The layout of your house & its effect on neighbour relations?

JustAnotherSaver

I guess you're right about construction being a bigger factor. There'll be other points involved too - the type of people they are would be a major one.

So Joe Bloggs could say he rarely hears his neighbours but then his neighbour may just sit listening to the radio quietly each night by themselves for example - so no wonder Joe doesn't hear his neighbour.


The annoying thing is is that we could never say to the noise squad (whatever the official term is for those people) come down this weekend & you'll catch them breaking the law with noise to an unacceptable level because it's so random. Last weekend for example was quiet. I have dinner at my mothers once per week & she always asks if i've had a noisy or quiet weekend with the neighbours. :rotfl:


I've recorded their noise but rather frustratingly it doesn't sound nearly as bad on the recording.



I've gone down to watch a movie before & they've been having what sounded like a karaoke session. Our TV is normally around volume 15-20 to put this into context and i had to have it about 25-30 to hear the movie because of their noise. This made them turn their noise up so then i had to turn the TV up more to hear the movie again. I'll hold my hands up - in the end it got very silly.



The worst was when i was woken up through my earplugs at 2am or so because of their music. Always bloody karaoke. I get 1 day per week when i can sleep in so when i'm being woken at 2am and can't get to sleep until 4am it's not good. I have in the past after they've been really noisy started hoovering very early on or had the TV on reasonably loud (25-30) early on.



They can't claim that they're not aware that sound travels from house-to-house because otherwise they wouldn't turn their music up when our TV went up.


I remember the first one - coming back at 12am & the bloke ran upstairs (you could hear) & must've tried to scare his wife in the bedroom because you just heard RARRRRRRRRRRRR and bang bang bang of drawers etc. Again - they cannot be unaware of sound travelling so then why be like that?


They're just inconsiderate people. You get to become familiar with peoples ways & routines. Anyone who's semi observant will note that we put the washing out on the same day every week if the weather is good. So if you plan on having a BBQ that day then politely saying - hey we'll be having a BBQ at X-time would've been much appreciated, especially as they'd been out in their back garden at the same time as us at points in the day. Nope - shortly after the washing went out the BBQ was fired up, smoke all over the washing.



Although it is entertaining when they argue. I'm still wondering why he threatened to send her to Albania :rotfl:


There's a couple other reasons why we're considering moving too but the others aren't related to a connected house.





Ours is a 1930s house. The party wall has been plasterboarded. Suspended timber floor with about a 1.0mtr drop. Chimney. Upstairs is original horsehair plaster on to brick.

PasturesNew

I can sit all day and not hear my neighbours' cars coming and going .... but there's a woman at the end that has an 8 door car. No matter whether 2 or 3 of them get out of it there's always about 8 doors slammed - I'm sure others must slam their doors (1-2 door cars) ... but that infernal woman and her 8 door car drives me nuts.

When I look out of the window it looks like a regular 5 door car... but she always needs to slam 8 doors when she parks.

Tabbytabitha

In places where I've lived, houses with adjoining hall and stairway tend to command a premium over those where the living areas are joined.

JustAnotherSaver

I don't know what the construction of a 'new build' would typically be. We have our eye on a couple plots. I'm fairly sure that walls will be plasterboard these days and i would guess the floor would be solid.



All i ever hear from others is - new builds are crap, they're just thrown up.


BUT ... they'll of course have to meet a specification, providing everything is done right. So they'll at the very least be safe (or should be) and meet certain requirements (or should do). So would you own a new house?






Right now we need a new bathroom (or at the very least retiling), we could do with a new kitchen, i wouldn't be surprised if the roof could do with attention. We certainly need new fascias on the extension as the existing ones have rotted badly.


We're at the point where we're wondering how much to actually spend as do we stay or do we go is the question.

JustAnotherSaver

Just a thought. This one doesn't help us with what to look out for with a potential new home but for those of you who do suffer with irritating neighbours as far as noise goes - how do you cope?


My wife suffers with anxiety. She says every week she's on edge waiting on the noise. She's learned to live with just standard noise during the day - hearing their TV, hearing them talk so on & so forth. It's at night that it's a problem for her (i guess when it messes with your sleep it'd be a problem for many people). She'll put her ear plugs in every weekend but this then hurts her ears.



I get very Pd off when it happens but personally as it's so hit & miss i take the approach that out of 52 weekends most are actually quiet, so i'll not use my earplugs (they hurt my ears too and have landed me in the ENT clinic once before) unless they really do make noise. She says this is easier said than done because she can't rest at the weekend.




So just wondering how others cope with it all.





I don't really mind through the day, it's when the sleep gets disturbed.


Then there's the irritating kids out the back hanging over the fence .... mister, mister, what's your name?

Same as it was the last time you asked last week!!

Mister, mister, what you doing?
Trying to mind my business, how about you?!
Mister, mister, what's that in your garden?
Why don't you stop climbing over the wall then it wont bother you.


There's been times when i was going to go out & i see all the kids up at the fence at the back and i just think forget that, i'll not bother. My wife's done the same before too.


But now i'm branching on to a second issue and i'd rather keep it with the connected house. lol..



:-/

PasturesNew

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

Then there's the irritating kids out the back hanging over the fence .... mister, mister, what's your name?

Same as it was the last time you asked last week!!

Mister, mister, what you doing?
Trying to mind my business, how about you?!
Mister, mister, what's that in your garden?
Why don't you stop climbing over the wall then it wont bother you.


There's been times when i was going to go out & i see all the kids up at the fence at the back and i just think forget that, i'll not bother. My wife's done the same before too.

:-/

You have to look at your environment and see if you can change it to prevent the things that irritate you... as others find it endearing, or lovely... not that they've ever put up with it.

If you can, work out how to stop it .... if you can't then you have to accept that it won't ever change. This lot might grow up, but they'll be replaced by another lot and another lot .... and then there's only one solution (well, two, but you'd never get Planning Permission for a gun turret) ... move.

I'll be moving shortly.

Pollycat

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

I don't know what the construction of a 'new build' would typically be. We have our eye on a couple plots. I'm fairly sure that walls will be plasterboard these days and i would guess the floor would be solid.



All i ever hear from others is - new builds are crap, they're just thrown up.


BUT ... they'll of course have to meet a specification, providing everything is done right. So they'll at the very least be safe (or should be) and meet certain requirements (or should do). So would you own a new house?






Right now we need a new bathroom (or at the very least retiling), we could do with a new kitchen, i wouldn't be surprised if the roof could do with attention. We certainly need new fascias on the extension as the existing ones have rotted badly.


We're at the point where we're wondering how much to actually spend as do we stay or do we go is the question.

We did.
Or at least it was new when we bought it 25 years ago.
And yes, the walls are plasterboard.
Our floors - upstairs and downstairs - are floorboarded (very nicely).

Compared to our old Victorian semi, it's very well designed from a 'usability' perspective (well, you would expect it to be, wouldn't you).

Ours is a 4 bed detached with wardrobes built into the walls in 3 of the bedrooms so the floor space you see is what you get.
Lots of similar sized houses didn't have built in wardrobes so by the time you'd put wardrobes in to those houses, the bedroom was smaller.

In fact, I went with my sister to see a new-build, 3 bedroom showhouse.
It looked very nice.
But there was nowhere to store things.
I asked my sister where the wardrobes and drawers would fit in. the bedrooms.
Pointed out there wasn't enough space in the kitchen to fit washing machine, fridge and freezer - let alone a tumble drier.
Where would she put her ironing board, hoover and all the myriad things that needed storing away?


If you're viewing new builds, you definitely need to take off your rose-coloured spectacles and see past the 'window dressing' of curtains, lighting etc.

onomatopoeia99

I coped with it by buying a small detached house rather than a larger semi-detached for the same money. Yes the neighbors' kids still play in their garden and make noise - four primary school age boys, so it's a lot of noise - but I don't get stuff reverberating through the walls.

Enterprise_1701C

We live in a 50 year old end terrace. Next door has three young boys, about 3, 5 and 6, something like that. Yes, they are noisy, but it is the sort of noise we don't mind.

We have just had a neighbour move in, our house is next to the access road to the garages and another row of houses has gates opening out onto it. This new neighbour is driving us mad, constantly using the back gate (about 15 times a day or so throughout the day and evening), it is scrape then bang, they do not gently shut the gate it gets slammed. I would have a word but want to try and find out from another neighbour why the police have been round there several times first.

That said, we have two small parrots that can get a bit noisy at times, they love being by the open French windows when it is nice and warm, so I suspect we get our own back for any noise in the locale, it is a lovely happy noise though

calleyw

PasturesNew wrote: »

I can sit all day and not hear my neighbours' cars coming and going .... but there's a woman at the end that has an 8 door car. No matter whether 2 or 3 of them get out of it there's always about 8 doors slammed - I'm sure others must slam their doors (1-2 door cars) ... but that infernal woman and her 8 door car drives me nuts.

When I look out of the window it looks like a regular 5 door car... but she always needs to slam 8 doors when she parks.

Do you live in my street? As one person gets in a car and at least 3 doors bang :rotfl:


Yours


Calley x