Rubbish neighbours on both sides

Hippo

Oh my god that is awful. I can't imagine having a neighbour like that! How the hell do the poor people live next to someone like you?

onlyroz

I have some sympathy over the smoking issue, but as for the throat-clearer, I cannot believe that you actually approached him about it. This seriously is your problem and not his. You either need to move away to somewhere quieter or invest in some soundproofing for your apartment.

Cyberman60

JIL wrote: »

I would love it to happen here. I have never smoked and unfortunately got throat cancer 4 years ago. The treatment I went through was awful.
Two years ago my next door neighbour moved out of the house attached to us, a semi. He rented the house out to six adults but he stipulated they weren't allowed to smoke in the house.
So they erected a canopy above the patio door. All six of them roll their own cigarettes and are out there all hours of the day. Because of the canopy the smoke doesn't go straight into the air it wafts into our garden and into our house if the windows are open. Our house stinks of fags.
I would swap this for your throat clearing neighbour. There's so much worse out there.

Hi JIL, you appear to be blaming your throat cancer on secondary smoke but unfortunately there are many different ways to get it. Two that I know of are drinking alcohol and viruses. I don't like smoke either but don't think we should vilify smokers on every occasion. I trust anyway you are making a good recovery.

IronWolf

You could just buy him a packet of lockets everyday, might help the coughing

I think you should go round and apologise if the situation has got tense, its unreasonable to ask someone to stop coughing, it is a natural bodily function that he obviously needs to do for whatever reason and there is no real way to cough 'quietly' unless he carries a cushion around with him and coughs into it when he needs to.

Errata

Can the landlord be ordered to not rent out to DSS tenants? By the way, is it legal for the landlord to be registered at the address of these flats? His title deeds list him as living there.

let me help you out:

Nobody can 'order' a LL not to let their property to someone on benefits.

Title deeds don't specify who lives at a property.

Cyberman60

I sympathise with the OP and must admit that worries over noise levels etc is what holds me back from downsizing from a detached house. Maybe it is unreasonable to blame a neighbour for coughing too loudly but I'm sure it can be really annoying if he is doing it all day rather than just on getting up in the morning. The smoke is also annoying and I've had similar in winter when my neighbours burn a log fire and I just get smoke when trying to sleep rather than the fresh air I want via my open window. I close my window against my will out of tolerance but it does annoy me that my amenity is spoiled and I will wake up with a headache due to too much CO2.

There's not a lot we can do but grin and bear it, or move.

JIL

Cyberman60 wrote: »

Hi JIL, you appear to be blaming your throat cancer on secondary smoke but unfortunately there are many different ways to get it. Two that I know of are drinking alcohol and viruses. I don't like smoke either but don't think we should vilify smokers on every occasion. I trust anyway you are making a good recovery.

No please do not think I am blaming my throat cancer on secondary smoke, i am not. I believe mine was caused by the hpv virus.

I was just advised by each and every consultant that I have seen to keep away from secondary smoke as i have had cancer once and radiotherapy and could be more susceptible to it. I suppose once it cured once (it will be as such at the 5 year mark) the most important thing is keeping it away.

If people knew the complexity of cancer treatment and how harrowing it is, maybe they would not choose to smoke? But then my own mother saw exactly what I went through and she still has her thirty a day.

Like you say in your later post there is not much I can do apart from grin and bear it. Or move, but how do I know the new neighbours wont be as bad or do something else I find i dont like?

Newlyboughthouse

Wow - thanks for your help guys - I have learnt that I am a truly evil, bigoted, nasty, horrible person haha

Just...wow

The throat clearing/cough IS all day/night. Good ear plugs do not block it out. Rather than tell me how disgusting a human being I am for finding this irritating, some of you actually gave me advice, stipulating there's nothing I can do. Fine.

And the weed (cannabis) smoke comes through our windows yes, so I'm afraid that is a problem. Thanks to those who offered actual advice rather than call me names

Newlyboughthouse

TBagpuss wrote: »

OK, I get that it is annoying, but in erms of your neighbour with a cough, that is just your, and his, bad luck. He is not behaving in a way which is antisocial or inconsiderate.

It sounds as though your home has poor sound insulation and you can look at ways to improve that - minor things such as moving which wall your bed is against, having (full) bookshelves or wardrobes on the party wall, and having carpet rather than hard flooring may all help (depending on how the sound is travelling)

I believe that you can get sound insulating board which could be fixed to the walls.

You may find that wearing earplugs, or using a white noise generator helps.

There are several free white noise apps which you can download and try if you have a smart phone, so you can give it a try without having to spend anything in the first instance.


In terms of the noisy neighbours, if they are making excessive noise into the small hours then it is worth contacting your local environmental protection team - however, whether they can help will depend on how noisy the neighbours are and whether, objectively, the noise is enough to be considered a nuisance.

Thank you - never thought of a white noise generator before. Think it may be my only option. I do deeply regret buying a terraced. Will deffo be moving onto detached once mortgage paid!

bouicca21

Isn't the obvious thing about the throat clearing to send him back to the doctor? Untreated asthma, or a minor upper respiratory infection can cause this. I'd encourage him to keep going back until it gets sorted.