How much do you hear from your neighbours?

delain

We used to live in a postwar (I think) prefab concrete bungalow... Was long rectangle rather than square, and my bedroom adjoined next doors lounge.

Next door was inhabited by a lonely divorced man who would drown his sorrows in the pub, drive :eek: home and listen to REM. By the time he moved out when I was 7 ish, I was more or less word perfect on 'shiny happy people'

Can't say it bothered me, to this day it brings back happy memories when REM songs come on the radio.

Dread to think what my neighbours hear, 70s badly constructed terrace.

poppy_f1

im end terrace build late 70s and hear nothing - our houses are the opposite of each other so its my kitchen that would back on to her livingroom - bedrooms are seperated by the upper landing so pretty good
it was one of the reasons i bought the house

Gorgeestwo

We don't really hear much, we're in a semi detached built in 1912, the stairs/hallways are next to each other, their kitchen is next to the room the kids use as a playroom and I'll sometimes hear their washing machine or microwave, but that's about it and only if there is total silence in our house, they probably hear more from us, we've got a 5 and 6 yr old I do worry that they're too noisy sometimes, but our neighbours are great and say they don't hear them very often (they're either lying or they really don't ) the walls are pretty thick I think
We lived in a detached before this house which I loved and although this house is lovely, if we ever move again I will only be moving to a detached as I have become a bit of a worrier about noise (that we make)

balletshoes

Noctu wrote: »

Just wondering how much you hear from your neighbours - especially if you are 'attached' to them (e.g. terrace/semi detached/flat).

Can you hear talking? Shouting? Walking around? Running around? Music? Arguments? etc. Thin walls/thick walls?

I'm in a terrace, but we are in 1950s brick built houses, sturdy with thick walls. I can't hear my neighbours on one side at all downstairs, as there is an alleyway and my hall between our 2 living areas. My neighbour who's living room is right next to mine, I never hear their TV, do sometimes hear their music if its on very loud while they are hoovering, or if they're having an after-hours party (not very often). I can hear the same music upstairs in bed late on, because they don't have a hall so the music travels up as well as through the house.
I can only hear voices if there is shouting going on (so they could hear me if I'm shouting too I'm sure). I don't hear running around at all. This is on both sides of the house upstairs, as bedrooms are on both sides of our bedrooms etc.

I used to live in a townhouse terrace, probably built in the 80s or 90s. It was much noisier, because none of the houses had hallways so any noise downstairs in the living rooms carried upstairs into the bedrooms. I could hear my next-door-neighbours having a conversation in their living room, from my bedroom!

dizziblonde

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

No-one's mentioned the delights of primary school children learning to play the recorder!!!

We moved before we could take our revenge.

We used to live next to a couple (1970s semi this one) where their 7 year old was learning the trombone!

mumcoll

We lived in a mid 60's semi and could hear everything through the walls - including him opening and closing his curtains (brass curtain rails). He lived on his own but the girlfriend would visit and we could hear them rowing then making up :eek:. Also could hear him weeing, washing up and thundering up the stairs, even though they were on the opposite side of the house.

I knew I couldn't live there and couldn't complain about him being noisy as it was just 'living' noise. We moved after less than a year and have lived in a detached house since. We could barely afford the extra mortgage (16% interest rates then) but would have eaten bread and jam in order to have the silence!

Savvy_Sue

dizziblonde wrote: »

We used to live next to a couple (1970s semi this one) where their 7 year old was learning the trombone!

We had a brief spell with two of them learning the violin. I think I suffered more than the neighbours, as I had to be in the same room as them ...

RubyRue

We live in a ground floor flat, the bloke that lives above us is a complete pain in the a*se! Generally can hear is decade old washing machine that sounds like it is about to blow up, we can hear him peeing and generally thumping and banging around. He's had his bathroom redone and now whenever he has a shower (I think) the noise is very loud. This morning he sounded like he was going to cough up his lung. He works shifts so unfortunately every two weeks we get woken up very early, makes for a very grouchy RubyRue!

One of the other flats on the ground floor houses the spawn of satan who screams.... alot!

Hopefully will be moving soon.

dizziblonde

Used to live in ground floor flats with paper thin walls (it was basically the former corner shop that someone had bought, quartered and fitted out into 1-2 bed flats... one neighbour's music I could hear word for word in my bedroom - which didn't bother me too much as he had essentially the same CD collection I did, and the other guy used to love rocking out in his lounge to his music, hairbrush in hand singing along - was always tempted to start shouting out scores and comments like on X Factor or similar.

Current neighbour we don't hear much from - apart from his late night barbecues in the garden that get fairly rowdy all summer (which we don't mind that much cos you get the hilarity of them all with hangovers the following day) - his record was still at it at 5am, topless wearing a Union Jack top hat in honour of the royal wedding giving it some sausage action! We get on OK with them which goes a long way to making run smoothly though. The BBQs sound horrendous but in reality they're more of a street party thing since pretty much the entire road's invited and you get days after of furniture being returned to various owners and the like.

Ours (apart from the pyromaniac builders out the back and that's not our proper street - they're the strange folk with diamond shaped windows... we have octagons in the proper world) is quite a friendly cooperative street in that regards.

missmontana

I live in an old 2 up 2 down, all the house are a slightly different lay out inside, so I can hear more from one neighbour than the other.

One side is mum and little girl, so mostly stomping up and down stairs and shouting!

The other side is a different matter, mum, little boy and sometimes the bf. Their bathroom is next to my bedroom so I know when they get up in a morning, one night she came in drunk, there was laughter to start with, then tears, then someone being very ill! Following weekend her bf was staying and could hear what they were, ahem, having for breakfast she certainly sounded satisfied!