By Graeme Esson BBC News Online Scotland

People can be driven to distraction by neighbours' noise

The advice has been offered to people in flats who are thinking of following the trend of ripping up carpets in favour of varnished floorboards or putting down laminate flooring.

However, the recommendation is not coming from lifestyle gurus, but from officials who deal with noise complaints.

The number of cases referred to environmental health officers across the country has soared along with the popularity of the carpet-free look.

Alistair Somerville, from the Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland, said: "People have to be prepared to change their lifestyle with their flooring.

Young children

"They should leave their outdoor shoes at the doorstep and change into slippers.

"The furniture should have pads on the underside and there should be liberal use of rugs.

"They should take the whole lifestyle and be prepared to moderate their activities - or recognise what their lifestyle is like before they decide to put it down."

For example, people with young children should think about the impact they will have on neighbours who will be able to hear a lot more than they could when their floors were covered.

The sounds of everyday living can be heard by neighbours

Those on the receiving end are people like Kathy, who lives in a flat in Glasgow.

"I can tell when the adverts are on and which television channel my neighbour is watching," she said.

"It is irritating more than anything else. I can hear every time he gets up in the middle of the night.

"But I am sure he can hear me as well. I would rather have laminate flooring than carpets myself, so I put up with the noise."

Alastair Brown, pollution control manager at Glasgow City Council's environmental protection department, said a lot of people were ignorant about the problems they caused when they put in wooden flooring or stripped their floor.

"In the last couple of years, with the move towards the fashion of wooden floors, there has been an increase in complaints from people who are suddenly aware of their neighbours upstairs," he said.

Quite often the people upstairs are surprised or horrified when they find out what their neighbours are hearing Alastair Brown Glasgow City Council

"A lot of these people are not doing anything unreasonable, they are not being anti-social or going out of their way to be noisy or annoying.

"They are going about their everyday living and unfortunately causing annoyance and distress to the people below."

The sounds which can travel are not restricted to things like footsteps, televisions and music.

"It can be quite personal things, like someone going to the toilet.

"Quite often the people upstairs are surprised or horrified when they find out what their neighbours are hearing."

Mr Brown said the first step should be for people to talk to their upstairs neighbour about the problem.

Legal powers

If that course of action is unsuccessful, the neighbour could contact their local council's environmental health department.

"We could come out and give advice, but there are few legal powers that an environmental health officer can use which would resolve a wooden floor issue," he warned.

"There are other services, such as mediation, which people could use when they are in dispute."

In all circumstances there should be a resilient layer put under the laminate flooring Alistair Somerville Royal Environmental Health Institute of Scotland

He said the problem was much more prevalent in Scotland than in the rest of the UK.

"I don't know why that should be. It is maybe because we are more likely to stay in flatted properties, and it may be the type of properties as well.

"The older tenements in their day were very good in terms of insulation, but a lot have been refurbished and during the work the deadening properties have been taken out."

He said suppliers could do more to raise awareness when they are selling flooring.

"You have to buy insulation with it, but there are different types of insulation.

"You can buy thick insulation which would cause less problem, but a lot of people don't realise that and just buy the cheap one - and that causes problems."

They are making peoples' lives below them an absolute misery Peter Wakeham Noise Abatement Society

Mr Somerville said laminate flooring should not be installed in properties where there were deficiencies with sound insulation.

"In all circumstances there should be a resilient layer put under the laminate flooring," he said.

Noise Abatement Society director Peter Wakeham said that people installing such floors often did not give a second thought to sound insulation.

"They are making peoples' lives below them an absolute misery," he said.

Richard Woollerton, director of the Contract Flooring Association, admitted that there was a problem with noise when people replaced carpets with wooden floors.