Steve wrote:
All has been pretty good until recently when I have started renovating a
room directly above a bedroom of the guy who lives below me. He tends to get
up early 6-7am whereas I typically don't. As such we've clashed recently
with him complaining about me banging around at about 10pm. I try and get
the noisy jobs done before 10pm or leave it to the weekend if its going to
be really noisy (such as major drilling or hammering).

Personally I think 10pm is way too late for noisy DIY, especially if
it's going on over a long period; I'm not surprised the guy's
complained. I'd have thought 7-8pm was a more realistic cutoff time.

One strategy I've usually adopted, to minimise whinging neighbours,
wherever I've been living/working and been doing diy work over a long
period, is to decide on a suitable end time to noisy work and then stick
to it. That way, if you're knocking seven bells out of a wall at
7.15pm, the neighbours will be hopefully be thinking, 'ah well at least
it will be stopping in 15 minutes', as opposed to 'Oh God, how much
longer will the bugger be going on for tonight?'

Your guy doesn't sound unreasonable to me if he doesn't complain until
10pm - why don't you have a chat and come to a mutually agreed time at
which you promise to down tools? And when you're finished, bung him a
few bottles of wine in the interests of good neighbour relations (and so
he doesn't throw a hissy fit when your next project starts!)

David