorry but that's just ridiculous!   

I really should look into getting a rug.

BUT. I just found out today that they're moving--due to the extensive damage to their flat from the burst water tank (mentioned above), they've decided it would just be easier to move out than have to deal with all the repairs while they're still living there. They were hit the hardest by the leaking. Basically the water tank burst in the flat above mine, flowed down through my walls and pooled over their ceiling, causing it to cave in while they were away on holiday. They apparently didn't have contents insurance, either, so they're out a lot of stuff. 

But man, these old buildings. I love how Brighton was untouched by the war and we have all of these beautiful old buildings, but jeez, every month something else falls apart.