Having a fun situation here and would love to consult the CP braintrust.
Moved in to a place Aug 1. Landlord lives in the basement (Completely seperate entrance, etc) and is working on a second basement unit.
During the walkthrough the landlord emphasized how quiet the unit was and how he didn't really hear anything in the basement. The unit has hardwood floors throughout but he said he had done a lot of work on sound proofing the basement.
Now he is sending me messages saying that I walk too loudly and to avoid wearing shoes in the place (which I don't), and to advise guests that there is a unit in the basement and to be mindful of that while walking. He also said he had to make the previous tenants aware of it as well so apparently his soundproofing isn't amazing as he said in the walkthrough.
He asked me to get rugs, so we have a couple, but he came in to do some work and said we needed more and of a different type to further reduce the sound and that he'd be following up in a couple weeks.
I'm pretty tempted to tell him to go pound sand but I'm a reasonable person and I've lived with basement tenants before without issue (and in a basement myself during Uni) so I tried to reason with him after the first time he mentioned it but here we go again.
I don't
really want to go spend hundreds of dollars on rugs to cover every inch in in every room, plus that's going to look ridiculous. Why have hardwood floors if you have to have every inch of your house covered in rugs? If he was so concerned about the noise maybe he should have installed carpet!
I've also had to listen to construction noises the past month as he finishes up the second rental unit in the basement so it's pretty rich to complain about walking when I'm listening to drilling and hammering all day.
Obviously I have a right to walk in my rental unit and I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that says that's unreasonable noise but how would you go about resolving this issue?
Edit: update is @ the bottom of pg 3 and it is juicy.