Noise from council house - council's responsibility?

project_c

I recently bought a small victorian terraced house. The house next door to mine is owned by the council. The connecting walls on that side are paper thin, and the level of noise coming from the house is beyond ridiculous. The family living there are really loud and shout a lot, they have 2 kids (boys), who are screaming and running around whenever they're at home. The noise is so loud we can't actually use our living room when they're in theirs, and when they're upstairs in their room (which is directly next to my home office room), it sounds like they're literally there in my room - it's pretty surreal.

Please note this is not a rant about council tenants - the neighbours are nice people, and their kids are just behaving like normal boys, and kids like to run around and shout a lot, so I don't have much of a reason to complain to them, they're not actually doing anything anti-social. My question is about whether it's worth complaining to the council NOT about the tenants, but about the lack of sound-proofing in their property. I have sound-proofed our bedroom and it has made some difference, but I'm not the one making the noise. These houses are also very small, which means proper soundproofing would take up valuable space if it was just applied in my house as opposed to a finding a solution where we could at least split the costs and responsibility of dealing with it. Does anyone know if the council can be held responsible for making sure their properties don't cause disruption to neighbours?

Thanks for any advice you may have on this.

Davesnave

If the family is behaving normally, not in an anti-social way, the council have no obligation to act here.

You could try asking Environmental Health to measure the sound using one of their meters, but I'm not sure what sort of response you'd get.

I_have_spoken

After 6 months, I'd be looking to sell up for the sake of your mental well-being

littlerock

Do you have claim against previous owner for not reporting disruption caused by their noise level in pre sale questionnaire? Also have previous owners or next door done some work to make room larger/ walls thinner? I used to live in small Victorian terrace cottage and walls were quite thick. Have you thought of trying modern insulation on party walls to muffle sound?

project_c

I_have_spoken wrote: »

After 6 months, I'd be looking to sell up for the sake of your mental well-being

Thanks for the reply - unfortunately selling up is not an option, the market is dead right now and getting a mortgage and subsequently finding a place was a long and arduous process. All estate agents in London are basically out to shaft every seller and buyer out there, it's not a process I want to repeat for a long time if I can avoid it.

project_c

littlerock wrote: »

Do you have claim against previous owner for not reporting disruption caused by their noise level in pre sale questionnaire? Also have previous owners or next door done some work to make room larger/ walls thinner? I used to live in small Victorian terrace cottage and walls were quite thick. Have you thought of trying modern insulation on party walls to muffle sound?

No, I don't have such a claim - nothing was reported in the pre-sale, even though it was clearly an issue. If I want to make a claim, what's the process? Would I go through my solicitor that dealt with the sale?

Re. the walls - I don't think any work like that has been done, it's just the way it is. On one side (side with chimneys), the walls are fine, but the other side the front doors are literally next to each other, right on the party wall, so there is no way to insulate downstairs. Upstairs as I mentioned I've added insulation in the bedroom and it has made a big difference, but it's using up space in an already small house, and as they're the ones being noisy, I think it should be their or the council's responsibility. But I may be wrong.

Norman_Castle

The council will consider this normal noise. Try talking to the neighbours, they might not realise how noisy they are.

zaax

Kids just being kids. How about putting in some sound insulation?

lstar337

project_c wrote: »

No, I don't have such a claim - nothing was reported in the pre-sale, even though it was clearly an issue. If I want to make a claim, what's the process? Would I go through my solicitor that dealt with the sale?

Re. the walls - I don't think any work like that has been done, it's just the way it is. On one side (side with chimneys), the walls are fine, but the other side the front doors are literally next to each other, right on the party wall, so there is no way to insulate downstairs. Upstairs as I mentioned I've added insulation in the bedroom and it has made a big difference, but it's using up space in an already small house, and as they're the ones being noisy, I think it should be their or the council's responsibility. But I may be wrong.

You could offer to do the work on the neighbours side. I think you'll struggle to get any action from the council unless you want to start bad-mouthing your neighbours, and even then I think you'll struggle.

I used to live in a flat where noise from above was unbearable. The man above used to verbally and physically abuse his girlfriend on a virtually nightly basis. The council didn't want to know, and even the police said they had to be able to 'see' the abuse to act, and they had to be invited in as they were not allowed to force entry. Yep, I'm sure the abuser was going to invite them in to watch him beat on his girlfriend. :rolleyes:

Anyway, we moved. Now the noise of kids playing next door is bliss!

lstar337

zaax wrote: »

Kids just being kids. How about putting in some sound insulation?

Did you read the thread zaax?

peachyprice

It's a Victorian terrace house, it's been there 120ish years without the need for any previous dwellers to install sound insulation, I can't see why the council would feel the need to install it now.

I could see you might have a case if it was a new house but not after 120 years, this just seem like you being sensitive to the sound, your problem to sort really.