Noisy and nasty neighbour - is this a good plan?

Horizon81

Firstly, man-up and don't go for a cowardly note. That won't gain you any respect with her. You have to confront her, no matter how awkward, in a friendly manner at first and explain your situation. I imagine that'll get you nowhere, but it shows you've got balls so take it up with environmental health. But... from experience, environmental health were a bit useless. There's a waiting list for noise recording equipment but that may take a while. They'll ask you to complete a noise diary and probably wont do much with it.
Does your council have a landlords initiative team? May be different for housing association but there must be a complaints procedure for problem tenants. Or a liaison officer. You need to try to go down that route to get her behaviour to improve. Have a word with your local community support officer/police - they do care about anti social behaviour and some forces have regular meetings with local communities, where you can discuss your concerns.

ruggedtoast

Probably cant read anyway...

Madsy11

I'm with Horizon81, I'd go around there and have a chat to her. Be brave, friendly, polite but firm. I know you said you feel intimidated by her and this will make it all the more difficult, but she needs to know she can't walk all over you. Dig deep and be brave. I wouldn't go into her house!

Don't ask her NOT to play the music, but to keep it down so that you can't hear it. I think that it's a good idea to at least try and approach her in person rather than hiding behind the HA/EH as sometimes people resent that approach and the 'authorities'. Of course, I think we'd all be fairly confident she sounds like a mean old sow, so it probably won't work, but at least you have tried and given her the opportunity.

Keep the noise diary and harrass HA/EH - she is the problem and you don't have to live with it. Would be a good idea to see if she is HA/private/owned etc so you could complain to her landlord perhaps? Think the suggestion for other local involvement is a good one too, there might be other people you can talk to. Might be worth trying to see if she disturbs anyone else?

Unreal 83 - I used to live 2 floors below a lady exactly like that, but she was like it both sleeping and awake! Used to scare the stuffing out of me at 3am, she used to shout some quite explicit things!!

BlastRedeye

Knock on the door and invite her in for a cuppa. I tend to be a positive chap with these things having been through it myself. Out of all of the different ways I tried this one worked.

Hope it works out for you. I know how it can control your life.

K,A+P_2

Just to update, I've just rang the housing association and put in a complaint. They're sending someone round for me to have a chat to, and so I can hand in my incident report book. So guess it's a case of waiting and seeing what happens!

red_devil

ask her if she would like it if the boot was on the other foot and you were the one keeping her awake.

chris_m

K,A+P wrote: »

Just to update, I've just rang the housing association and put in a complaint. They're sending someone round for me to have a chat to, and so I can hand in my incident report book. So guess it's a case of waiting and seeing what happens!

Best of luck. Hopefully they will take it seriously and can do something. We had a nightmare pair in the flat opposite me for a while. The worst that I personally experiences was a lot of noise late at night when they were coming and going and every now and then the lass would stick the stereo on so load that it vibrated the wall on the opposite side of my flat.

They reserved the worst treatment for the poor couple in the flat below, making sufficient noise to disturb them but, unfortunately, not me - so I couldn't add my voice to the complaints. They also were, apparently, worse when I was away so, again, I couldn't provide any evidence. Whenever the people below asked them to be more considerate, they got a torrent of abuse (from a 17 year-old lass, no less) which carried on every time they tried asking, until the girl below was terrified to even open the front door in case it was "her upstairs" again.

They were advised to keep a noise diary and the council EH people called round at different times to try and get first-hand experience of the noise - and the noisy pair got their marching orders pretty quickly.

Ulfar

I am not advocating reciprocal behaviour but if you were to go down that route noise does not have to be loud to be annoying, persistent noise at a low level can be much more annoying.

Try the OST soundtrack to Inception, place subwoofer on the party wall or floor, bass travels through structures like a rat down a sewer.

I like classical music which quite often has a heavy bass element but I have built an enclosure for my sub woofer and speakers to isolate vibrations from the structure of my house, not everyone else is so considerate.

red_devil

i think you should go and see her but take someone with you. Letters are cowardly and it will do your confidence a world of good if you were to go see her even if you are nervous.

You shouldnt be scared of her otherwise she wins and you will be at her mercy. Confront her but keep calm but firm.

starlight_xx

Letters can actually work quite well, especially if you dont want a confrontation. I couldnt get my neighbour to hear me at the door her music was so damn loud and I put a note through, she came down within the hour, totally apologetic and quite embarassed... never had a bit of bother again, obviously different circumstances to the OPs but its not necessarily ineffective or cowardly

OP - If you phone the police when the noise is actually ongoing they should come out, they may refer you to a noise team, I know the one in our area operates between certain hours and will issue on the spot fines to offenders but other than that, then its the police who deal with it, but it has to be when the noise is actually happening, not after the event