I always figured that you closed them if you were going away for some time, for security and to keep the windows clean. Maybe close them in a storm or bad weather for protection, but not for daily use.

Simply closing curtains certainly would take care of any noise caused by blinds. In all the places I've lived, I've used curtains for daily use and have closed the blinds when going on holiday.

I personally can't stand the noise of blinds closing. My own or the neighbours. It's like a scratching noise on a blackboard.... annoying!

That is not allowed:

Noisy household chores during the night's rest, on Sundays or public holidays.
Play drums no matter what time of day.
Playing very loud wind instruments, such as the trumpet, farting, unless the room or the instruments are equipped with professional soundproofing or soundproofing.
Constantly listening to loud music LIVING Battle zone Balcony; more than room volume at rest times.
Permanent handicraft work on Sundays and public holidays or during rest periods.
Lawn mowing on Sundays and public holidays as well as during rest periods.
Bathing at night.
Loud partying into the night.
Arguments during the night's rest.
Wearing high-heeled shoes while sleeping.
Constant slamming of doors.

You forgot flushing the toilet after 10 pm.

Whilst wearing stilettos.

Or simply buy some slippers?
I have noticed that many people are used to walk bare foot here. Unfortunately doing that makes a lot of noise on parquet wood flooring.

You'd be surprised how kinky some folk are !!

In my opinion, one of the problems with this solution is that not every apartment is fitted with double curtains tracks or trails, I don't know how they're called exactly, in English.
For instance I have only one set of very light, almost transparent curtains because this is how our system has been built in and having blinds has postponed any "improvement" I may have wanted to make to our apartment, at some point. Basically, these ones which are purely decorative, wouldn't stop the light coming from outside and hanging the heavy types, made out of dense and opaque fabrics is out of the question as I don't really enjoy having no curtain at all during the day.
So it's either a double set of curtains and no blinders or one set of semi-transparent curtains during daylight and blinders during night.
I would say it's rather costly to have two sets of curtains and it takes more effort to keep them clean especially when one has a dust allergy..

Sun rises around 5h30-6h00 in the Summer. Not everyone wants to wake up at that time, so blinders are a really effective way to block sunlight and sleep until desired. So, open then for the day, close them for the night, daily.

There's also winter. Last night I closed blinders to minimize heating consumption around 17h00. We only kept the living room blinder open because it has a nice view to the local church covered with snow. But, when I went to sleep also closed it. Open them once again in the morning.

Actually, you should open them in a storm. They are normally covered for hail damage but not for damage due to the wind.

As they are shiny, they reflect the sun so keeping them down on hot days in the summer keeps the house cool.

Unless the OP is opening/closing external blinds in the middle of the night I don't see how this could possibly bother anybody.

Being afraid to walk in your apartment because of your neighbour is no way to live.

I've lived in a number of apartments and sometimes I heard noise from the next floor up, sometimes music, drilling or moving furniture, but never people walking (strangely, dogs walking is something easier to hear) and this includes really old, poorly built apartments.

If I were the OP I would say I don't make any loud noise and ask for clarification, recordings, have the person come to me exactly after they hear the noise so I can understand the issue.

Otherwise it's a bs complaint or the OP isn't telling everything.

What’s a sound machine?

A machine that makes sounds

Like pink noise, white noise etc. I have a friend who's got one and can even make the sound of crickets.

I completely agree - if one lives in an apartment, of course they will hear their neighbors sometimes and it may even annoy them - but there is nothing they can do about it.

Unless it is excessive or in the middle of the night, live and let live. If someone cannot absolutely handle the sound of walking above them, they should move to a top floor apartment or to a single family home (if they can afford it). Nobody should have to walk on egg shells in their own home because of unrealistic expectations of an easily perturbed neighbor.

As a few have mentioned or hinted at, the shutters are great for thermal management:
Close them during the day on the hottest days of summer, to prevent the apartment heating up too much.
Close them overnight during the colder months, to avoid using excessive heating.

As for the sound, OP, unless you're sleepwalking or having raves overnight, there shouldn't be "excessive" noise between 10 & 7. Perhaps you're opening the shutters in the morning before 7, since you have to get ready &/or leave before then, but hopefully that wouldn't be too loud.

I'd stick with the letter to the landlord for now, but keep some of the other ideas in reserve (such as having a friend test things out while you're downstairs with the annoyed neighbour).

If all else fails, and you're pretty confident that you aren't making excess noise by wearing high-heels or hiking boots in your apartment, the other thing you could do is turn the tables on the neighbour.

Write a letter to your landlord with a long list of things that you believe your neighbour is doing:

• Vacuuming on a Sunday.
• TV on too loud late at night.
• Trombone practice during the lunchtime curfew.
• Running a bath at 3am.
• Singing along loudly to the radio at 4 in the morning.
• Practicing battle re-enactments in the middle of the night.

and so on...

OP hasn't been on since a few hours after starting the thread more than four days ago ...

I'm still around and appreciate all the feedback from everyone.

I'll update the thread when I get a response from the rental agency. Hopefully I can get this resolved soon.

Good that you have written a letter to the landlords as this creates a paper trail.

UPDATE for those curious: It’s been around a month since they first sent me the noise complaint letter.

In that time, I’ve sent them a registered letter explaining how I’ve spoken to all my neighbours on my floor level and they don’t hear any noise coming from my flat. I specifically wrote all the names of the neighbours and their contact details in my response letter (the neighbours all offered to personally vouch for me). I’ve asked the rental agency for further instructions and offered for them to pass my cellphone number to anyone who who hears “immense noise”.

In the same letter, I also very kindly pointed out some things that they offered to fix in the autumn and still haven’t (paper trail dating back to early September, and another reminder I sent in November and December which went ignored). Some of the things are quite serious - one of the heating batteries doesn’t work in a room, which makes it very cold in the winter time.

They got around to finally responding to me this week but they completely ignored anything to do with the noise complaint. They only responded with a few sentences by asking to resend them the documents about the issues they promised to fix (paperwork they already have).

At this point I’m quite frustrated with the rental agency.