What evening noise is acceptable when neighbours are building?

swingaloo

Georgiegirl256 wrote: »

Is it still happening Swingaloo?

Unfortunately yes. Someone (another neighbour, not me) approached him when he came home from work this afternoon as he was banging around till almost quarter to eleven last night.

He told the lady in question that he will do as he f

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likes and said he will play his car CD player with the window open while he works tonight just to prove a point.

he takes self importance to a whole new level

Georgiegirl256

I can't believe anyone would think that was acceptable! He sounds like one of those neighbours of the Neighbours from Hell show.

.j.e.j

We used to live near students who had pretty much the same attitude. (I'll do whatever the **** I like and no-one's gonna stop me) They were right, - no-one could stop them. The Police were useless, as were the council. Thankfully we were able to leave the area, eventually. The only comfort I can offer the OP is that this guy will hopefully finish his building work in a few weeks and move on.

basil92

swingaloo wrote: »

he takes self importance to a whole new level

Unfortunately it is a very common trait....

It is very evident daily in most of these forums!

You have my sympathy OP..the fella sounds like an ignorant, selfish, self-centered !!!!! and clearly appealing to his (non-existent) social conscience won't help.

Mr_Toad

basil92 wrote: »

Unfortunately it is a very common trait....

It is very evident daily in most of these forums!

You have my sympathy OP..the fella sounds like an ignorant, selfish, self-centered !!!!! and clearly appealing to his (non-existent) social conscience won't help.

I agree, and from the OPs recent post he isn't doing himself any favours in neigbourly relations.

However, that coin has two sides and playing Devils advocate it could be argued that your comments also apply to those people who think the world should stop and go quiet at 9pm, or earlier are being selfish, self centered and entitled.

The law agrees with the OP, up to a point, the Noise Act (1996) covers the hours 11pm to 7am and this is probably why, as j.e.j. posted, councils and the police are as they put it, useless.

Google DIY noise and follow the links to various council websites, the ones I looked at offer advice and suggest time limits and use words like should rather than must. They advocate talking to the neighbour and if that fails that you should keep a diary, this I suspect to see if the noise continues after 11pm.

In the OPs last post she mentioned that he stopped at 10:45pm, this might indicate that he knows the law.

The OP feels entitled to sleep, the DIYer feels entitled to work on his house. I have sympathy for both.

I'm not taking sides in this, despite fact I like peace and quiet.

I've never lived in a city and am fortunate to live somewhere that is quiet 24 hours a day, all I can hear is birdsong, the occasional siren in the distance and the sound of small furry things being slaughtered in the night by larger furry things.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Look on it another way - if he works from 5pm until just before 11pm rather than starting at 5pm and stopping at 7pm, that's 20 additional hours a week that he's done; if the work would have taken him 100 hours, instead of it taking ten weeks to complete, he's going to finish in just three weeks and two days (if he does nothing over the weekends).

Annoying and disturbing though it may be, I know which timescale I'd prefer.

Rosemary7391

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Look on it another way - if he works from 5pm until just before 11pm rather than starting at 5pm and stopping at 7pm, that's 20 additional hours a week that he's done; if the work would have taken him 100 hours, instead of it taking ten weeks to complete, he's going to finish in just three weeks and two days (if he does nothing over the weekends).

Annoying and disturbing though it may be, I know which timescale I'd prefer.

Yes, but what happens when the next neighbour has a building project? I'm not sure if making two sets of rules, one for temporary things and one for regular arrangements is a good road to go down - it gives an extra thing to argue about!

Mr_Toad - you're very lucky. I live in a city, and apparently have good hearing it can be miserable at times with just normal noise I have no choice but to put up with, never mind people near me being inconsiderate over a lengthy period of time.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Rosemary7391 wrote: »

Yes, but what happens when the next neighbour has a building project? I'm not sure if making two sets of rules, one for temporary things and one for regular arrangements is a good road to go down - it gives an extra thing to argue about!

Mr_Toad - you're very lucky. I live in a city, and apparently have good hearing it can be miserable at times with just normal noise I have no choice but to put up with, never mind people near me being inconsiderate over a lengthy period of time.

I used to live in a completely non soundproofed block of flats with concrete floors. I would have swapped a few weeks of building work for the woman to the left vacuuming at 2am and putting a tumble drier on her balcony right next to my bedroom from 3-5am every night, the kid in the flat below being put out on her balcony to sing from 6am (because it disturbed Mum too much to let her sing indoors), the kid on the ground floor's violin practice, the couple on the right's domestic issues interspersed with her love of Christmas songs at full volume from September 1st from 8am - 3pm, the night bus driver below who would use his days off to down several bottles of scotch and listen to 60s music, the alcoholic couple on the ground floor who had no concept of time or the need to neuter their psychopathic tomcat or the other couple who had domestics involving their extended family on a monthly basis. Plus regular flyovers from private plane users using the block as a sighting mark for a nearby airfield (including a fatal crash one Sunday teatime) and somebody in a house next door using power saws all Saturday and Sunday as an ongoing hobby.

Needless to say, kids playing football outside in breach of the rules of the block, or somebody out at work during the day, then working on their car or doing a bit of building/DIY for a few weeks, hardly registered with me. There's also a good possibility that somebody making so many alterations is doing it to sell the house, so they could be permanently gone in a few months.

If the neighbours aren't generally noisy and it's the difference from usual that's causing the problem, then I think trying to adopt a philosophical attitude to it being over sooner this way, is better for the OP's psychological health than getting twisted up in knots about how Very Inconsiderate it is.

.j.e.j

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

I used to live in a completely non soundproofed block of flats with concrete floors. I would have swapped a few weeks of building work for the woman to the left vacuuming at 2am and putting a tumble drier on her balcony right next to my bedroom from 3-5am every night, the kid in the flat below being put out on her balcony to sing from 6am (because it disturbed Mum too much to let her sing indoors), the kid on the ground floor's violin practice, the couple on the right's domestic issues interspersed with her love of Christmas songs at full volume from September 1st from 8am - 3pm, the night bus driver below who would use his days off to down several bottles of scotch and listen to 60s music, the alcoholic couple on the ground floor who had no concept of time or the need to neuter their psychopathic tomcat or the other couple who had domestics involving their extended family on a monthly basis. Plus regular flyovers from private plane users using the block as a sighting mark for a nearby airfield (including a fatal crash one Sunday teatime) and somebody in a house next door using power saws all Saturday and Sunday as an ongoing hobby.

Oh yes... the joy of living in flats. Been there done it got the t-shirt.
(Add to the above: upstairs' washing machine flooding our flat on a regular basis, and the communal smoke alarm going off whenever a spider crawled into it, which was frequent.)

DCFC79

Hard_Up_Hester wrote: »

When we did building work on our house the council rules were that we could only work between 8am and 8pm, outside of those hours work had to be silent, painting or something similar.

Ask your council if they have similar rules singalong.